THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE BBC
PART 7
A DAY WITH THE BEAVERS
PREVIOUSLY: After hiding in the wardrobe, the children find they way to Narnia, and Peter and Susan finally believe Lucy's story about the magical country inside the wardrobe. At the same time Edmund's lies are exposed, which earns him Peter's ire more stronger than ever before. Electing Lucy as their leader, since she discovered Narnia first and knows how to get around here, Lucy takes them to Mr. Tumnus' cave to introduce them to the Faun, only to find to Lucy's horror that the Faun's cave has been ransacked. There they find a message written and signed by someone named Maugrim, a captain of the secret police, telling them about the arrest of Mr. Tumnus for treason and for fraternising with Humans. Lucy feels guilty since it is on her account Mr. Tumnus is in trouble and is determined to help him. Peter and Susan, despite the initial hesitation, agree. They are then approached by robin, who leads the children further into the woods, despite Edmund's suspicions.
Peter and Edmund soon joined their sisters under of the large tree. "What is it?" Peter asked.
"The robin!" cried Lucy. "It flew into those trees ahead... right out of sight."
Peter and Edmund looked ahead, seeing another grove of densely growing trees right in front of them. They looked up to the branches, searching for the robin, but saw no sign of it.
"Has it chirped again? Signaled it's next location?" Peter questioned.
"No. No. He was just gone. Vanished from sight." Lucy said, sounding disappointed.
Fumming, Edmund turned to look at Peter with the dirty eye. "See? What did I told you?" he said. Although he felt proud that he had been proven somewhat right about Robin's motives, it was suppressed by the hunger he felt and the fact that they had no idea how they were going to get back to the lamppost and the wardrobe...or more from the lamppost to the left and to the Queen's, or Witch's house.
Peter was just about to say something back, or just to tell Edmund to shut up, until Susan spoke up again.
"Peter? There's something else moving over there."
"What?" Peter said and turned away from Edmund to Susan, and then towards the trees. "Where?"
"There, among the trees." Susan said.
Peter, however, didn't see anything else but just trees. He stepped out from under the tree they to take a closer look, but still saw nothing.
"Where?!" he asked again.
"There. I saw it moving behind that tree on the left almost right after the robin vanished." Susan told him.
They all stared as hard as they could at the tall tree on the left, and no one felt very comfortable when they thought that there was someone else with them too.
Then, they saw something, or someone peeking from behind of that said tree, and stared at them for a short moment before it withdrew back behind the tree it was hiding. Because of the shadows of the trees, they could not make out the features of this hidden figure to recognize it.
"It's still there." Peter said.
"What is it?" Lucy asked from the others.
"Whatever it is, it's dodging us." Peter deduced, taking in the figure's shy attitude. "It's something that doesn't want to be seen."
"Let's go home, please." Susan said, feeling a little afraid.
"Which way the home even is?" Edmund asked as he looked behind them.
Everybody looked behind them and suddenly realized that they had followed Robin so eagerly that no one has bothered to memorize their route, meaning that they were lost, lost in the middle of a foreign forest with this strange figure. The children, however, were forced to go back to the other matter at hand: the figure hiding the trees stalking them.
"What is it?" Lucy asked again.
"When I last saw it, it looked some kind of animal." Susan said, until she pointed her finger at at woods. "Look! There it is!"
They all saw it now as it moved into the view from behind the tree it had been hiding behind. Although this strange figure still kept to the shadows, the children could now somewhat make out some features of it:
It was quite large, something like Peter's size, and quite plump and covered from all over into the brown fur. It had a dark-brown whiskered furry face and its paw-like clawed hands and arms were huddled in front of it. For an animal, it was walking on two legs, very much like human.
This somekind of animal-like figure looked out at them from the shadows but didn't drew back behind the tree. Instead, it seemed to be putting one of the clawed fingers of its paw against its mouth in the similiar manner how humans often put their finger on their lips to signal one to be quiet. And a moment later, this strange thing glanced all round as if it were afraid someone was watching, before it hurried behind of another tree standing next to the other one.
But as it did, it flashed behind it something that looked just like... a flat tail. Peter held his breath for a moment once he saw the tail.
