CHAPTER SEVEN A DAY WITH THE BEAVERS（第2/4页）

“Quite right，quite right，”said the Beaver．“Here is my token.” With these words it held up to them a little white object.They all looked at it in surprise，till suddenly Lucy said，“Oh，of course． It’s my handkerchief-the one I gave to poor Mr. Tumnus．”

“That’s right，”said the Beaver．“Poor fellow，he got wind of the arrest before it actually happened and handed this over to me. He said that if anything happened to him I must meet you here and take you on to-”Here the Beaver’s voice sank into silence and it gave one or two very mysterious nods．Then signalling to the children to stand as close around it as they possibly could，so that their faces were actually tickled by its whiskers，it added in a low whisper-

“They say Aslan is on the move-perhaps has already landed．”

And now a very curious thing happened．None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do；but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different． Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don’t understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning-either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words，which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again．It was like that now．At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside．Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror．Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous．Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her．And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer．

“And what about Mr. Tumnus，”said Lucy；“where is he ？”

“S-s-s-sh，”said the Beaver，“not here．I must bring you where we can have a real talk and also dinner．”

No one except Edmund felt any difficulty about trusting the beaver now，and everyone，including Edmund，was very glad to hear the word“dinner”．They therefore all hurried along behind their new friend who led them at a surprisingly quick pace， and always in the thickest parts of the forest，for over an hour． Everyone was feeling very tired and very hungry when suddenly the trees began to get thinner in front of them and the ground to fall steeply downhill．A minute later they came out under the open sky （the sun was still shining）and found themselves looking down on a fine sight．

They were standing on the edge of a steep，narrow valley at the bottom of which ran-at least it would have been running if it hadn’t been frozen-a fairly large river．Just below them a dam had been built across this river，and when they saw it everyone suddenly remembered that of course beavers are always making dams and felt quite sure that Mr. Beaver had made this one．They also noticed that he now had a sort of modest expression on his，face-the sort of look people have when you are visiting a garden they’ve made or reading a story they’ve written．So it was only common politeness when Susan said，“What a lovely dam ！”And Mr. Beaver didn’t say“Hush”this time but“Merely a trifle ！ Merely a trifle ！ And it isn’t really finished ！”

Above the dam there was what ought to have been a deep pool but was now，of course，a level floor of dark green ice．And below the dam，much lower down，was more ice，but instead of being smooth this was all frozen into the foamy and wavy shapes in which the water had been rushing along at the very moment when the frost came．And where the water had been trickling over and spurting through the dam there was now a glittering wall of icicles，as if the side of the dam had been covered all over with flowers and wreaths and festoons of the purest sugar．And out in the middle，and partly on top of the dam was a funny little house shaped rather like an enormous beehive and from a hole in the roof smoke was going up，so that when you saw it（especially if you were hungry）you at once thought of cooking and became hungrier than you were before．