The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley

The Water-Babies
by Charles Kingsley
CHAPTER I
"I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined;
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
"To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think,
What man has made of man."
WORDSWORTH.
Once upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, and his name was
Tom. That is a short name, and you have heard it before, so you
will not have much trouble in remembering it. He lived in a great
town in the North country, where there were plenty of chimneys to
sweep, and plenty of money for Tom to earn and his master to spend.
He could not read nor write, and did not care to do either; and he
never washed himself, for there was no water up the court where he
lived. He had never been taught to say his prayers. He never had
heard of God, or of Christ, except in words which you never have
heard, and which it would have been well if he had never heard. He
cried half his time, and laughed the other half. He cried when he
had to climb the dark flues, rubbing his poor knees and elbows raw;
and when the soot got into his eyes, which it did every day in the
week; and when his master beat him, which he did every day in the
week; and when he had not enough to eat, which happened every day
in the week likewise. And he laughed the other half of the day,
when he was tossing halfpennies with the other boys, or playing
leap-frog over the posts, or bowling stones at the horses' legs as
they trotted by, which last was excellent fun, when there was a
wall at hand behind which to hide. As for chimney-sweeping, and
being hungry, and being beaten, he took all that for the way of the
world, like the rain and snow and thunder, and stood manfully with
his back to it till it was over, as his old donkey did to a hailstorm;
and then shook his ears and was as jolly as ever; and
thought of the fine times coming, when he would be a man, and a
master sweep, and sit in the public-house with a quart of beer and
a long pipe, and play cards for silver money, and wear velveteens
and ankle-jacks, and keep a white bull-dog with one gray ear, and
carry her puppies in his pocket, just like a man. And he would
have apprentices, one, two, three, if he could. How he would bully
them, and knock them about, just as his master did to him; and make
them carry home the soot sacks, while he rode before them on his
donkey, with a pipe in his mouth and a flower in his button-hole,
like a king at the head of his army. Yes, there were good times
coming; and, when his master let him have a pull at the leavings of
his beer, Tom was the jolliest boy in the whole town.
One day a smart little groom rode into the court where Tom lived.
Tom was just hiding behind a wall, to heave half a brick at his
horse's legs, as is the custom of that country when they welcome
strangers; but the groom saw him, and halloed to him to know where
Mr. Grimes, the chimney-sweep, lived. Now, Mr. Grimes was Tom's
own master, and Tom was a good man of business, and always civil to
customers, so he put the half-brick down quietly behind the wall,
and proceeded to take orders.
Mr. Grimes was to come up next morning to Sir John Harthover's, at
the Place, for his old chimney-sweep was gone to prison, and the
chimneys wanted sweeping. And so he rode away, not giving Tom time
to ask what the sweep had gone to prison for, which was a matter of
interest to Tom, as he had been in prison once or twice himself.
Moreover, the groom looked so very neat and clean, with his drab
gaiters, drab breeches, drab jacket, snow-white tie with a smart
pin in it, and clean round ruddy face, that Tom was offended and
disgusted at his appearance, and considered him a stuck-up fellow,
who gave himself airs because he wore smart clothes, and other
people paid for them; and went behind the wall to fetch the halfbrick
after all; but did not, remembering that he had come in the
way of business, and was, as it were, under a flag of truce.
His master was so delighted at his new customer that he knocked Tom
down out of hand, and drank more beer that night than he usually
did in two, in order to be sure of getting up in time next morning;
for the more a man's head aches when he wakes, the more glad he is
to turn out, and have a breath of fresh air. And, when he did get
up at four the next morning, he knocked Tom down again, in order to
teach him (as young gentlemen used to be taught at public schools)
that he must be an extra good boy that day, as they were going to a
very great house, and might make a very good thing of it, if they
could but give satisfaction.
And Tom thought so likewise, and, indeed, would have done and
behaved his best, even without being knocked down. For, of all
places upon earth, Harthover Place (which he had never seen) was
the most wonderful, and, of all men on earth, Sir John (whom he had
seen, having been sent to gaol by him twice) was the most awful.
Harthover Place was really a grand place, even for the rich North
country; with a house so large that in the frame-breaking riots,
which Tom could just remember, the Duke of Wellington, and ten
thousand soldiers to match, were easily housed therein; at least,
so Tom believed; with a park full of deer, which Tom believed to be
monsters who were in the habit of eating children; with miles of
game-preserves, in which Mr. Grimes and the collier lads poached at
times, on which occasions Tom saw pheasants, and wondered what they
tasted like; with a noble salmon-river, in which Mr. Grimes and his
friends would have liked to poach; but then they must have got into
cold water, and that they did not like at all. In short, Harthover
was a grand place, and Sir John a grand old man, whom even Mr.
Grimes respected; for not only could he send Mr. Grimes to prison
when he deserved it, as he did once or twice a week; not only did
he own all the land about for miles; not only was he a jolly,
honest, sensible squire, as ever kept a pack of hounds, who would
do what he thought right by his neighbours, as well as get what he
thought right for himself; but, what was more, he weighed full
fifteen stone, was nobody knew how many inches round the chest, and
could have thrashed Mr. Grimes himself in fair fight, which very
few folk round there could do, and which, my dear little boy, would
not have been right for him to do, as a great many things are not
which one both can do, and would like very much to do. So Mr.
Grimes touched his hat to him when he rode through the town, and
called him a "buirdly awd chap," and his young ladies "gradely
lasses," which are two high compliments in the North country; and
thought that that made up for his poaching Sir John's pheasants;
whereby you may perceive that Mr. Grimes had not been to a
properly-inspected Government National School.
Now, I dare say, you never got up at three o'clock on a midsummer
morning. Some people get up then because they want to catch
salmon; and some because they want to climb Alps; and a great many
more because they must, like Tom. But, I assure you, that three
o'clock on a midsummer morning is the pleasantest time of all the
twenty-four hours, and all the three hundred and sixty-five days;
and why every one does not get up then, I never could tell, save
that they are all determined to spoil their nerves and their
complexions by doing all night what they might just as well do all
day. But Tom, instead of going out to dinner at half-past eight at
night, and to a ball at ten, and finishing off somewhere between
twelve and four, went to bed at seven, when his master went to the
public-house, and slept like a dead pig; for which reason he was as
piert as a game-cock (who always gets up early to wake the maids),
and just ready to get up when the fine gentlemen and ladies were
just ready to go to bed.
So he and his master set out; Grimes rode the donkey in front, and
Tom and the brushes walked behind; out of the court, and up the
street, past the closed window-shutters, and the winking weary
policemen, and the roofs all shining gray in the gray dawn.
They passed through the pitmen's village, all shut up and silent
now, and through the turnpike; and then the were out in the real
country, and plodding along the black dusty road, between black
slag walls, with no sound but the groaning and thumping of the pitengine
in the next field. But soon the road grew white, and the
walls likewise; and at the wall's foot grew long grass and gay
flowers, all drenched with dew; and instead of the groaning of the
pit-engine, they heard the skylark saying his matins high up in the
air, and the pit-bird warbling in the sedges, as he had warbled all
night long.
All else was silent. For old Mrs. Earth was still fast asleep;
and, like many pretty people, she looked still prettier asleep than
awake. The great elm-trees in the gold-green meadows were fast
asleep above, and the cows fast asleep beneath them; nay, the few
clouds which were about were fast asleep likewise, and so tired
that they had lain down on the earth to rest, in long white flakes
and bars, among the stems of the elm-trees, and along the tops of
the alders by the stream, waiting for the sun to bid them rise and
go about their day's business in the clear blue overhead.
On they went; and Tom looked, and looked, for he never had been so
far into the country before; and longed to get over a gate, and
pick buttercups, and look for birds' nests in the hedge; but Mr.
Grimes was a man of business, and would not have heard of that.
Soon they came up with a poor Irishwoman, trudging along with a
bundle at her back. She had a gray shawl over her head, and a
crimson madder petticoat; so you may be sure she came from Galway.