And then, his voice bursted out when the realization dawned to him. "It's a beaver! I saw the tail!" he exclaimed.
"And quite biggest looking beaver I've ever seen." Susan said, given the humanoid size of the figure revealed to be a beaver.
"Wait?" Lucy said, suddenly realizing something."Was it trying to warn us not to make a noice?"
The beaver then peeked out from behind another tree, looking directly at the children. Then it began to make a frantic hand signs to them, as if beckoning them to come to it and quickly before once more disappearing behind the tree.
"And now it wants us to follow it." Susan realized after bit of thought.
"But the question is should we?" Peter asked from everybody.
"I think he looks a nice beaver." Lucy deduced.
Edmund scoffed at this thought. "Yes, but how do we know?" he said distrustfully.
The children just stood there for a moment, not knowing what exactly they should do: just go back even if they didn't know which way to go or to go to this strange beaver.
Susan eventually spoke up her opinion. "We just have to risk it. I mean, it's no good just standing here and I feel I want some dinner."
At this moment the Beaver again popped out from behind the tree and beckoned earnestly to them, but this time it withdrew behind the tree just enough that it was partially visible to them.
Eventually, Peter, taking the lead over them, made the call. "Come on. Let's give it a try. Keep close together. We ought to be a match for one beaver if it turns out to be an enemy."
So the children all got close together and walked up to the tree and in behind it, and there they found the Beaver glancing restlessly around it before turning to the children.
"Further in. We must go further in." the beaver said said in a hoarse throaty whisper. "We're not safe in the open!"
Then the beaver drew back into the woods and the children followed it.
As they followed the beaver, Lucy noticed that he was staying mostly in the shadows and out of sight, glancing alertly from side to side: one time as if he was afraid they were being watched and the second time to make sure they surely were alone.
More than often he beckoned the children to halt and stay still before he left them briefly in some hiding spots offered to them by some thick groves of the trees, and went himself a small distance ahead to make sure that it was safe to continue, before beckoned them to follow him.
She recognized this alerted and cautious behavior to be almost similar to Mr. Tumnus' when he led her back to the lamppost during of her first trip in Narnia.
"It's starting to snow. Good. It will covers our tracks." the beaver whispered.
The children, heeding the beaver's words, looked up and noticed that it had indeed started to snow. At first it was light snow, but later it may snow even more when it gets dark.
The beaver then led the children into a dark spot where four trees grew so close together that their boughs met and the brown earth and pine needles could be seen underfoot because the snow had been no able to fall there.
To the children's great surprise, they noticed that the same Robin who had led them into the forest... and straight to Beaver was also waiting there. And since the beaver seemed not bothered by the robin's presence, the children assumed that the two animals were in league... but at least appeared to be on their side.
There he stopped and turned to face the children.
"Gather around." he told them. The children did as the beaver told them, with Peter and Lucy standing on his right side and Edmund and Susan on his left. Once they were huddled together, the beaver started to talk to them.
"Are you the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve?"
"Well, we're some of them." Peter said quite out loud.
"S-s-s-sh!" the beaver frantically hussed at Peter. "Not so loud please. We're not safe even here."
"But, what are you afraid of?" Peter asked with lower voice, a little confused by the beaver's insistence for as much of silence as possible. "There's no one here but us."
"There are the eyes and ears all around us even at this moment." the beaver answered.
"Eyes and ears? What are you talking about?" Peter asked again.
"He means the Trees." Lucy said, remembering what Mr. Tumnus had told her about some of the Trees being unfriendly.
Looking at her with wide-eyed looks, Peter and Susan - even Lucy and somehow least worried Edmund - looked warily up at the trees that stood high all around them.
"That's right. There are the Trees." the beaver confirmed. "They are always listening. Most of them are on our side, but there are trees that would betray us to... to her; you know who I mean?" the beaver said with the fearful and stuttered voice.
"If it comes to talking about sides." Edmund said suspiciously. "How do we know you're a friend?"
The beaver cringed his dark-brown face at Edmund for him using his voice out loud.
"Not wishing to be rude, Mr. Beaver." Peter said more calmly and poltely. "But you see, we're strangers."
