The_Complete_Chronicles_of_Narnia_(volumes_1-7,_in_order_of_publication)

children rolled off, fell without hurting themselves on the warm, fine grass, and stood up
panting a little.
They were three-quarters of the way up the hill, and set out at once to climb to the top. (I
don't think Fledge could have managed this without his wings to balance him and to give
him the help of aflutter now and then.) All round the very top of the hill ran a high wall
of green turf. Inside the wall trees were growing. Their branches hung out over the wall;
their leaves showed not only green but also blue and silver when the wind stirred them.
When the travellers reached the top they walked nearly all the way round it outside the
green wall before they found the gates: high gates of gold, fast shut, facing due east.
Up till now I think Fledge and Polly had had the idea that they would go in with Digory.
But they thought so no longer. You never saw a place which was so obviously private.
You could see at a glance that it belonged to someone else. Only a fool would dream of
going in unless he had been sent there on very special business. Digory himself
understood at once that the others wouldn't and couldn't come in with him. He went
forward to the gates alone.
When he had come close up to them he saw words written on the gold with silver letters;
something like this:
Come in by the gold gates or not at all, Take of my fruit for others or forbear, For those
who steal or those who climb my wall Shall find their heart's desire and find despair.
"Take of my fruit for others," said Digory to himself. "Well, that's what I'm going to do.
It means I mustn't eat any myself, I suppose. I don't know what all that jaw in the last line
is about. Come in by the gold gates. Well who'd want to climb a wall if he could get in by
a gates.` But how do the gates open?" He laid his hand on them: and instantly they swung
apart, opening inwards, turning on their hinges without the least noise.
Now that he could see into the place it looked more private than ever. He went in very
solemnly, looking about him. Everything was very quiet inside. Even the fountain which
rose near the middle of the garden made only the faintest sound. The lovely smell was all
round him: it was a happy place but very serious.
He knew which was the right tree at once, partly because it stood in the very centre and
partly because the great silver apples with which it was loaded shone so and cast a light
of their own down on the shadowy places where the sunlight did not reach. He walked
straight across to it, picked an apple, and put it in the breast pocket of his Norfolk jacket.
But he couldn't help looking at it and smelling it before he put it away.
It would have been better if he had not. A terrible thirst and hunger came over him and a
longing to taste that fruit. He put it hastily into his pocket; but there were plenty of others.
Could it be wrong to taste one? After all, he thought, the notice on the gate might not
have been exactly an order; it might have been only a piece of advice - and who cares
about advice? Or even if it were an order, would he be disobeying it by eating an apple?