She had neither shoes nor stockings, and limped along as if she
were tired and footsore; but she was a very tall handsome woman,
with bright gray eyes, and heavy black hair hanging about her
cheeks. And she took Mr. Grimes' fancy so much, that when he came
alongside he called out to her:
"This is a hard road for a gradely foot like that. Will ye up,
lass, and ride behind me?"
But, perhaps, she did not admire Mr. Grimes' look and voice; for
she answered quietly:
"No, thank you: I'd sooner walk with your little lad here."
"You may please yourself," growled Grimes, and went on smoking.
So she walked beside Tom, and talked to him, and asked him where he
lived, and what he knew, and all about himself, till Tom thought he
had never met such a pleasant-spoken woman. And she asked him, at
last, whether he said his prayers! and seemed sad when he told her
that he knew no prayers to say.
Then he asked her where she lived, and she said far away by the
sea. And Tom asked her about the sea; and she told him how it
rolled and roared over the rocks in winter nights, and lay still in
the bright summer days, for the children to bathe and play in it;
and many a story more, till Tom longed to go and see the sea, and
bathe in it likewise.
At last, at the bottom of a hill, they came to a spring; not such a
spring as you see here, which soaks up out of a white gravel in the
bog, among red fly-catchers, and pink bottle-heath, and sweet white
orchis; nor such a one as you may see, too, here, which bubbles up
under the warm sandbank in the hollow lane by the great tuft of
lady ferns, and makes the sand dance reels at the bottom, day and
night, all the year round; not such a spring as either of those;
but a real North country limestone fountain, like one of those in
Sicily or Greece, where the old heathen fancied the nymphs sat
cooling themselves the hot summer's day, while the shepherds peeped
at them from behind the bushes. Out of a low cave of rock, at the
foot of a limestone crag, the great fountain rose, quelling, and
bubbling, and gurgling, so clear that you could not tell where the
water ended and the air began; and ran away under the road, a
stream large enough to turn a mill; among blue geranium, and golden
globe-flower, and wild raspberry, and the bird-cherry with its
tassels of snow.
And there Grimes stopped, and looked; and Tom looked too. Tom was
wondering whether anything lived in that dark cave, and came out at
night to fly in the meadows. But Grimes was not wondering at all.
Without a word, he got off his donkey, and clambered over the low
road wall, and knelt down, and began dipping his ugly head into the
spring - and very dirty he made it.
Tom was picking the flowers as fast as he could. The Irishwoman
helped him, and showed him how to tie them up; and a very pretty
nosegay they had made between them. But when he saw Grimes
actually wash, he stopped, quite astonished; and when Grimes had
finished, and began shaking his ears to dry them, he said:
"Why, master, I never saw you do that before."
"Nor will again, most likely. 'Twasn't for cleanliness I did it,
but for coolness. I'd be ashamed to want washing every week or so,
like any smutty collier lad."
"I wish I might go and dip my head in," said poor little Tom. "It
must be as good as putting it under the town-pump; and there is no
beadle here to drive a chap away."
"Thou come along," said Grimes; "what dost want with washing
thyself? Thou did not drink half a gallon of beer last night, like
me."
"I don't care for you," said naughty Tom, and ran down to the
stream, and began washing his face.
Grimes was very sulky, because the woman preferred Tom's company to
his; so he dashed at him with horrid words, and tore him up from
his knees, and began beating him. But Tom was accustomed to that,
and got his head safe between Mr. Grimes' legs, and kicked his
shins with all his might.
"Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes?" cried the
Irishwoman over the wall.
Grimes looked up, startled at her knowing his name; but all he
answered was, "No, nor never was yet;" and went on beating Tom.
"True for you. If you ever had been ashamed of yourself, you would
have gone over into Vendale long ago."
"What do you know about Vendale?" shouted Grimes; but he left off
beating Tom.
"I know about Vendale, and about you, too. I know, for instance,
what happened in Aldermire Copse, by night, two years ago come
Martinmas."
"You do?" shouted Grimes; and leaving Tom, he climbed up over the
wall, and faced the woman. Tom thought he was going to strike her;
but she looked him too full and fierce in the face for that.
"Yes; I was there," said the Irishwoman quietly.
"You are no Irishwoman, by your speech," said Grimes, after many
bad words.
"Never mind who I am. I saw what I saw; and if you strike that boy
again, I can tell what I know."
Grimes seemed quite cowed, and got on his donkey without another
word.
"Stop!" said the Irishwoman. "I have one more word for you both;
for you will both see me again before all is over. Those that wish
to be clean, clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul,
foul they will be. Remember."
And she turned away, and through a gate into the meadow. Grimes
stood still a moment, like a man who had been stunned. Then he
rushed after her, shouting, "You come back." But when he got into
the meadow, the woman was not there.
Had she hidden away? There was no place to hide in. But Grimes
looked about, and Tom also, for he was as puzzled as Grimes himself
at her disappearing so suddenly; but look where they would, she was
not there.
Grimes came back again, as silent as a post, for he was a little
frightened; and, getting on his donkey, filled a fresh pipe, and
smoked away, leaving Tom in peace.
And now they had gone three miles and more, and came to Sir John's
lodge-gates.
Very grand lodges they were, with very grand iron gates and stone
gate-posts, and on the top of each a most dreadful bogy, all teeth,
horns, and tail, which was the crest which Sir John's ancestors
wore in the Wars of the Roses; and very prudent men they were to
wear it, for all their enemies must have run for their lives at the
very first sight of them.
Grimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper on the spot, and
opened.
"I was told to expect thee," he said. "Now thou'lt be so good as
to keep to the main avenue, and not let me find a hare or a rabbit
on thee when thou comest back. I shall look sharp for one, I tell
thee."
"Not if it's in the bottom of the soot-bag," quoth Grimes, and at
that he laughed; and the keeper laughed and said:
"If that's thy sort, I may as well walk up with thee to the hall."
"I think thou best had. It's thy business to see after thy game,
man, and not mine."
So the keeper went with them; and, to Tom's surprise, he and Grimes
chatted together all the way quite pleasantly. He did not know
that a keeper is only a poacher turned outside in, and a poacher a
keeper turned inside out.
They walked up a great lime avenue, a full mile long, and between
their stems Tom peeped trembling at the horns of the sleeping deer,
which stood up among the ferns. Tom had never seen such enormous
trees, and as he looked up he fancied that the blue sky rested on
their heads. But he was puzzled very much by a strange murmuring
noise, which followed them all the way. So much puzzled, that at
last he took courage to ask the keeper what it was.
He spoke very civilly, and called him Sir, for he was horribly
afraid of him, which pleased the keeper, and he told him that they
were the bees about the lime flowers.
"What are bees?" asked Tom.
"What make honey."
"What is honey?" asked Tom.
"Thou hold thy noise," said Grimes.
"Let the boy be," said the keeper. "He's a civil young chap now,
and that's more than he'll be long if he bides with thee."
Grimes laughed, for he took that for a compliment.
"I wish I were a keeper," said Tom, "to live in such a beautiful
place, and wear green velveteens, and have a real dog-whistle at my
button, like you."
The keeper laughed; he was a kind-hearted fellow enough.
"Let well alone, lad, and ill too at times. Thy life's safer than
mine at all events, eh, Mr. Grimes?"
And Grimes laughed again, and then the two men began talking, quite
low. Tom could hear, though, that it was about some poaching
fight; and at last Grimes said surlily, "Hast thou anything against
me?"
"Not now."
"Then don't ask me any questions till thou hast, for I am a man of
honour."
And at that they both laughed again, and thought it a very good
joke.
And by this time they were come up to the great iron gates in front
of the house; and Tom stared through them at the rhododendrons and
azaleas, which were all in flower; and then at the house itself,
and wondered how many chimneys there were in it, and how long ago
it was built, and what was the man's name that built it, and
whether he got much money for his job?
These last were very difficult questions to answer. For Harthover
had been built at ninety different times, and in nineteen different
styles, and looked as if somebody had built a whole street of
houses of every imaginable shape, and then stirred them together
with a spoon.
For the attics were Anglo-Saxon.
The third door Norman.
The second Cinque-cento.
The first-floor Elizabethan.
