There were two signboards, he knew, in this field, one down by the river about fishing, and the other where there was a path across it, on which was the notice, ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.’ He did not mind about that notice since both the field and the notice belonged to his father, but when he came to the second signboard and looked up at it, he felt suddenly frozen with terror, and his teeth chattered like Mr. Funk the bather. For instead of the ordinary notice this was written up in large capitals:
TRESPASSERS WILL BE MARRIED
WITH THE UTMOST RIGOUR OF
THE LAW
‘Oh, what am I to do?’ thought poor David. ‘There’s a girl coming into it after all. I know she’ll spoil everything.’
He began running back towards the stream again, for he felt he would rather fight the pike than be married, but then he thought of those savage jaws and those dreadful teeth, and his legs simply would not take him any nearer the stream. They said ‘No!’ just as if they had spoken aloud. Between his mind that said that he had better face any danger sooner than be married, and his legs that said that they would go anywhere except towards the pike, he completely lost his head, and began running in circles round the field, saying to himself in a most determined voice:
‘I won’t be married, I won’t be eaten by the pike, I won’t be married to a pike, I won’t be eaten by anybody.’
Noah pursues David
So round and round he ran, though all the time there was nothing easier than to walk out of the gate and get away from the marriage-meadow altogether, for there was not a soul in sight nor any sound except that of the pike still calling ‘Coward! Coward!’ But David had quite lost his head, and such a simple thing as that never occurred to him at all. And then he saw that he wasn’t alone in the field, for there was a man in a hard hat and an ulster following him round and round. He was not running, but was sliding, and all the time he got nearer and nearer to David. All the time, too, David knew that he knew who it was, but he had forgotten, just as he had forgotten how to fly, or how to count when he was talking to that foolish trout. Nearer and nearer he crept, and David, looking round, saw that he was already extending a stiff wooden arm to catch him. When he saw that he was on the point of being caught, he recovered his wits and knew that all he had to do was to get away from the marriage-meadow at once. So, with redoubled speed, he bolted towards the side of the field nearest him, just outside which there stood a house with the door wide open. He didn’t care at all whether he was prosecuted for going into a house that wasn’t his own; all that mattered was to escape from this dreadful field where all trespassers were married.