“If you will take my arm, Daughter of Eve,”said Mr.Tumnus.“I shall be able to hold the umbrella over both of us.That’s the way.Now—off we go.”
And so Lucy found herlf walking through the wood arm in arm with this strange creature as if they had known one another all their lives.
They had not gone far before they came to a place where the ground became rough and there were rocks all about and little hills up and little hills down.At the bottom of one small valley Mr.Tumnus turned suddenly aside as if he were going to walk straight into an unusually large rock, but at the last moment Lucy found he was leading her into the entrance of a cave.As soon as they were inside she found herlf blinking in the light of a wood fire.Then Mr.Tumnus stooped and took a flaming piece of wood out of the fire with a little pair of tongs, and lit a lamp.“Now we shan’t be long,”he said, and immediately put a kettle on.
Lucy thought she had never been in a nicer pla one wall was a shelf full of books.Lucy looked at the while he was tting out the tea things.They had titles like
The Life aers of Silenus or Nymphs and Their Ways or Men, Monks and Gamekeepers
;
a Study in Popular Legend or Is Man a Myth
?
“Now, Daughter of Eve！”said the Faun.
And really it was a wonderful tea.There was a nice brown egg, lightly boiled, for each of them, and then sardines on toast, and then buttered toast, and then toast with honey, and then a sugar-topped cake.And when Lucy was tired of eating, the Faun began to talk.He had wonderful tales to tell of life in the forest.He told about summer when the woods were green and old Silenus on his fat donkey would e to visit them, and sometimes Bacchus himlf, and thereams would run with wine instead of water and the whole forest would give itlf up to jollification for weeks on end.“Not that it isn’t always winter now,”he added gloomily.Then to cheer himlf up he took out from its the dresr a stratle flute that looked as if it were made of straw and began to play.And the tune he played made Lucy want to cry and laugh and dand go to sleep all at the same time.It must have been hours later when she shook herlf and said：