The right wing Pure Doric.
The centre Early English, with a huge portico copied from the
Parthenon.
The left wing pure Boeotian, which the country folk admired most of
all, became it was just like the new barracks in the town, only
three times as big.
The grand staircase was copied from the Catacombs at Rome.
The back staircase from the Tajmahal at Agra. This was built by
Sir John's great-great-great-uncle, who won, in Lord Clive's Indian
Wars, plenty of money, plenty of wounds, and no more taste than his
betters.
The cellars were copied from the caves of Elephanta.
The offices from the Pavilion at Brighton.
And the rest from nothing in heaven, or earth, or under the earth.
So that Harthover House was a great puzzle to antiquarians, and a
thorough Naboth's vineyard to critics, and architects, and all
persons who like meddling with other men's business, and spending
other men's money. So they were all setting upon poor Sir John,
year after year, and trying to talk him into spending a hundred
thousand pounds or so, in building, to please them and not himself.
But he always put them off, like a canny North-countryman as he
was. One wanted him to build a Gothic house, but he said he was no
Goth; and another to build an Elizabethan, but he said he lived
under good Queen Victoria, and not good Queen Bess; and another was
bold enough to tell him that his house was ugly, but he said he
lived inside it, and not outside; and another, that there was no
unity in it, but he said that that was just why he liked the old
place. For he liked to see how each Sir John, and Sir Hugh, and
Sir Ralph, and Sir Randal, had left his mark upon the place, each
after his own taste; and he had no more notion of disturbing his
ancestors' work than of disturbing their graves. For now the house
looked like a real live house, that had a history, and had grown
and grown as the world grew; and that it was only an upstart fellow
who did not know who his own grandfather was, who would change it
for some spick and span new Gothic or Elizabethan thing, which
looked as if it bad been all spawned in a night, as mushrooms are.
From which you may collect (if you have wit enough) that Sir John
was a very sound-headed, sound-hearted squire, and just the man to
keep the country side in order, and show good sport with his
hounds.
But Tom and his master did not go in through the great iron gates,
as if they had been Dukes or Bishops, but round the back way, and a
very long way round it was; and into a little back-door, where the
ash-boy let them in, yawning horribly; and then in a passage the
housekeeper met them, in such a flowered chintz dressing-gown, that
Tom mistook her for My Lady herself, and she gave Grimes solemn
orders about "You will take care of this, and take care of that,"
as if he was going up the chimneys, and not Tom. And Grimes
listened, and said every now and then, under his voice, "You'll
mind that, you little beggar?" and Tom did mind, all at least that
he could. And then the housekeeper turned them into a grand room,
all covered up in sheets of brown paper, and bade them begin, in a
lofty and tremendous voice; and so after a whimper or two, and a
kick from his master, into the grate Tom went, and up the chimney,
while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the furniture; to
whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous compliments, but
met with very slight encouragement in return.
How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say; but he swept so many that
he got quite tired, and puzzled too, for they were not like the
town flues to which he was accustomed, but such as you would find -
if you would only get up them and look, which perhaps you would not
like to do - in old country-houses, large and crooked chimneys,
which had been altered again and again, till they ran one into
another, anastomosing (as Professor Owen would say) considerably.
So Tom fairly lost his way in them; not that he cared much for
that, though he was in pitchy darkness, for he was as much at home
in a chimney as a mole is underground; but at last, coming down as
he thought the right chimney, he came down the wrong one, and found
himself standing on the hearthrug in a room the like of which he
had never seen before.
Tom had never seen the like. He had never been in gentlefolks'
rooms but when the carpets were all up, and the curtains down, and
the furniture huddled together under a cloth, and the pictures
covered with aprons and dusters; and he had often enough wondered
what the rooms were like when they were all ready for the quality
to sit in. And now he saw, and he thought the sight very pretty.
The room was all dressed in white, - white window-curtains, white
bed-curtains, white furniture, and white walls, with just a few
lines of pink here and there. The carpet was all over gay little
flowers; and the walls were hung with pictures in gilt frames,
which amused Tom very much. There were pictures of ladies and
gentlemen, and pictures of horses and dogs. The horses he liked;
but the dogs he did not care for much, for there were no bull-dogs
among them, not even a terrier. But the two pictures which took
his fancy most were, one a man in long garments, with little
children and their mothers round him, who was laying his hand upon
the children's heads. That was a very pretty picture, Tom thought,
to hang in a lady's room. For he could see that it was a lady's
room by the dresses which lay about.
The other picture was that of a man nailed to a cross, which
surprised Tom much. He fancied that he had seen something like it
in a shop-window. But why was it there? "Poor man," thought Tom,
"and he looks so kind and quiet. But why should the lady have such
a sad picture as that in her room? Perhaps it was some kinsman of
hers, who had been murdered by the savages in foreign parts, and
she kept it there for a remembrance." And Tom felt sad, and awed,
and turned to look at something else.
The next thing he saw, and that too puzzled him, was a washingstand,
with ewers and basins, and soap and brushes, and towels, and
a large bath full of clean water - what a heap of things all for
washing! "She must be a very dirty lady," thought Tom, "by my
master's rule, to want as much scrubbing as all that. But she must
be very cunning to put the dirt out of the way so well afterwards,
for I don't see a speck about the room, not even on the very
towels."
And then, looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty lady, and held
his breath with astonishment.
Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white pillow, lay the
most beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen. Her cheeks were
almost as white as the pillow, and her hair was like threads of
gold spread all about over the bed. She might have been as old as
Tom, or maybe a year or two older; but Tom did not think of that.
He thought only of her delicate skin and golden hair, and wondered
whether she was a real live person, or one of the wax dolls he had
seen in the shops. But when he saw her breathe, he made up his
mind that she was alive, and stood staring at her, as if she had
been an angel out of heaven.
No. She cannot be dirty. She never could have been dirty, thought
Tom to himself. And then he thought, "And are all people like that
when they are washed?" And he looked at his own wrist, and tried
to rub the soot off, and wondered whether it ever would come off.
"Certainly I should look much prettier then, if I grew at all like
her."
And looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close to him, a little
ugly, black, ragged figure, with bleared eyes and grinning white
teeth. He turned on it angrily. What did such a little black ape
want in that sweet young lady's room? And behold, it was himself,
reflected in a great mirror, the like of which Tom had never seen
before.
And Tom, for the first time in his life, found out that he was
dirty; and burst into tears with shame and anger; and turned to
sneak up the chimney again and hide; and upset the fender and threw
the fire-irons down, with a noise as of ten thousand tin kettles
tied to ten thousand mad dogs' tails.
Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, seeing Tom,
screamed as shrill as any peacock. In rushed a stout old nurse
from the next room, and seeing Tom likewise, made up her mind that
he had come to rob, plunder, destroy, and burn; and dashed at him,
as he lay over the fender, so fast that she caught him by the
jacket.
But she did not hold him. Tom had been in a policeman's hands many
a time, and out of them too, what is more; and he would have been
ashamed to face his friends for ever if he had been stupid enough
to be caught by an old woman; so he doubled under the good lady's
arm, across the room, and out of the window in a moment.
He did not need to drop out, though he would have done so bravely
enough. Nor even to let himself down a spout, which would have
been an old game to him; for once he got up by a spout to the
church roof, he said to take jackdaws' eggs, but the policeman said
to steal lead; and, when he was seen on high, sat there till the
sun got too hot, and came down by another spout, leaving the
policemen to go back to the stationhouse and eat their dinners.
But all under the window spread a tree, with great leaves and sweet
white flowers, almost as big as his head. It was magnolia, I
suppose; but Tom knew nothing about that, and cared less; for down
the tree he went, like a cat, and across the garden lawn, and over
the iron railings and up the park towards the wood, leaving the old
nurse to scream murder and fire at the window.
