Aslan is Nearer
E
DMUND meanwhile had been having a most disappointing
time. When the dwarf had gone to get the sledge ready he
expected that the Witch would start being nice to him, as
she had been at their last meeting. But she said nothing at
all. And when at last Edmund plucked up his courage to say, “Please,
your Majesty, could I have some Turkish Delight? You — you — said-”
she answered, “Silence, fool!” Then she appeared to change her mind
and said, as if to herself, a “And yet it will not do to have the brat
fainting on the way,” and once more clapped her hands. Another,
dwarf appeared.
“Bring the human creature food and drink,” she said.
The dwarf went away and presently returned bringing an iron bowl
with some water in it and an iron plate with a hunk of dry bread on it.
He grinned in a repulsive manner as he set them down on the floor
beside Edmund and said:
“Turkish Delight for the little Prince. Ha! Ha! Ha!”
“Take it away,” said Edmund sulkily. “I don’t want dry bread.” But
the Witch suddenly turned on him with such a terrible expression on
her face that he, apologised and began to nibble at the bread, though,
it was so stale he could hardly get it down.
“You may be glad enough of it before you taste bread again,” said
the Witch.
While he was still chewing away the first dwarf came back and
announced that the sledge was ready. The White Witch rose and went
out, ordering Edmund to go with her. The snow was again falling as
they came into the courtyard, but she took no notice of that and made
Clive Staples Lewis60
Edmund sit beside her on the sledge. But before they drove off she
called Maugrim and he came bounding like an enormous dog to the
side of the sledge.
“Take with you the swiftest of your wolves and go at once to the
house of the Beavers,” said the Witch, “and kill whatever you find
there. If they are already gone, then make all speed to the Stone
Table, but do not be seen. Wait for me there in hiding. I meanwhile
must go many miles to the West before I find a place where I can drive
across the river. You may overtake these humans before they reach
the Stone Table. You will know what to do if you find them!”
“I hear and obey, O Queen,” growled the Wolf, and immediately he
shot away into the snow and darkness, as quickly as a horse can
gallop. In a few minutes he had called another wolf and was with him
down on the dam sniffing at the Beavers’ house. But of course they
found it empty. It would have been a dreadful thing for the Beavers and
the children if the night had remained fine, for the wolves would then
have been able to follow their trail — and ten to one would have over-
taken them before they had got to the cave. But now that the snow
had begun again the scent was cold and even the footprints were
covered up.
Meanwhile the dwarf whipped up the reindeer, and the Witch and
Edmund drove out under the archway and on and away into the dark-
ness and the cold. This was a terrible journey for Edmund, who had
no coat. Before they had been going quarter of an hour all the front of
him was covered with snow — he soon stopped trying to shake it off
because, as quickly as he did that, a new lot gathered, and he was so
tired. Soon he was wet to the skin. And oh, how miserable he was! It
didn’t look now as if the Witch intended to make him a King. All the
things he had said to make himself believe that she was good and kind
and that her side was really the right side sounded to him silly now. He
would have given anything to meet the others at this moment — even
Peter! The only way to comfort himself now was to try to believe that
the whole thing was a dream and that he might wake up at any
moment. And as they went on, hour after hour, it did come to seem
like a dream.
This lasted longer than I could describe even if I wrote pages and
pages about it. But I will skip on to the time when the snow had
stopped and the morning had come and they were racing along in
61The Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe
the daylight. And still they went on and on, with no sound but the
everlasting swish of the snow and the creaking of the reindeer’s
harness. And then at last the Witch said, “What have we here? Stop!”
and they did.
How Edmund hoped she was going to say something about break-
fast! But she had stopped for quite a different reason. A little way off
at the foot of a tree sat a merry party, a squirrel and his wife with their
children and two satyrs and a dwarf and an old dogfox, all on stools
round a table. Edmund couldn’t quite see what they were eating, but
it smelled lovely and there seemed to be decorations of holly and he
wasn’t at all sure that he didn’t see something like a plum pudding. At
the moment when the sledge stopped, the Fox, who was obviously the
oldest person present, had just risen to its feet, holding a glass in its
right paw as if it was going to say something. But when the whole
party saw the sledge stopping and who was in it, all the gaiety went
out of their faces. The father squirrel stopped eating with his fork half-
way to his mouth and one of the satyrs stopped with its fork actually
in its mouth, and the baby squirrels squeaked with terror.
“What is the meaning of this?” asked the Witch Queen. Nobody
answered.
“Speak, vermin!” she said again. “Or do you want my dwarf to find
you a tongue with his whip? What is the meaning of all this gluttony,
this waste, this self-indulgence? Where did you get all these things?”
“Please, your Majesty,” said the Fox, “we were given them. And if I
might make so bold as to drink your Majesty’s very good health — “
“Who gave them to you?” said the Witch.
“F-F-F-Father Christmas,” stammered the Fox.
“What?” roared the Witch, springing from the sledge and taking a
few strides nearer to the terrified animals. “He has not been here! He
cannot have been here! How dare you — but no. Say you have been
lying and you shall even now be forgiven.”
At that moment one of the young squirrels lost its head completely.
“He has — he has — he has!” it squeaked, beating its little spoon on
the table. Edmund saw the Witch bite her lips so that a drop of blood
appeared on her white cheek. Then she raised her wand. “Oh, don’t,
don’t, please don’t,” shouted Edmund, but even while he was shouting
she had waved her wand and instantly where the merry party had
been there were only statues of creatures (one with its stone fork fixed
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forever half-way to its stone mouth) seated round a stone table on
which there were stone plates and a stone plum pudding.
