CHAPTER ONE
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LUCY LOOKS INTO A WARDROBEOhere were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happeo them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids. They were sent to the house of an old Professor who lived in the heart of the try, ten miles from the railway station and two miles from the post office. He had no wife and he lived in a very large house with a housekeeper called Mrs Macready an<tt></tt>d three servants. (Their names were Ivy, Margaret ay, but they do not e into the story much.) He himself was a very old man with shaggy white hair which grew over most of his face as well as on his head, and they liked him almost at once; but on the first evening when he came out to meet them at the front door he was so odd-looking that Lucy (who was the you) was a little afraid of him, and Edmund (who was the you) wao laugh and had to keep oending he was blowing his o hide it.
As soon as they had said good night to the Professor and gone upstairs on the first night, the boys came into the girls room and they all talked it over.
"Weve fallen on our feet and no mistake," said Peter. "This is going to be perfectly splendid. That old chap will let us do anything we like.”
"I think hes an old dear," said Susan.
"Oh, e off it!" said Edmund, who was tired and pretending not to be tired, which always made him bad-tempered. "Dont go on talking like that.”
"Like what?" said Susan; "and anyway, its time you were in bed.”
&qu to talk like Mother," said Edmund. "And who are you t<a></a>o say when Im to go to bed? Go to bed yourself.”
"Hadnt we all better go to bed?" said Lucy. "Theres sure to be a row if were heard talking here.”
"No there wont," said Peter. "I tell you this is the sort of house where no ones going to mind what we do. Anyway, they wont hear us. Its about ten minutes walk from here down to that dining-room, and any amount of stairs and passages iween.”
"Whats that noise?" said Lucy suddenly. It was a far larger house than she had ever been in before and the thought of all those long passages and rows of doors leading iy rooms was beginning to make her feel a little creepy.
"Its only a bird, silly," said Edmund.
"Its an owl," said Peter. "This is going to be a wonderful place for birds. I shall go to bed now. I say, lets go and explore tomorrow. You might find anything in a place like this.
Did you see those mountains as we came along? And the woods? There might be eagles.
There might be stags. Therell be hawks.”
"Badgers!" said Lucy. "Foxes!" said Edmund. "Rabbits!" said Susan. But whe m came there was a steady rain falling, so thick that when you looked out of the window you could see her the mountains nor the woods nor eveream in the garden.
"Of course it would be raining!" said Edmund. They had just fiheir breakfast with the Professor and were upstairs in the room he had set apart for them - a long, low room with two windows looking out in one dire and two in another.
"Do stop grumbling, Ed," said Susan. "Ten to oll clear up in an hour or so. And in the meantime were pretty well off. Theres a wireless and lots of books.”
"Not for me"said Peter; "Im going to explore in the house.”
Everyone agreed<s>9９ｌiｂ.</s> to this and that was how the adventures began. It was the sort of house that you never seem to e to the end of, and it was full of ued places. The first few doors they tried led only into spare bedrooms, as everyone had expected that they would; but soon they came to a very long room full of pictures and there they found a suit of armour; and after that was a room all hung with green, with a harp in one er; and then came three steps down and five steps up, and then a kind of little upstairs hall and a door that led out on to a baly, and then a whole series of rooms that led into each other and were lined with books - most of them very old books and some bigger than a Bible in a church. And shortly after that they looked into a room that was quite empty except for one big wardrobe; the sort that has a looking-glass in the door. There was nothing else in the room at all except a dead blue-bottle on the window- sill. "Nothing there!" said Peter, and they all trooped out again - all except Lucy. She stayed behind because she thought it would be worth while trying the door of the wardrobe, even though she felt almost sure that it would be locked. To her surprise it opened quite easily, and two moth-balls dropped out.
Looking into the inside, she saw several coats hanging up - mostly long fur coats. There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel of fur. She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats and rubbed her face against them, leaving the door open, of course, because she khat it is very foolish to shut oneself into any wardrobe. Soon she went further in and found that there was a sed row of coats hanging up behind the first one. I<abbr></abbr>t was almost quite dark in there and she kept her arms stretched out in front of her so as not to bump her fato the back of the wardrobe. She took a step further in - then two or three steps always expeg to feel woainst the tips of her fingers. But she could not feel it.
"This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!" thought Lucy, going still further in and pushing the soft folds of the coats aside to make room for her. Then she noticed that there was something g under her feet. "I wonder is that more mothballs?" she thought, stooping down to feel it with her hand. But instead of feeling the hard, smooth wood of the floor of the wardrobe, she felt something soft and powdery aremely cold. "This is very queer," she said, a on a step or two further.
moment she found that what was rubbing against her fad hands was no longer soft fur but something hard and rough and even prickly. "Why, it is just like branches of trees!" exclaimed Lucy. And then she saw that there was a light ahead of her; not a few inches away where the back of the wardrobe ought to have been, but a long way off.
Something cold and soft was falling on her. A moment later she found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air.
Lucy felt a little frightened, but she felt very inquisitive aed as well. She looked back over her shoulder and there, between the dark tree trunks; she could still see the open doorway of the wardrobe and even catch a glimpse of the empty room from which she had set out. (She had, of course, left the door open, for she khat it is a very silly thing to shut oneself into a wardrobe.) It seemed to be still daylight there. "I always get back if anything goes wrong," thought Lucy. She began to walk forward, ch-ch over the snow and through the wood towards the ht. In about ten minutes she reached it and found it was a lamp-post. As she stood looking at it, w why there was a lamp-post in the middle of a wood and w what to do , she heard a pitter patter of feet ing towards her. And soon after that a very strange person stepped out from am<strike>99lib?</strike>ong the trees into the light of the lamp-post.
He was only a little taller than Lucy herself and he carried over his head an umbrella, white with snow. From the waist upwards he was like a man, but his legs were shaped like a goats (the hair on them was glossy black) and instead of feet he had goats hoofs.
He also had a tail, but Lucy did not notice this at first because it was ly caught up over the arm that held the umbrella so as to keep it from trailing in the snow. He had a red woollen muffler round his ned his skin was rather reddish too. He had a strange, but pleasant little face, with a short pointed beard and curly hair, and out of the hair there stuck two horns, one on each side of his forehead. One of his hands, as I have said, held
the umbrella: iher arm he carried several broer parcels. What with the parcels and the snow it looked just as if he had been doing his Christmas shopping. He was a Faun. And when he saw Lucy he gave such a start of surprise that he dropped all his parcels.
"Goodness grae!" exclaimed the Faun.
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