The under gardener, mowing, saw Tom, and threw down his scythe;
caught his leg in it, and cut his shin open, whereby he kept his
bed for a week; but in his hurry he never knew it, and gave chase
to poor Tom. The dairymaid heard the noise, got the churn between
her knees, and tumbled over it, spilling all the cream; and yet she
jumped up, and gave chase to Tom. A groom cleaning Sir John's hack
at the stables let him go loose, whereby he kicked himself lame in
five minutes; but he ran out and gave chase to Tom. Grimes upset
the soot-sack in the new-gravelled yard, and spoilt it all utterly;
but he ran out and gave chase to Tom. The old steward opened the
park-gate in such a hurry, that he hung up his pony's chin upon the
spikes, and, for aught I know, it hangs there still; but he jumped
off, and gave chase to Tom. The ploughman left his horses at the
headland, and one jumped over the fence, and pulled the other into
the ditch, plough and all; but he ran on, and gave chase to Tom.
The keeper, who was taking a stoat out of a trap, let the stoat go,
and caught his own finger; but he jumped up, and ran after Tom; and
considering what he said, and how he looked, I should have been
sorry for Tom if he had caught him. Sir John looked out of his
study window (for he was an early old gentleman) and up at the
nurse, and a marten dropped mud in his eye, so that he had at last
to send for the doctor; and yet he ran out, and gave chase to Tom.
The Irishwoman, too, was walking up to the house to beg, - she must
have got round by some byway - but she threw away her bundle, and
gave chase to Tom likewise. Only my Lady did not give chase; for
when she had put her head out of the window, her night-wig fell
into the garden, and she had to ring up her lady's-maid, and send
her down for it privately, which quite put her out of the running,
so that she came in nowhere, and is consequently not placed.
In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place - not even when the
fox was killed in the conservatory, among acres of broken glass,
and tons of smashed flower-pots - such a noise, row, hubbub, babel,
shindy, hullabaloo, stramash, charivari, and total contempt of
dignity, repose, and order, as that day, when Grimes, gardener, the
groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the steward, the ploughman, the
keeper, and the Irishwoman, all ran up the park, shouting, "Stop
thief," in the belief that Tom had at least a thousand pounds'
worth of jewels in his empty pockets; and the very magpies and jays
followed Tom up, screaking and screaming, as if he were a hunted
fox, beginning to droop his brush.
And all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with his little bare
feet, like a small black gorilla fleeing to the forest. Alas for
him! there was no big father gorilla therein to take his part - to
scratch out the gardener's inside with one paw, toss the dairymaid
into a tree with another, and wrench off Sir John's head with a
third, while he cracked the keeper's skull with his teeth as easily
as if it had been a cocoa-nut or a paving-stone.
However, Tom did not remember ever having had a father; so he did
not look for one, and expected to have to take care of himself;
while as for running, he could keep up for a couple of miles with
any stage-coach, if there was the chance of a copper or a cigarend,
and turn coach-wheels on his hands and feet ten times
following, which is more than you can do. Wherefore his pursuers
found it very difficult to catch him; and we will hope that they
did not catch him at all.
Tom, of course, made for the woods. He had never been in a wood in
his life; but he was sharp enough to know that he might hide in a
bush, or swarm up a tree, and, altogether, had more chance there
than in the open. If he had not known that, he would have been
foolisher than a mouse or a minnow.
But when he got into the wood, he found it a very different sort of
place from what he had fancied. He pushed into a thick cover of
rhododendrons, and found himself at once caught in a trap. The
boughs laid hold of his legs and arms, poked him in his face and
his stomach, made him shut his eyes tight (though that was no great
loss, for he could not see at best a yard before his nose); and
when he got through the rhododendrons, the hassock-grass and sedges
tumbled him over, and cut his poor little fingers afterwards most
spitefully; the birches birched him as soundly as if he had been a
nobleman at Eton, and over the face too (which is not fair swishing
as all brave boys will agree); and the lawyers tripped him up, and
tore his shins as if they had sharks' teeth - which lawyers are
likely enough to have.
"I must get out of this," thought Tom, "or I shall stay here till
somebody comes to help me - which is just what I don't want."
But how to get out was the difficult matter. And indeed I don't
think he would ever have got out at all, but have stayed there till
the cock-robins covered him with leaves, if he had not suddenly run
his head against a wall.
Now running your head against a wall is not pleasant, especially if
it is a loose wall, with the stones all set on edge, and a sharp
cornered one hits you between the eyes and makes you see all manner
of beautiful stars. The stars are very beautiful, certainly; but
unfortunately they go in the twenty-thousandth part of a split
second, and the pain which comes after them does not. And so Tom
hurt his head; but he was a brave boy, and did not mind that a
penny. He guessed that over the wall the cover would end; and up
it he went, and over like a squirrel.
And there he was, out on the great grouse-moors, which the country
folk called Harthover Fell - heather and bog and rock, stretching
away and up, up to the very sky.
Now, Tom was a cunning little fellow - as cunning as an old Exmoor
stag. Why not? Though he was but ten years old, he had lived
longer than most stags, and had more wits to start with into the
bargain.
He knew as well as a stag, that if he backed he might throw the
hounds out. So the first thing he did when he was over the wall
was to make the neatest double sharp to his right, and run along
under the wall for nearly half a mile.
Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the steward, and the
gardener, and the ploughman, and the dairymaid, and all the hueand-
cry together, went on ahead half a mile in the very opposite
direction, and inside the wall, leaving him a mile off on the
outside; while Tom heard their shouts die away in the woods and
chuckled to himself merrily.
At last he came to a dip in the land, and went to the bottom of it,
and then he turned bravely away from the wall and up the moor; for
he knew that he had put a hill between him and his enemies, and
could go on without their seeing him.
But the Irishwoman, alone of them all, had seen which way Tom went.
She had kept ahead of every one the whole time; and yet she neither
walked nor ran. She went along quite smoothly and gracefully,
while her feet twinkled past each other so fast that you could not
see which was foremost; till every one asked the other who the
strange woman was; and all agreed, for want of anything better to
say, that she must be in league with Tom.
But when she came to the plantation, they lost sight of her; and
they could do no less. For she went quietly over the wall after
Tom, and followed him wherever he went. Sir John and the rest saw
no more of her; and out of sight was out of mind.
And now Tom was right away into the heather, over just such a moor
as those in which you have been bred, except that there were rocks
and stones lying about everywhere, and that, instead of the moor
growing flat as he went upwards, it grew more and more broken and
hilly, but not so rough but that little Tom could jog along well
enough, and find time, too, to stare about at the strange place,
which was like a new world to him.
He saw great spiders there, with crowns and crosses marked on their
backs, who sat in the middle of their webs, and when they saw Tom
coming, shook them so fast that they became invisible. Then he saw
lizards, brown and gray and green, and thought they were snakes,
and would sting him; but they were as much frightened as he, and
shot away into the heath. And then, under a rock, he saw a pretty
sight - a great brown, sharp-nosed creature, with a white tag to
her brush, and round her four or five smutty little cubs, the
funniest fellows Tom ever saw. She lay on her back, rolling about,
and stretching out her legs and head and tail in the bright
sunshine; and the cubs jumped over her, and ran round her, and
nibbled her paws, and lugged her about by the tail; and she seemed
to enjoy it mightily. But one selfish little fellow stole away
from the rest to a dead crow close by, and dragged it off to hide
it, though it was nearly as big as he was. Whereat all his little
brothers set off after him in full cry, and saw Tom; and then all
ran back, and up jumped Mrs. Vixen, and caught one up in her mouth,
and the rest toddled after her, and into a dark crack in the rocks;
and there was an end of the show.
And next he had a fright; for, as he scrambled up a sandy brow -
whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock-kick - something went off in his face,
with a most horrid noise. He thought the ground had blown up, and
the end of the world come.
And when he opened his eyes (for he shut them very tight) it was
only an old cock-grouse, who had been washing himself in sand, like
an Arab, for want of water; and who, when Tom had all but trodden
on him, jumped up with a noise like the express train, leaving his
wife and children to shift for themselves, like an old coward, and
went off, screaming "Cur-ru-u-uck, cur-ru-u-uck - murder, thieves,
fire - cur-u-uck-cock-kick - the end of the world is come - kickkick-
cock-kick." He was always fancying that the end of the world
was come, when anything happened which was farther off than the end
of his own nose. But the end of the world was not come, any more
than the twelfth of August was; though the old grouse-cock was
quite certain of it.