“As for you,” said the Witch, giving Edmund a stunning blow on the
face as she re-mounted the sledge, “let that teach you to ask favour
for spies and traitors. Drive on!” And Edmund for the first time in this
story felt sorry for someone besides himself. It seemed so pitiful to
think of those little stone figures sitting there all the silent days and all
the dark nights, year after year, till the moss grew on them and at last
even their faces crumbled away.
Now they were steadily racing on again. And soon Edmund noticed
that the snow which splashed against them as they rushed through it
was much wetter than it had been all last night. At the same time he
noticed that he was feeling much less cold. It was also becoming
foggy. In fact every minute it grew foggier and warmer. And the sledge
was not running nearly as well as it had been running up till now. At
first he thought this was because the reindeer were tired, but soon he
saw that that couldn’t be the real reason. The sledge jerked, and
skidded and kept on jolting as if it had struck against stones. And
however the dwarf whipped the poor reindeer the sledge went slower
and slower. There also seemed to be a curious noise all round them,
but the noise of their driving and jolting and the dwarf’s shouting at
the reindeer prevented Edmund from hearing what it was, until
suddenly the sledge stuck so fast that it wouldn’t go on at all. When
that happened there was a moment’s silence. And in that silence
Edmund could at last listen to the other noise properly. A strange,
sweet, rustling, chattering noise — and yet not so strange, for he’d
heard it before — if only he could remember where! Then all at once
he did remember. It was the noise of running water. All round them
though out of sight, there were streams, chattering, murmuring,
bubbling, splashing and even (in the distance) roaring. And his heart
gave a great leap (though he hardly knew why) when he realised that
the frost was over. And much nearer there was a drip-drip-drip from
the branches of all the trees. And then, as he looked at one tree he
saw a great load of snow slide off it and for the first time since he had
entered Narnia he saw the dark green of a fir tree. But he hadn’t time
to listen or watch any longer, for the Witch said:
“Don’t sit staring, fool! Get out and help.”
And of course Edmund had to obey. He stepped out into the snow
63The Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe
— but it was really only slush by now — and began helping the dwarf
to get the sledge out of the muddy hole it had got into. They got it out
in the end, and by being very cruel to the reindeer the dwarf managed
to get it on the move again, and they drove a little further. And now
the snow was really melting in earnest and patches of green grass
were beginning to appear in every direction. Unless you have looked
at a world of snow as long as Edmund had been looking at it, you will
hardly be able to imagine what a relief those green patches were after
the endless white. Then the sledge stopped again.
“It’s no good, your Majesty,” said the dwarf. “We can’t sledge in this
thaw.”
“Then we must walk,” said the Witch.
“We shall never overtake them walking,” growled the dwarf. “Not
with the start they’ve got.”
“Are you my councillor or my slave?” said the Witch. “Do as you’re
told. Tie the hands of the human creature behind it and keep hold of
the end of the rope. And take your whip. And cut the harness of the
reindeer; they’ll find their own way home.”
The dwarf obeyed, and in a few minutes Edmund found himself
being forced to walk as fast as he could with his hands tied behind
him. He kept on slipping in the slush and mud and wet grass, and
every time he slipped the dwarf gave him a curse and sometimes a
flick with the whip. The Witch walked behind the dwarf and kept on
saying, “Faster! Faster!”
Every moment the patches of green grew bigger and the patches of
spow grew smaller. Every moment more and more of the trees shook
off their robes of snow. Soon, wherever you looked, instead of white
shapes you saw the dark green of firs or the black prickly branches of
bare oaks and beeches and elms. Then the mist turned from white to
gold and presently cleared away altogether. Shafts of delicious
sunlight struck down on to the forest floor and overhead you could see
a blue sky between the tree tops.
Soon there were more wonderful things happening. Coming
suddenly round a corner into a glade of silver birch trees Edmund saw
the ground covered in all directions with little yellow flowers — celan-
dines. The noise of water grew louder. Presently they actually crossed
a stream. Beyond it they found snowdrops growing.
“Mind your own business!” said the dwarf when he saw that
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Edmund had turned his head to look at them; and he gave the rope
a vicious jerk.
But of course this didn’t prevent Edmund from seeing. Only five
minutes later he noticed a dozen crocuses growing round the foot of
an old tree — gold and purple and white. Then came a sound even
more delicious than the sound of the water. Close beside the path they
were following a bird suddenly chirped from the branch of a tree. It
was answered by the chuckle of another bird a little further off. And
then, as if that had been a signal, there was chattering and chirruping
in every direction, and then a moment of full song, and within five
minutes the whole wood was ringing with birds’ music, and wherever
Edmund’s eyes turned he saw birds alighting on branches, or sailing
overhead or chasing one another or having their little quarrels or
tidying up their feathers with their beaks.
“Faster! Faster!” said the Witch.
There was no trace of the fog now. The sky became bluer and bluer,
and now there were white clouds hurrying across it from time to time.
In the wide glades there were primroses. A light breeze sprang up
which scattered drops of moisture from the swaying branches and
carried cool, delicious scents against the faces of the travellers. The
trees began to come fully alive. The larches and birches were covered
with green, the laburnums with gold. Soon the beech trees had put
forth their delicate, transparent leaves. As the travellers walked under
them the light also became green. A bee buzzed across their path.
“This is no thaw,” said the dwarf, suddenly stopping. “This is
Spring.
What are we to do? Your winter has been destroyed, I tell you! This is
Aslan’s doing.”
“If either of you mention that name again,” said the Witch, “he shall
instantly be killed.”
