\u201cWhat for?\u201d said the one who had spoken first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s none of your<\/em> business, Two!\u201d said Seven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes, it is<\/em> his business!\u201d said Five, \u201cand I\u2019ll tell him\u2014it was for bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun \u201cWell, of all the unjust things\u2014\u201d when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching them, and he checked himself suddenly: the others looked round also, and all of them bowed low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWould you tell me,\u201d said Alice, a little timidly, \u201cwhy you are painting those roses?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low voice, \u201cWhy the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red<\/em> rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we\u2019re doing our best, afore she comes, to\u2014\u201d At this moment Five, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called out \u201cThe Queen! The Queen!\u201d and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped like the three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and feet at the corners: next the ten courtiers; these were ornamented all over with diamonds, and walked two and two, as the soldiers did. After these came the royal children; there were ten of them, and the little dears came jumping merrily along hand in hand, in couples: they were all ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and among them Alice recognised the White Rabbit: it was talking in a hurried nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the King\u2019s crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this grand procession, came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on her face like the three gardeners, but she could not remember ever having heard of such a rule at processions; \u201cand besides, what would be the use of a procession,\u201d thought she, \u201cif people had all to lie down upon their faces, so that they couldn\u2019t see it?\u201d So she stood still where she was, and waited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked at her, and the Queen said severely \u201cWho is this?\u201d She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIdiot!\u201d said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to Alice, she went on, \u201cWhat\u2019s your name, child?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy name is Alice, so please your Majesty,\u201d said Alice very politely; but she added, to herself, \u201cWhy, they\u2019re only a pack of cards, after all. I needn\u2019t be afraid of them!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd who are these?<\/em>\u201d said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners who were lying round the rose-tree; for, you see, as they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her own children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow should I<\/em> know?\u201d said Alice, surprised at her own courage. \u201cIt\u2019s no business of mine<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed \u201cOff with her head! Off\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNonsense!\u201d said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said \u201cConsider, my dear: she is only a child!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave \u201cTurn them over!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGet up!\u201d said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the three gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the King, the Queen, the royal children, and everybody else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLeave off that!\u201d screamed the Queen. \u201cYou make me giddy.\u201d And then, turning to the rose-tree, she went on, \u201cWhat have<\/em> you been doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMay it please your Majesty,\u201d said Two, in a very humble tone, going down on one knee as he spoke, \u201cwe were trying\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI<\/em> see!\u201d said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. \u201cOff with their heads!\u201d and the procession moved on, three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou shan\u2019t be beheaded!\u201d said Alice, and she put them into a large flower-pot that stood near. The three soldiers wandered about for a minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAre their heads off?\u201d shouted the Queen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTheir heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!\u201d the soldiers shouted in reply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s right!\u201d shouted the Queen. \u201cCan you play croquet?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was evidently meant for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes!\u201d shouted Alice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCome on, then!\u201d roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession, wondering very much what would happen next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s\u2014it\u2019s a very fine day!\u201d said a timid voice at her side. She was walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cVery,\u201d said Alice: \u201c\u2014where\u2019s the Duchess?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHush! Hush!\u201d said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone. He looked anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and whispered \u201cShe\u2019s under sentence of execution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat for?\u201d said Alice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDid you say \u2018What a pity!\u2019?\u201d the Rabbit asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo, I didn\u2019t,\u201d said Alice: \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s at all a pity. I said \u2018What for?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe boxed the Queen\u2019s ears\u2014\u201d the Rabbit began. Alice gave a little scream of laughter. \u201cOh, hush!\u201d the Rabbit whispered in a frightened tone. \u201cThe Queen will hear you! You see, she came rather late, and the Queen said\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGet to your places!\u201d shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each other; however, they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game began. Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.<\/p>\n\n\n The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it would<\/em> twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, and shouting \u201cOff with his head!\u201d or \u201cOff with her head!\u201d about once in a minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet had any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute, \u201cand then,\u201d thought she, \u201cwhat would become of me? They\u2019re dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there\u2019s any one left alive!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she could get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much at first, but, after watching it a minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said to herself \u201cIt\u2019s the Cheshire Cat: now I shall have somebody to talk to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow are you getting on?\u201d said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth enough for it to speak with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. \u201cIt\u2019s no use speaking to it,\u201d she thought, \u201ctill its ears have come, or at least one of them.\u201d In another minute the whole head appeared, and then Alice put down her flamingo, and began an account of the game, feeling very glad she had someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed to think that there was enough of it now in sight, and no more of it appeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t think they play at all fairly,\u201d Alice began, in rather a complaining tone, \u201cand they all quarrel so dreadfully one can\u2019t hear oneself speak\u2014and they don\u2019t seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them\u2014and you\u2019ve no idea how confusing it is all the things being alive; for instance, there\u2019s the arch I\u2019ve got to go through next walking about at the other end of the ground\u2014and I should have croqueted the Queen\u2019s hedgehog just now, only it ran away when it saw mine coming!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow do you like the Queen?\u201d said the Cat in a low voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot at all,\u201d said Alice: \u201cshe\u2019s so extremely\u2014\u201d Just then she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on, \u201c\u2014likely to win, that it\u2019s hardly worth while finishing the game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Queen smiled and passed on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWho are<\/em> you talking to?\u201d said the King, going up to Alice, and looking at the Cat\u2019s head with great curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a friend of mine\u2014a Cheshire Cat,\u201d said Alice: \u201callow me to introduce it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t like the look of it at all,\u201d said the King: \u201chowever, it may kiss my hand if it likes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019d rather not,\u201d the Cat remarked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t be impertinent,\u201d said the King, \u201cand don\u2019t look at me like that!\u201d He got behind Alice as he spoke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA cat may look at a king,\u201d said Alice. \u201cI\u2019ve read that in some book, but I don\u2019t remember where.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, it must be removed,\u201d said the King very decidedly, and he called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, \u201cMy dear! I wish you would have this cat removed!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. \u201cOff with his head!\u201d she said, without even looking round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll fetch the executioner myself,\u201d said the King eagerly, and he hurried off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game was going on, as she heard the Queen\u2019s voice in the distance, screaming with passion. She had already heard her sentence three of the players to be executed for having missed their turns, and she did not like the look of things at all, as the game was in such confusion that she never knew whether it was her turn or not. So she went in search of her hedgehog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the other: the only difficulty was, that her flamingo was gone across to the other side of the garden, where Alice could see it trying in a helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight: \u201cbut it doesn\u2019t matter much,\u201d thought Alice, \u201cas all the arches are gone from this side of the ground.\u201d So she tucked it away under her arm, that it might not escape again, and went back for a little more conversation with her friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find quite a large crowd collected round it: there was a dispute going on between the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who were all talking at once, while all the rest were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly what they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The executioner\u2019s argument was, that you couldn\u2019t cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn\u2019t going to begin at his<\/em> time of life.<\/p>\n\n\n The King\u2019s argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren\u2019t to talk nonsense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Queen\u2019s argument was, that if something wasn\u2019t done about it in less than no time she\u2019d have everybody executed, all round. (It was this last remark that had made the whole party look so grave and anxious.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alice could think of nothing else to say but \u201cIt belongs to the Duchess: you\u2019d better ask her<\/em> about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe\u2019s in prison,\u201d the Queen said to the executioner: \u201cfetch her here.\u201d And the executioner went off like an arrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Cat\u2019s head began fading away the moment he was gone, and, by the time he had come back with the Duchess, it had entirely disappeared; so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Queen\u2019s Croquet-Ground<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":553,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions\/553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Three](\"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/illustration-28-214x300.png\")
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