So the old grouse came back to his wife and family an hour
afterwards, and said solemnly, "Cock-cock-kick; my dears, the end
of the world is not quite come; but I assure you it is coming the
day after to-morrow - cock." But his wife had heard that so often
that she knew all about it, and a little more. And, besides, she
was the mother of a family, and had seven little poults to wash and
feed every day; and that made her very practical, and a little
sharp-tempered; so all she answered was: "Kick-kick-kick - go and
catch spiders, go and catch spiders - kick."
So Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why; but he liked the great
wide strange place, and the cool fresh bracing air. But he went
more and more slowly as he got higher up the hill; for now the
ground grew very bad indeed. Instead of soft turf and springy
heather, he met great patches of flat limestone rock, just like
ill-made pavements, with deep cracks between the stones and ledges,
filled with ferns; so he had to hop from stone to stone, and now
and then he slipped in between, and hurt his little bare toes,
though they were tolerably tough ones; but still he would go on and
up, he could not tell why.
What would Tom have said if he had seen, walking over the moor
behind him, the very same Irishwoman who had taken his part upon
the road? But whether it was that he looked too little behind him,
or whether it was that she kept out of sight behind the rocks and
knolls, he never saw her, though she saw him.
And now he began to get a little hungry, and very thirsty; for he
had run a long way, and the sun had risen high in heaven, and the
rock was as hot as an oven, and the air danced reels over it, as it
does over a limekiln, till everything round seemed quivering and
melting in the glare.
But he could see nothing to eat anywhere, and still less to drink.
The heath was full of bilberries and whimberries; but they were
only in flower yet, for it was June. And as for water; who can
find that on the top of a limestone rock? Now and then he passed
by a deep dark swallow-hole, going down into the earth, as if it
was the chimney of some dwarfs house underground; and more than
once, as he passed, he could hear water falling, trickling,
tinkling, many many feet below. How he longed to get down to it,
and cool his poor baked lips! But, brave little chimney-sweep as
he was, he dared not climb down such chimneys as those.
So he went on and on, till his head spun round with the heat, and
he thought he heard church-bells ringing a long way off.
"Ah!" he thought, "where there is a church there will be houses and
people; and, perhaps, some one will give me a bit and a sup." So
he set off again, to look for the church; for he was sure that he
heard the bells quite plain.
And in a minute more, when he looked round, he stopped again, and
said, "Why, what a big place the world is!"
And so it was; for, from the top of the mountain he could see -
what could he not see?
Behind him, far below, was Harthover, and the dark woods, and the
shining salmon river; and on his left, far below, was the town, and
the smoking chimneys of the collieries; and far, far away, the
river widened to the shining sea; and little white specks, which
were ships, lay on its bosom. Before him lay, spread out like a
map, great plains, and farms, and villages, amid dark knots of
trees. They all seemed at his very feet; but he had sense to see
that they were long miles away.
And to his right rose moor after moor, hill after hill, till they
faded away, blue into blue sky. But between him and those moors,
and really at his very feet, lay something, to which, as soon as
Tom saw it, he determined to go, for that was the place for him.
A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow, and filled with
wood; but through the wood, hundreds of feet below him, he could
see a clear stream glance. Oh, if he could but get down to that
stream! Then, by the stream, he saw the roof of a little cottage,
and a little garden set out in squares and beds. And there was a
tiny little red thing moving in the garden, no bigger than a fly.
As Tom looked down, he saw that it was a woman in a red petticoat.
Ah! perhaps she would give him something to eat. And there were
the church-bells ringing again. Surely there must be a village
down there. Well, nobody would know him, or what had happened at
the Place. The news could not have got there yet, even if Sir John
had set all the policemen in the county after him; and he could get
down there in five minutes.
Tom was quite right about the hue-and-cry not having got thither;
for he had come without knowing it, the best part of ten miles from
Harthover; but he was wrong about getting down in five minutes, for
the cottage was more than a mile off, and a good thousand feet
below.
However, down he went; like a brave little man as he was, though he
was very footsore, and tired, and hungry, and thirsty; while the
church-bells rang so loud, he began to think that they must be
inside his own head, and the river chimed and tinkled far below;
and this was the song which it sang:-
Clear and cool, clear and cool,
By laughing shallow, and dreaming pool;
Cool and clear, cool and clear,
By shining shingle, and foaming wear;
Under the crag where the ouzel sings,
And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings,
Undefiled, for the undefiled;
Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child.
Dank and foul, dank and foul,
By the smoky town in its murky cowl;
Foul and dank, foul and dank,
By wharf and sewer and slimy bank;
Darker and darker the farther I go,
Baser and baser the richer I grow;
Who dares sport with the sin-defiled?
Shrink from me, turn from me, mother and child.
Strong and free, strong and free,
The floodgates are open, away to the sea,
Free and strong, free and strong,
Cleansing my streams as I hurry along,
To the golden sands, and the leaping bar,
And the taintless tide that awaits me afar.
As I lose myself in the infinite main,
Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again.
Undefiled, for the undefiled;
Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child.
So Tom went down; and all the while he never saw the Irishwoman
going down behind him.
CHAPTER II
"And is there care in heaven? and is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base
That may compassion of their evils move?
There is:- else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts: But oh! the exceeding grace
Of Highest God that loves His creatures so,
And all His works with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed Angels He sends to and fro,
To serve to wicked man, to serve His wicked foe!"
SPENSER.
A mile off, and a thousand feet down.
So Tom found it; though it seemed as if he could have chucked a
pebble on to the back of the woman in the red petticoat who was
weeding in the garden, or even across the dale to the rocks beyond.
For the bottom of the valley was just one field broad, and on the
other side ran the stream; and above it, gray crag, gray down, gray
stair, gray moor walled up to heaven.
A quiet, silent, rich, happy place; a narrow crack cut deep into
the earth; so deep, and so out of the way, that the bad bogies can
hardly find it out. The name of the place is Vendale; and if you
want to see it for yourself, you must go up into the High Craven,
and search from Bolland Forest north by Ingleborough, to the Nine
Standards and Cross Fell; and if you have not found it, you must
turn south, and search the Lake Mountains, down to Scaw Fell and
the sea; and then, if you have not found it, you must go northward
again by merry Carlisle, and search the Cheviots all across, from
Annan Water to Berwick Law; and then, whether you have found
Vendale or not, you will have found such a country, and such a
people, as ought to make you proud of being a British boy.
So Tom went to go down; and first he went down three hundred feet
of steep heather, mixed up with loose brown grindstone, as rough as
a file; which was not pleasant to his poor little heels, as he came
bump, stump, jump, down the steep. And still he thought he could
throw a stone into the garden.
Then he went down three hundred feet of lime-stone terraces, one
below the other, as straight as if a carpenter had ruled them with
his ruler and then cut them out with his chisel. There was no
heath there, but -
First, a little grass slope, covered with the prettiest flowers,
rockrose and saxifrage, and thyme and basil, and all sorts of sweet
herbs.
Then bump down a two-foot step of limestone.
Then another bit of grass and flowers.
Then bump down a one-foot step.
Then another bit of grass and flowers for fifty yards, as steep as
the house-roof, where he had to slide down on his dear little tail.
Then another step of stone, ten feet high; and there he had to stop
himself, and crawl along the edge to find a crack; for if he had
rolled over, he would have rolled right into the old woman's
garden, and frightened her out of her wits.
Then, when he had found a dark narrow crack, full of green-stalked
fern, such as hangs in the basket in the drawing-room, and had
crawled down through it, with knees and elbows, as he would down a
chimney, there was another grass slope, and another step, and so
on, till - oh, dear me! I wish it was all over; and so did he.
And yet he thought he could throw a stone into the old woman's
garden.
At last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs; white-beam with its
great silver-backed leaves, and mountain-ash, and oak; and below
them cliff and crag, cliff and crag, with great beds of crown-ferns
and wood-sedge; while through the shrubs he could see the stream
sparkling, and hear it murmur on the white pebbles. He did not
know that it was three hundred feet below.