"Oh, yes. Quite right, quite right." Mrs. Beaver said, understanting if the children were not trusting him just yet, before he started looking at each of the girls in turn. "Which one of you, by the way, is the one called Lucy Pevensie?"
Lucy blinked her eyes in surprise that Mr. Beaver was already familiar with her name and stepped shyly forward. "Uh... I am. How did you know my name?"
Mr. Beaver turned to Lucy, lifting up his paw that was squeezed into the fist around something he was holding in it.
"Here is my token." he said and held out his fist, opening it and revealing from under his clawed fingers a little white object what he was holding.
The children looked at it in surprise, Lucy in particularly, as she took it from the beaver's paw and inspected it, recognizing the "L" embroidery in one of its corners.
"It's my handkerchief! The one I gave to poor Mr. Tumnus when he was crying." Lucy realized, showing it to Peter.
"That's right?" Mr. Beaver confirmed with the nod.
"How come this came into your posession, Mr. Beaver?" Peter asked, turning to the beaver again.
Mr. Beaver gave Peter a sad look. "Poor fellow. He got wind of someone having turned him in to her for helping you..." he started sadly.
Hearing these words, Edmund turned slightly away from the group with the scowl on his face, remembering that it was he who had told the Queen/Witch about Lucy and said Faun having met in the forest. However, Edmund decided not to tell the others about it, but not out of remorse or fear of the others turning on him because of it, but merely out of the Queen's instructions and his own desire for the Turkish Delight.
"...and had only a moment before his arrest. But he managed to hand this to me before it happened." Mr. Beaver continued. "If anything happened to him, he said, I must find the Daughter of Eve, one called "Lucy Pevensie" and hand this handkerchief to her as token that I am a friend."
"I believe you, Mr. Beaver." Lucy said, wrapping her fingers around her handkerchief.
"That's why me and my good robin friend in here, Chirp, have been keeping an eye out for you ever since." Mr. Beaver said, gesturing towards the robin, whose name Mr. Beaver revealed to be Chirp.
Chirp chirped in confirmation before flying in front of the group, before something strange started happening to Chirp right in front of the children.
Chirp began to grow in their eyes bigger and bigger and bigger until he stood as high as roughly half of Lucy's own size and bore more anthropomorphic appearance. His posture was almost straight and his formerly black eyes were now like that of the human, as reddish as was his red breast, he had a bit more visible neck between his body and head, which still looked more like a regular's robin's head, and his wings acted in the same manner as hands, though they made only gestures and signs due to the lack of fingers.
And, at long last, Chirp spoke to them... though particularly to Lucy.
"Mr. Tumnus was right. Chirp, chirp. You indeed are very brave, Daughter of Eve, for coming back to Narnia despite knowing the risks. Chirp, chirp." But we must no waste time. We must take you all to..." Chirp said, until his voice sank into silence and he glanced to the left and then right and back.
Mr. Beaver glanced around as well, sniffing the air with his nose for a brief moment, before he signaled the children to stand as close around it as they possibly could until his whiskers were tickling their faces.
Then he spoke to them in the low whisper.
"They say... Aslan is on the move."
None of the children knew who this "Aslan" was, but the moment Mr. Beaver had spoken that name, everyone began to feel remarkably different inside. Just hearing that name banished all coldness of winter, fear and insecurity and all other bad and depressing feelings from them in an instant and replaced them with warmth of spring, newfound courage and confidence and all other happy feelings.
It also gave to each children a very particular feeling of their own that made them feel happy and relaxed.
Susan felt as if the air around her was filled with various delicious smells, and a delightful strain of music played in her ears.
Peter felt suddenly very brave and adventurous like the knight in shiny armour, with a silver shield in one hand and a flashing sword in the other.
Lucy got the feeling of waking up in the morning to realise that it is the beginning of the sunny holiday or the warm summer.
Edmund, in the other hand, felt instead a sensation of mysterious horror, which made him to shiver from terror and swallow nervously.
"But Mr. Tumnus." Lucy cried all of the sudden, remembering the poor Faun she had sworn to rescue. "Where is he?"
"Hush! Ssh! Don't talk here." Mr. Beaver quickly warned. "We must take you where we can have a proper talk. Follow us."
