`No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The SONG is called
"WAYS AND MEANS": but that's only what it's CALLED, you know!'
`Well, what IS the song, then?' said Alice, who was by this time
completely bewildered.
`I was coming to that,' the Knight said. `The song really IS
"A-SITTING ON A GATE": and the tune's my own invention.'
So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck:
then, slowly beating time with one hand, and with a faint smile
lighting up his gentle foolish face, as if he enjoyed the music of
his song, he began.
Of all the strange things that Alice saw in her journey Through The
Looking-Glass, this was the one that she always remembered most
clearly. Years afterwards she could bring the whole scene back
again, as if it had been only yesterday -- the mild blue eyes and
kindly smile of the Knight -- the setting sun gleaming through his
hair, and shining on his armour in a blaze of light that quite
dazzled her -- the horse quietly moving about, with the reins hanging
loose on his neck, cropping the grass at her feet -- and the black
shadows of the forest behind -- all this she took in like a picture,
as, with one hand shading her eyes, she leant against a green,
watching the strange pair, and listening, in a half dream, to the
melancholy music of the song.
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