You would have been giddy, perhaps, at looking down: but Tom was
not. He was a brave little chimney-sweep; and when he found
himself on the top of a high cliff, instead of sitting down and
crying for his baba (though he never had had any baba to cry for),
he said, "Ah, this will just suit me!" though he was very tired;
and down he went, by stock and stone, sedge and ledge, bush and
rush, as if he had been born a jolly little black ape, with four
hands instead of two.
And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman coming down behind
him.
But he was getting terribly tired now. The burning sun on the
fells had sucked him up; but the damp heat of the woody crag sucked
him up still more; and the perspiration ran out of the ends of his
fingers and toes, and washed him cleaner than he had been for a
whole year. But, of course, he dirtied everything, terribly as he
went. There has been a great black smudge all down the crag ever
since. And there have been more black beetles in Vendale since
than ever were known before; all, of course, owing to Tom's having
blacked the original papa of them all, just as he was setting off
to be married, with a sky-blue coat and scarlet leggins, as smart
as a gardener's dog with a polyanthus in his mouth.
At last he got to the bottom. But, behold, it was not the bottom -
as people usually find when they are coming down a mountain. For
at the foot of the crag were heaps and heaps of fallen limestone of
every size from that of your head to that of a stage-waggon, with
holes between them full of sweet heath-fern; and before Tom got
through them, he was out in the bright sunshine again; and then he
felt, once for all and suddenly, as people generally do, that he
was b-e-a-t, beat.
You must expect to be beat a few times in your life, little man, if
you live such a life as a man ought to live, let you be as strong
and healthy as you may: and when you are, you will find it a very
ugly feeling. I hope that that day you may have a stout staunch
friend by you who is not beat; for, if you have not, you had best
lie where you are, and wait for better times, as poor Tom did.
He could not get on. The sun was burning, and yet he felt chill
all over. He was quite empty, and yet he felt quite sick. There
was but two hundred yards of smooth pasture between him and the
cottage, and yet he could not walk down it. He could hear the
stream murmuring only one field beyond it, and yet it seemed to him
as if it was a hundred miles off.
He lay down on the grass till the beetles ran over him, and the
flies settled on his nose. I don't know when he would have got up
again, if the gnats and the midges had not taken compassion on him.
But the gnats blew their trumpets so loud in his ear, and the
midges nibbled so at his hands and face wherever they could find a
place free from soot, that at last he woke up, and stumbled away,
down over a low wall, and into a narrow road, and up to the
cottage-door.
And a neat pretty cottage it was, with clipped yew hedges all round
the garden, and yews inside too, cut into peacocks and trumpets and
teapots and all kinds of queer shapes. And out of the open door
came a noise like that of the frogs on the Great-A, when they know
that it is going to be scorching hot to-morrow - and how they know
that I don't know, and you don't know, and nobody knows.
He came slowly up to the open door, which was all hung round with
clematis and roses; and then peeped in, half afraid.
And there sat by the empty fireplace, which was filled with a pot
of sweet herbs, the nicest old woman that ever was seen, in her red
petticoat, and short dimity bedgown, and clean white cap, with a
black silk handkerchief over it, tied under her chin. At her feet
sat the grandfather of all the cats; and opposite her sat, on two
benches, twelve or fourteen neat, rosy, chubby little children,
learning their Chris-cross-row; and gabble enough they made about
it.
Such a pleasant cottage it was, with a shiny clean stone floor, and
curious old prints on the walls, and an old black oak sideboard
full of bright pewter and brass dishes, and a cuckoo clock in the
corner, which began shouting as soon as Tom appeared: not that it
was frightened at Tom, but that it was just eleven o'clock.
All the children started at Tom's dirty black figure, - the girls
began to cry, and the boys began to laugh, and all pointed at him
rudely enough; but Tom was too tired to care for that.
"What art thou, and what dost want?" cried the old dame. "A
chimney-sweep! Away with thee! I'll have no sweeps here."
"Water," said poor little Tom, quite faint.
"Water? There's plenty i' the beck," she said, quite sharply.
"But I can't get there; I'm most clemmed with hunger and drought."
And Tom sank down upon the door-step, and laid his head against the
post.
And the old dame looked at him through her spectacles one minute,
and two, and three; and then she said, "He's sick; and a bairn's a
bairn, sweep or none."
"Water," said Tom.
"God forgive me!" and she put by her spectacles, and rose, and came
to Tom. "Water's bad for thee; I'll give thee milk." And she
toddled off into the next room, and brought a cup of milk and a bit
of bread.
Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then looked up, revived.
"Where didst come from?" said the dame.
"Over Fell, there," said Tom, and pointed up into the sky.
"Over Harthover? and down Lewthwaite Crag? Art sure thou art not
lying?"
"Why should I?" said Tom, and leant his head against the post.
"And how got ye up there?"
"I came over from the Place;" and Tom was so tired and desperate he
had no heart or time to think of a story, so he told all the truth
in a few words.
"Bless thy little heart! And thou hast not been stealing, then?"
"No."
"Bless thy little heart! and I'll warrant not. Why, God's guided
the bairn, because he was innocent! Away from the Place, and over
Harthover Fell, and down Lewthwaite Crag! Who ever heard the like,
if God hadn't led him? Why dost not eat thy bread?"
"I can't."
"It's good enough, for I made it myself."
"I can't," said Tom, and he laid his head on his knees, and then
asked -
"Is it Sunday?"
"No, then; why should it be?"
"Because I hear the church-bells ringing so."
"Bless thy pretty heart! The bairn's sick. Come wi' me, and I'll
hap thee up somewhere. If thou wert a bit cleaner I'd put thee in
my own bed, for the Lord's sake. But come along here."
But when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired and giddy that she
had to help him and lead him.
She put him in an outhouse upon soft sweet hay and an old rug, and
bade him sleep off his walk, and she would come to him when school
was over, in an hour's time.
And so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall fast asleep at
once.
But Tom did not fall asleep.
Instead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about in the
strangest way, and felt so hot all over that he longed to get into
the river and cool himself; and then he fell half asleep, and
dreamt that he heard the little white lady crying to him, "Oh,
you're so dirty; go and be washed;" and then that he heard the
Irishwoman saying, "Those that wish to be clean, clean they will
be." And then he heard the church-bells ring so loud, close to him
too, that he was sure it must be Sunday, in spite of what the old
dame had said; and he would go to church, and see what a church was
like inside, for he had never been in one, poor little fellow, in
all his life. But the people would never let him come in, all over
soot and dirt like that. He must go to the river and wash first.
And he said out loud again and again, though being half asleep he
did not know it, "I must be clean, I must be clean."
And all of a sudden he found himself, not in the outhouse on the
hay, but in the middle of a meadow, over the road, with the stream
just before him, saying continually, "I must be clean, I must be
clean." He had got there on his own legs, between sleep and awake,
as children will often get out of bed, and go about the room, when
they are not quite well. But he was not a bit surprised, and went
on to the bank of the brook, and lay down on the grass, and looked
into the clear, clear limestone water, with every pebble at the
bottom bright and clean, while the little silver trout dashed about
in fright at the sight of his black face; and he dipped his hand in
and found it so cool, cool, cool; and he said, "I will be a fish; I
will swim in the water; I must be clean, I must be clean."
So he pulled off all his clothes in such haste that he tore some of
them, which was easy enough with such ragged old things. And he
put his poor hot sore feet into the water; and then his legs; and
the farther he went in, the more the church-bells rang in his head.
"Ah," said Tom, "I must be quick and wash myself; the bells are
ringing quite loud now; and they will stop soon, and then the door
will be shut, and I shall never be able to get in at all."
Tom was mistaken: for in England the church doors are left open
all service time, for everybody who likes to come in, Churchman or
Dissenter; ay, even if he were a Turk or a Heathen; and if any man
dared to turn him out, as long as he behaved quietly, the good old
English law would punish that man, as he deserved, for ordering any
peaceable person out of God's house, which belongs to all alike.
But Tom did not know that, any more than he knew a great deal more
which people ought to know.