No one except Edmund felt any difficulty about trusting Mr. Beaver and Chirp now, and therefore all hurried along behind their new friends who led them at a surprisingly quick pace, and always in the thickest parts of the forest.
###
After an hour, everyone was beginning to feel very tired and very hungry when suddenly the trees began to get thinner in front of them and the ground to fall steeply down hill. A minute later they came out under the open sky and found themselves looking down on a fine sight.
The children found themselves standing on the edge of a steep, narrow valley, at the bottom of which was a fairly large frozen river. Down there they saw a dam that had been built on the river: It started from this river bank they were on and went across the river to opposite bank.
Above of the dam, where the river came from the west, used to be once a deep pool (whch is usually caused by the beaver-made blockage in the river), which was now frozen into a level floor of dark green ice. And below it, where the river continued to the east, the rushing water had been frozen into the foamy and wavy shapes. And wherever the water had been trickling over and spurting through the dam the moment the frost came, there was now a glittering wall of icicles.
And in the middle, and partly on top of the dam, was a large snow-covered mound which was made of very large number of piled wood branches and compacted with clay. This mound, which was shaped rather like an enormous bee-hive, was actually a funny-looking house with the door in it, where a boardwalk was built on top of the dam led from both banks of the river, as well as a couple of windows and chimney on the top of it.
This did not came as a surprise to the children, especially since one of their newest companions was a beaver and the beavers always make dams to the water habitats, it felt quite sure that Mr. Beaver had made this one.
"What a lovely dam!" Susan said out of common politeness.
This time Mr. Beaver didn't hushed at her - indicating that they were now in friendly territory with no fear of trees - but instead, chuckled at the compliment with the modest expression on his face.
"Merely a trifle! Merely a trifle! Still plenty to do. Ain't quite finished it." Mr. Beaver said before he and Chirp made their way down towards the dam, with the children in the tow.
"Ah! Here we are." Mr. Beaver said once he, Chirp and the children came to the boardwalk leading to his house. "And it looks like the ol' Mrs. Beaver is expecting us, with the kettle on... and some dinner" Mr. Beaver said, pointing his clawed finger towards his house's chimney from which the smoke was coming out.
Everyone was very glad to hear the word "dinner". Up to this point after entering the wardrobe, they had been feeling quite hungry. And once the thought of cooking and the promising dinner came into their mind, the children began to feel even hungrier than you were before.
"Follow me and watch your steps." Mr. Beaver said and led the way along the boardwalk towards his house, followed by Chirp.
The children then walked after the animals onto the broadwalk one by one, since it was wide enough for everyone to go one at the time. Heeding to Mr. Beaver's words, they watched their steps as the boardwalk was slippery from ice due to the frozen pool bing on the level with the top of the dam. One wrong step and slip meant a nasty drop to the lower river on the other side of the dam.
But as they walked, Lucy first with Peter right behind her to make sure she didn't slip, Susan next and Edmund, once more, right in the two.
However, none of them had noticed that Edmund had falled behind. He had stopped in middle of the boardwalk as he had noticed something else that had caught his eye.
To the North, only a mile off or less from here, Edmund could see two hills standing next to each other behind the trees of the other bank, which he found quite familiar as if he'd seen them before.
Then, he heard the Queen's, or the White Witch's voice echoing in her mind while intently staring at those hills.
*Do you see those two hills? My house is between those hills.*
Edmund then realized that those hills must be the same two hills the White Witch had showed to him when he parted from her at the lamppost that other day. And that between them must be her palace as she had told him.
*There are whole rooms full of Turkish Delight.*
*You would be King of Narnia.*
*You would wear a gold crown and eat Turkish Delight all day long.*
*Turkish Delight.*
*Turkish Delight.*
*Turkish Delight.*
The very thought of Turkish Delight made his sweet-toothed mouth to water
Even if he hadn't managed to lure his siblings to there via the path the White Witch had instructed, they had nonetheless came this close of the Witch's house. And there appeared to be another small river which came down from the north to join this one, which reminded him of the Witch's instructions for him to stay on the left side of the river if he was about to get to her house.
It wouldn't be difficult at all for him to get there from here.
Now if only he just could get his siblings to follow him there somehow.
