chater ten the ell beg t break (第3/6页)

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“Oh，please，please，please，do hurry ！”said the three children．And so at last they all got outside and Mr. Beaver locked the door（“It’ll delay her a bit，”he said）and they set off，all carrying their loads over their shoulders．

The snow had stopped and the moon had come out when they began their journey．They went in single file-first Mr. Beaver， then Lucy，then Peter，then Susan，and Mrs. Beaver last of all． Mr. Beaver led them across the dam and on to the right bank of the river and then along a very rough sort of path among the trees right down by the river-bank．The sides of the valley，shining in the moonlight，towered up far above them on either hand．“Best keep down here as much as possible，”he said．“She’ll have to keep to the top，for you couldn’t bring a sledge down here．”

It would have been a pretty enough scene to look at it through a window from a comfortable armchair；and even as things were， Lucy enjoyed it at first．But as they went on walking and walking-and walking—and as the sack she was carrying felt heavier and heavier，she began to wonder how she was going to keep up at all. And she stopped looking at the dazzling brightness of the frozen river with all its waterfalls of ice and at the white masses of the tree-tops and the great glaring moon and the countless stars and could only watch the little short legs of Mr. Beaver going pad-pad-pad-pad through the snow in front of her as if they were never going to stop．Then the moon disappeared and the snow began to fall once more．And at last Lucy was so tired that she was almost asleep and walking at the same time when suddenly she found that Mr. Beaver had turned away from the river-bank to the right and was leading them steeply uphill into the very thickest bushes．And then as she came fully awake she found that Mr. Beaver was just vanishing into a little hole in the bank which had been almost hidden under the bushes until you were quite on top of it．In fact，by the time she realized what was happening，only his short flat tail was showing.

Lucy immediately stooped down and crawled in after him． Then she heard noises of scrambling and puffing and panting behind her and in a moment all five of them were inside．

“Wherever is this ？”said Peter’s voice，sounding tired and pale in the darkness．（I hope you know what I mean by a voice sounding pale．）

“It’s an old hiding-place for beavers in bad times，”said Mr. Beaver，“and a great secret．It’s not much of a place but we must get a few hours’ sleep．”

“If you hadn’t all been in such a plaguey fuss when we were starting，I’d have brought some pillows，”said Mrs. Beaver．

It wasn’t nearly such a nice cave as Mr. Tumnus’s，Lucy thought-just a hole in the ground but dry and earthy．It was very small so that when they all lay down they were all a bundle of clothes together，and what with that and being warmed up by their long walk they were really rather snug．If only the floor of the cave had been a little smoother ！ Then Mrs. Beaver handed round in the dark a little flask out of which everyone drank something-it made one cough and splutter a little and stung the throat，but it also made you feel deliciously warm after you’d swallowed it and everyone went straight to sleep．

It seemed to Lucy only the next minute（though really it was hours and hours later）when she woke up feeling a little cold and dreadfully stiff and thinking how she would like a hot bath．Then she felt a set of long whiskers tickling her cheek and saw the cold daylight coming in through the mouth of the cave．But immediately after that she was very wide awake indeed，and so was everyone else．In fact they were all sitting up with their mouths and eyes wide open listening to a sound which was the very sound they’d all been thinking of（and sometimes imagining they heard）during their walk last night．It was a sound of jingling bells．