And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman, not behind him this
time, but before.
For just before he came to the river side, she had stept down into
the cool clear water; and her shawl and her petticoat floated off
her, and the green water-weeds floated round her sides, and the
white water-lilies floated round her head, and the fairies of the
stream came up from the bottom and bore her away and down upon
their arms; for she was the Queen of them all; and perhaps of more
besides.
"Where have you been?" they asked her.
"I have been smoothing sick folks' pillows, and whispering sweet
dreams into their ears; opening cottage casements, to let out the
stifling air; coaxing little children away from gutters, and foul
pools where fever breeds; turning women from the gin-shop door, and
staying men's hands as they were going to strike their wives; doing
all I can to help those who will not help themselves: and little
enough that is, and weary work for me. But I have brought you a
new little brother, and watched him safe all the way here."
Then all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought that they had a
little brother coming.
"But mind, maidens, he must not see you, or know that you are here.
He is but a savage now, and like the beasts which perish; and from
the beasts which perish he must learn. So you must not play with
him, or speak to him, or let him see you: but only keep him from
being harmed."
Then the fairies were sad, because they could not play with their
new brother, but they always did what they were told.
And their Queen floated away down the river; and whither she went,
thither she came. But all this Tom, of course, never saw or heard:
and perhaps if he had it would have made little difference in the
story; for was so hot and thirsty, and longed so to be clean for
once, that he tumbled himself as quick as he could into the clear
cool stream.
And he had not been in it two minutes before he fell fast asleep,
into the quietest, sunniest, cosiest sleep that ever he had in his
life; and he dreamt about the green meadows by which he had walked
that morning, and the tall elm-trees, and the sleeping cows; and
after that he dreamt of nothing at all.
The reason of his falling into such a delightful sleep is very
simple; and yet hardly any one has found it out. It was merely
that the fairies took him.
Some people think that there are no fairies. Cousin Cramchild
tells little folks so in his Conversations. Well, perhaps there
are none - in Boston, U.S., where he was raised. There are only a
clumsy lot of spirits there, who can't make people hear without
thumping on the table: but they get their living thereby, and I
suppose that is all they want. And Aunt Agitate, in her Arguments
on political economy, says there are none. Well, perhaps there are
none - in her political economy. But it is a wide world, my little
man - and thank Heaven for it, for else, between crinolines and
theories, some of us would get squashed - and plenty of room in it
for fairies, without people seeing them; unless, of course, they
look in the right place. The most wonderful and the strongest
things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can
see. There is life in you; and it is the life in you which makes
you grow, and move, and think: and yet you can't see it. And
there is steam in a steam-engine; and that is what makes it move:
and yet you can't see it; and so there may be fairies in the world,
and they may be just what makes the world go round to the old tune
of
"C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour
Qui fait la monde e la ronde:"
and yet no one may be able to see them except those whose hearts
are going round to that same tune. At all events, we will make
believe that there are fairies in the world. It will not be the
last time by many a one that we shall have to make believe. And
yet, after all, there is no need for that. There must be fairies;
for this is a fairy tale: and how can one have a fairy tale if
there are no fairies?
You don't see the logic of that? Perhaps not. Then please not to
see the logic of a great many arguments exactly like it, which you
will hear before your beard is gray.
The kind old dame came back at twelve, when school was over, to
look at Tom: but there was no Tom there. She looked about for his
footprints; but the ground was so hard that there was no slot, as
they say in dear old North Devon. And if you grow up to be a brave
healthy man, you may know some day what no slot means, and know
too, I hope, what a slot does mean - a broad slot, with blunt
claws, which makes a man put out his cigar, and set his teeth, and
tighten his girths, when he sees it; and what his rights mean, if
he has them, brow, bay, tray, and points; and see something worth
seeing between Haddon Wood and Countisbury Cliff, with good Mr.
Palk Collyns to show you the way, and mend your bones as fast as
you smash them. Only when that jolly day comes, please don't break
your neck; stogged in a mire you never will be, I trust; for you
are a heath-cropper bred and born.
So the old dame went in again quite sulky, thinking that little Tom
had tricked her with a false story, and shammed ill, and then run
away again.
But she altered her mind the next day. For, when Sir John and the
rest of them had run themselves out of breath, and lost Tom, they
went back again, looking very foolish.
And they looked more foolish still when Sir John heard more of the
story from the nurse; and more foolish still, again, when they
heard the whole story from Miss Ellie, the little lady in white.
All she had seen was a poor little black chimney-sweep, crying and
sobbing, and going to get up the chimney again. Of course, she was
very much frightened: and no wonder. But that was all. The boy
had taken nothing in the room; by the mark of his little sooty
feet, they could see that he had never been off the hearthrug till
the nurse caught hold of him. It was all a mistake.
So Sir John told Grimes to go home, and promised him five shillings
if he would bring the boy quietly up to him, without beating him,
that he might be sure of the truth. For he took for granted, and
Grimes too, that Tom had made his way home.
But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that evening; and he went to the
police-office, to tell them to look out for the boy. But no Tom
was heard of. As for his having gone over those great fells to
Vendale, they no more dreamed of that than of his having gone to
the moon.
So Mr. Grimes came up to Harthover next day with a very sour face;
but when he got there, Sir John was over the hills and far away;
and Mr. Grimes had to sit in the outer servants' hall all day, and
drink strong ale to wash away his sorrows; and they were washed
away long before Sir John came back.
For good Sir John had slept very badly that night; and he said to
his lady, "My dear, the boy must have got over into the grousemoors,
and lost himself; and he lies very heavily on my conscience,
poor little lad. But I know what I will do."
So, at five the next morning up he got, and into his bath, and into
his shooting-jacket and gaiters, and into the stableyard, like a
fine old English gentleman, with a face as red as a rose, and a
hand as hard as a table, and a back as broad as a bullock's; and
bade them bring his shooting pony, and the keeper to come on his
pony, and the huntsman, and the first whip, and the second whip,
and the under-keeper with the bloodhound in a leash - a great dog
as tall as a calf, of the colour of a gravel-walk, with mahogany
ears and nose, and a throat like a church-bell. They took him up
to the place where Tom had gone into the wood; and there the hound
lifted up his mighty voice, and told them all he knew.
Then he took them to the place where Tom had climbed the wall; and
they shoved it down, and all got through.
And then the wise dog took them over the moor, and over the fells,
step by step, very slowly; for the scent was a day old, you know,
and very light from the heat and drought. But that was why cunning
old Sir John started at five in the morning.
And at last he came to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and there he
bayed, and looked up in their faces, as much as to say, "I tell you
he is gone down here!"
They could hardly believe that Tom would have gone so far; and when
they looked at that awful cliff, they could never believe that he
would have dared to face it. But if the dog said so, it must be
true.
"Heaven forgive us!" said Sir John. "If we find him at all, we
shall find him lying at the bottom." And he slapped his great hand
upon his great thigh, and said -
"Who will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, and see if that boy is
alive? Oh that I were twenty years younger, and I would go down
myself!" And so he would have done, as well as any sweep in the
county. Then he said -
"Twenty pounds to the man who brings me that boy alive!" and as was
his way, what he said he meant.
Now among the lot was a little groom-boy, a very little groom
indeed; and he was the same who had ridden up the court, and told
Tom to come to the Hall; and he said -
"Twenty pounds or none, I will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, if
it's only for the poor boy's sake. For he was as civil a spoken
little chap as ever climbed a flue."
So down over Lewthwaite Crag he went: a very smart groom he was at
the top, and a very shabby one at the bottom; for he tore his
gaiters, and he tore his breeches, and he tore his jacket, and he
burst his braces, and he burst his boots, and he lost his hat, and
what was worst of all, he lost his shirt pin, which he prized very
much, for it was gold, and he had won it in a raffle at Malton, and
there was a figure at the top of it, of t'ould mare, noble old
Beeswing herself, as natural as life; so it was a really severe
loss: but he never saw anything of Tom.
And all the while Sir John and the rest were riding round, full
three miles to the right, and back again, to get into Vendale, and
to the foot of the crag.