"Edmund! Come on!" Peter suddenly called, snapping Edmund out of his thoughts, before he hastily followed after them.
Then they reached to the door of the house. But as Mr. Beaver was about to grab on the door handle and open the door, he turned to Chirp and gave him some instructions.
"Chirp? Keep an eye of the area. Let us know at once if something's wrong."
"Chirp, chirp! Will do, Mr. Beaver. Chirp, chirp!" Chirp said before turning away and, at the very moment he took off, he transformed swiftly from his anthropomorphic form back into a regular robin and flew off.
Once Chirp was gone, Mr. Beaver opened the door and stepped inside, leading the children in in his tow.
From inside the beaver house they could hear a purring sound as if someone was using the sewing machine in there.
After she had entered the door, Lucy took a review over the beaver's house. It wasn't at all like Mr. Tumnus' cave as there were no books, no pictures, and insteads of beds there were bunks built into the wall like on board ships. However, it was still a very snug little home for the two lovely beavers. There were hams and strings of onions hanging from the roof and against the walls were gum boots and oilskins and hatchets and pairs of shears and spades and trowels and things for carrying mortar in and fishing rods and fishing nets and sacks. And the cloth on the table tho' very clean was very rough.
Then they all saw a kind-looking old female beaver - who was in her anthropomorphic form similiar to Mr. Beaver - sitting in the corner working busily at her sewing machine.
"Mrs. Beaver? I found them! I found them!" Mr. Beaver called.
Mrs. Beaver stopped her work at the sound of Mr. Beaver, who was obviously her mate, calling her and looked up as he and the children came in and stood in front of her.
"Here are the Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve." Mr. Beaver said, introducing the children to her mate.
Mrs. Beaver looked at the children with surprise and utter delight on her face. "So you've come at last! To think that I should live to see this day!" she said, getting up from her seat and holding out both her wrinkled old paws at the children in welcoming manner.
The children, sans Edmund, greeted politely Mrs. Beaver with the smiles, moved by her kindness and open hospitality towards them.
Mrs. Beaver then began to a bit frantically groom her own fur as if to clean herself up for the sake of the visiting visitors, and shot a chiding glare at her mate.
"Look at my fur, Mr. Beaver? You couldn't sent Chirp to give me a ten minutes warning?" she chided.
"I would have given you a whole week if I thought it would've helped." Mr. Beaver chuckled innocently, earning some chuckles from the children.
"Anyway, you must be starving!" Mr. Beaver nearly gasped as she turned back to the children. "The potatoes are on boiling and the kettle's singing and I daresay, Mr. Beaver, you'll get us some fish."
"Oh, that I will!" Mr. Beaver said, before he turned to Peter. "And you can come out with me."
Peter nodded in agreement, before he and Mr. Beaver went out of the house to catch some fish for the dinner.
"That's it. Take your coats off." Mr. Beaver pleaded.
Susan, Edmund and Lucy then took their coats off, as it was quite warm in here, with Susan taking Lucy's coat and shoving both hers and Lucy's into Edmund's arms, wordlessly telling him to put them to hang to the coat rack next to the door by pointing her finger at them. Edmund scowled at Susan, annoyed of being treated by them like some slave, before he went sulkingly to put the coats to hang up.
"Good. Now sit down, please, and make yourself at home while I'll cook the dinner and and lay the table." Mrs. Beaver beckoned.
"We'd much rather help you." Susan offered politely.
Though initially surprised by the offer, Mrs. Beaver happily accepted it. "Well then, you could cut the bread." she instructed to Susan, who nodded in affirmatively.
"You could put the plates to warm in the owen." she instructed to Lucy, who nodded as well.
Then Mrs. Beaver turned to look over her shoulder at Edmund, who instead of offering his help had gone to the small fireplace to warm up.
"And you there, young man... could draw some beer from the barrel for Mr. Beaver." she instructed, pointing her clawed finger at the barrel which stood in one corner of the house.
Edmund scowled at this, feeling that since he was a guest in the house of these beavers, they were supposed to serve him as such, and not to put him to work like some servant. However, letting out a rather irritated sigh before he reluctantly went to fetch that beer.
