Then he bethought him of a book which had been his mother’s and now belonged to his sisters, in which it was amusingly pretended that dogs went to the moon after their existence on earth was over. The book had a frontispiece representing the dogs sitting in the moon and relating their former experiences.
“It would be odd if the one we killed last were up there now,” said Benjy to himself. And he fancied that as he said it the man in the moon winked at him.
“I wonder if it is really true,” said Benjy, aloud.
“Not exactly,” said the man in the moon, “but something like it. This is Beastland. Won’t you come up?”
“Well, I never did!” cried Benjy, whose English was not of the refined order.
“Oh, yes, you have,” said the man in the moon, waggishly. “Now, are you coming up? But perhaps you can’t climb.”
“Can’t I?” said Benjy, and in three minutes he was on the branch, and close to the moon. The higher he climbed the larger the moon looked, till it was like the biggest disc of light ever thrown by a magic lantern, and when he was fairly seated on the branch close by, he could see nothing but a blaze of white light all round him.
“Walk boldly in,” he heard the man in the moon say. “Put out your feet, and don’t be afraid; it’s not so bright inside.” So Benjy put his feet down, and dropped, and thought he was certainly falling into the river. But he only fell upon his feet, and found himself in Beastland. It was an odd place, truly!
As Cerberus guarded the entrance to Pluto’s domains, so there sat at the going in to Beastland a black dog—the very black dog who gets on to sulky children’s backs. And on the back of the black dog sat a crow—the crow that people pluck when they quarrel; and though it has been plucked so often it has never been plucked bare, but is in very good feather yet, unfortunately. And in a field behind was an Irish bull, a mad bull, but quite harmless. The old cow was there too, but not the tune she died of, for being still popular on earth, it could not be spared. Near these the nightmare was grazing, and in a corner of the field was the mare’s nest, on which sat a round-robin, hatching plots.
And about the mare’s nest flew a tell-tale-tit—the little bird who tells tales and carries news. And it has neither rest nor nest of its own, for gossips are always gadding, and mischief is always being made. And in a cat’s cradle swung from the sky slept the cat who washes the dishes, with a clean dishcloth under her head, ready to go down by the first sunbeam to her work. Whilst the bee that gets into Scotchmen’s bonnets went buzzing restlessly up and down with nothing to do, for all the lunatics in North Britain happened to be asleep that evening. And on the head of the right nail hung a fancy portrait of the cat who “does it,” when careless or dishonest servants waste and destroy things. I need hardly say that the cat could not be there herself, because (like Mrs. Gamp’s friend, Mrs. Harris) “there ain’t no such a person.”