###
As the girls and begrudging Edmund were helping Mrs. Beaver in the house, Mr. Beaver, taking a pail with him, had taken Peter across the ice to the deep pool to where he had dug open with the hatchet a little hole in the ice - and which he kept open every day.
And then, Mr. Beaver and Peter sat down very quietly at the edge of the hole, looking hard into it and - after instructing Peter to be quiet - waited like the polar bear by the seals' breathing holes, and due to his own thick fur, Mr. Beaver didn't seem to mind it's being so chilly.
Then Peter saw Mr. Beaver lifting up his right paw up, waited for a moment, and then suddenly shot in his paw and flung the fish out of the hole in the manner of the grizzly bear pawing in the river jumping salmons into the awaiting pail.
"You got one!" Peter said with the smile, impressed by Mr. Beaver's effective even if abnormal fishing manner for the beaver.
Mr. Beaver chuckled heartily, before he and Peter went back into catching a few fishes more.
###
Mrs. Beaver was just putting the frying pan to heat up at the same time as Peter and Mr. Beaver returned to the house with the fine catch of trouts, which Mr. Beaver had already opened with his knife and cleaned out in the open air.
And as the fishes were hissing nicely on Mrs. Beaver's hot frying pan - filling the beaver's house with the good smell of freshly caught fried fish, making the already hungry children quite impatient - Susan drained the potatoes and put them all back in the empty pot to dry on the side of the range while Lucy helped Mrs. Beaver to dish up the fish.
"We're ready!" Mrs. Beaver called.
In the few minutes everyone was drawing up three-legged stools and set the dinner on the beavers' wooden round table as they prepared to enjoy themselves.
The dinner consisted of a jug of creamy milk for the children and beer for the Mr. Beaver, sliced potatoes in the bowl, piece of bread for each one of them and a great big lump of deep yellow butter from which everyone took as much as he wanted to go with the potatoes and bread, and finally freshly fried freshwater fish seasoned with herbs on the five plates.
Mr. Beavers sat in one side of the table, leaving one stool emoty for Mrs. Beaver who was left to do something at the owen, while Lucy and Susan sat down on Mr. Beaver's right and Peter and Edmund sat on his left.
"Mr. Beaver?" Lucy then spoke up as they had all seated at the table. "Do please tell us about Mr. Tumnus."
"First things first." Mr. Beaver told her, before he gentured towards the served dinner on the children's plates. "Please, start."
The children were already so hungry that they immediately dug in their food. It was a very pleasant and delicious meal they had eaten in the whole day since the breakfast in the professor's house, and all the children thought—and I agree with them—that there's nothing to beat good fried freshwater fish such as this.
Shortly after the children and Mr. Beaver had started having lunch, Chirp returned from her flight and entered inside the house in his anthropomorphic form - shaking the snow from his feathers, for the snowfall had began to intensify.
Chirp informed to the children and Mr. Beaver that he had seen no one moving near the beaver dam and everything seemed to be so far fine. Afterwards, Chirp himself seated to the table between Mr. Beaver and Peter and started eating the meal that Mrs. Beaver served to him too, which included dried fruits, crushed peanuts, seeds and raisins.
Looking at the robin and knowing that the meal he was eating was what people in her World often fed to robins, Lucy couldn't help but feel a tingle of pity for robin when the thought came to her mind, that because of this awful winter, Chirp was unable to eat what the robins like the most, such as insects and worms.
A little later, after the second rounds, the children were pretty much starting to feel themselves full and satisfied after finishing their meals.
"Oh! I couldn't eat another thing." Peter said, feeling himself full.
However, the children were then left surprised when they saw Mrs. Beaver unexpectedly bringing out of the oven a great and gloriously sticky...
"Marmalade roll!" Susan gaped in disbelief.
Mrs. Beaver chuckled at the children's gaped expressions on their faces, proud of the masterpiece of her cooking skills.
"Now will you eat another thing?" Mrs. Beaver asked, turning to Peter, who looked speechlessly at the marmalade roll she put on the table.
Not wanting to be rude to their hosts, and thinking that maybe there could be a bit space for another thing after all, Peter nodded his head affirmatively.
Mrs. Beaver chuckled, delightful of Peter's answer, before she turned around and headed towards the kettle that was on the fire.
TO BE CONTINUED...