When they came to the old dame's school, all the children came out
to see. And the old dame came out too; and when she saw Sir John,
she curtsied very low, for she was a tenant of his.
"Well, dame, and how are you?" said Sir John.
"Blessings on you as broad as your back, Harthover," says she - she
didn't call him Sir John, but only Harthover, for that is the
fashion in the North country - "and welcome into Vendale: but
you're no hunting the fox this time of the year?"
"I am hunting, and strange game too," said he.
"Blessings on your heart, and what makes you look so sad the morn?"
"I'm looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep, that is run away."
"Oh, Harthover, Harthover," says she, "ye were always a just man
and a merciful; and ye'll no harm the poor little lad if I give you
tidings of him?"
"Not I, not I, dame. I'm afraid we hunted him out of the house all
on a miserable mistake, and the hound has brought him to the top of
Lewthwaite Crag, and - "
Whereat the old dame broke out crying, without letting him finish
his story.
"So he told me the truth after all, poor little dear! Ah, first
thoughts are best, and a body's heart'll guide them right, if they
will but hearken to it." And then she told Sir John all.
"Bring the dog here, and lay him on," said Sir John, without
another word, and he set his teeth very hard.
And the dog opened at once; and went away at the back of the
cottage, over the road, and over the meadow, and through a bit of
alder copse; and there, upon an alder stump, they saw Tom's clothes
lying. And then they knew as much about it all as there was any
need to know.
And Tom?
Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this wonderful story.
Tom, when he woke, for of course he woke - children always wake
after they have slept exactly as long as is good for them - found
himself swimming about in the stream, being about four inches, or -
that I may be accurate - 3.87902 inches long and having round the
parotid region of his fauces a set of external gills (I hope you
understand all the big words) just like those of a sucking eft,
which he mistook for a lace frill, till he pulled at them, found he
hurt himself, and made up his mind that they were part of himself,
and best left alone.
In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.
A water-baby? You never heard of a water-baby. Perhaps not. That
is the very reason why this story was written. There are a great
many things in the world which you never heard of; and a great many
more which nobody ever heard of; and a great many things, too,
which nobody will ever hear of, at least until the coming of the
Cocqcigrues, when man shall be the measure of all things.
"But there are no such things as water-babies."
How do you know that? Have you been there to see? And if you had
been there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that
there were none. If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley Wood
- as folks sometimes fear he never will - that does not prove that
there are no such things as foxes. And as is Eversley Wood to all
the woods in England, so are the waters we know to all the waters
in the world. And no one has a right to say that no water-babies
exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; which is quite
a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and a thing
which nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do.
"But surely if there were water-babies, somebody would have caught
one at least?"
Well. How do you know that somebody has not?
"But they would have put it into spirits, or into the ILLUSTRATED
NEWS, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing,
and sent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see
what they would each say about it."
Ah, my dear little man! that does not follow at all, as you will
see before the end of the story.
"But a water-baby is contrary to nature."
Well, but, my dear little man, you must learn to talk about such
things, when you grow older, in a very different way from that.
You must not talk about "ain't" and "can't" when you speak of this
great wonderful world round you, of which the wisest man knows only
the very smallest corner, and is, as the great Sir Isaac Newton
said, only a child picking up pebbles on the shore of a boundless
ocean.
You must not say that this cannot be, or that that is contrary to
nature. You do not know what Nature is, or what she can do; and
nobody knows; not even Sir Roderick Murchison, or Professor Owen,
or Professor Sedgwick, or Professor Huxley, or Mr. Darwin, or
Professor Faraday, or Mr. Grove, or any other of the great men whom
good boys are taught to respect. They are very wise men; and you
must listen respectfully to all they say: but even if they should
say, which I am sure they never would, "That cannot exist. That is
contrary to nature," you must wait a little, and see; for perhaps
even they may be wrong. It is only children who read Aunt
Agitate's Arguments, or Cousin Cramchild's Conversations; or lads
who go to popular lectures, and see a man pointing at a few big
ugly pictures on the wall, or making nasty smells with bottles and
squirts, for an hour or two, and calling that anatomy or chemistry
- who talk about "cannot exist," and "contrary to nature." Wise
men are afraid to say that there is anything contrary to nature,
except what is contrary to mathematical truth; for two and two
cannot make five, and two straight lines cannot join twice, and a
part cannot be as great as the whole, and so on (at least, so it
seems at present): but the wiser men are, the less they talk about
"cannot." That is a very rash, dangerous word, that "cannot"; and
if people use it too often, the Queen of all the Fairies, who makes
the clouds thunder and the fleas bite, and takes just as much
trouble about one as about the other, is apt to astonish them
suddenly by showing them, that though they say she cannot, yet she
can, and what is more, will, whether they approve or not.
And therefore it is, that there are dozens and hundreds of things
in the world which we should certainly have said were contrary to
nature, if we did not see them going on under our eyes all day
long. If people had never seen little seeds grow into great plants
and trees, of quite different shape from themselves, and these
trees again produce fresh seeds, to grow into fresh trees, they
would have said, "The thing cannot be; it is contrary to nature."
And they would have been quite as right in saying so, as in saying
that most other things cannot be.
Or suppose again, that you had come, like M. Du Chaillu, a
traveller from unknown parts; and that no human being had ever seen
or heard of an elephant. And suppose that you described him to
people, and said, "This is the shape, and plan, and anatomy of the
beast, and of his feet, and of his trunk, and of his grinders, and
of his tusks, though they are not tusks at all, but two fore teeth
run mad; and this is the section of his skull, more like a mushroom
than a reasonable skull of a reasonable or unreasonable beast; and
so forth, and so forth; and though the beast (which I assure you I
have seen and shot) is first cousin to the little hairy coney of
Scripture, second cousin to a pig, and (I suspect) thirteenth or
fourteenth cousin to a rabbit, yet he is the wisest of all beasts,
and can do everything save read, write, and cast accounts." People
would surely have said, "Nonsense; your elephant is contrary to
nature;" and have thought you were telling stories - as the French
thought of Le Vaillant when he came back to Paris and said that he
had shot a giraffe; and as the king of the Cannibal Islands thought
of the English sailor, when he said that in his country water
turned to marble, and rain fell as feathers. They would tell you,
the more they knew of science, "Your elephant is an impossible
monster, contrary to the laws of comparative anatomy, as far as yet
known." To which you would answer the less, the more you thought.
Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last twenty-five
years, that a flying dragon was an impossible monster? And do we
not now know that there are hundreds of them found fossil up and
down the world? People call them Pterodactyles: but that is only
because they are ashamed to call them flying dragons, after denying
so long that flying dragons could exist.
The truth is, that folks' fancy that such and such things cannot
be, simply because they have not seen them, is worth no more than a
savage's fancy that there cannot be such a thing as a locomotive,
because he never saw one running wild in the forest. Wise men know
that their business is to examine what is, and not to settle what
is not. They know that there are elephants; they know that there
have been flying dragons; and the wiser they are, the less inclined
they will be to say positively that there are no water-babies.
No water-babies, indeed? Why, wise men of old said that everything
on earth had its double in the water; and you may see that that is,
if not quite true, still quite as true as most other theories which
you are likely to hear for many a day. There are land-babies -
then why not water-babies? ARE THERE NOT WATER-RATS, WATER-FLIES,
WATER-CRICKETS, WATER-CRABS, WATER-TORTOISES, WATERSCORPIONS,
WATER-TIGERS AND WATER-HOGS, WATER-CATS AND WATER-DOGS, SEALIONS
AND SEA-BEARS, SEA-HORSES AND SEA-ELEPHANTS, SEA-MICE AND SEAURCHINS,
SEA-RAZORS AND SEA-PENS, SEA-COMBS AND SEA-FANS; AND
OF
PLANTS, ARE THERE NOT WATER-GRASS, AND WATER-CROWFOOT,
WATERMILFOIL,
AND SO ON, WITHOUT END?
"But all these things are only nicknames; the water things are not
really akin to the land things."
That's not always true. They are, in millions of cases, not only
of the same family, but actually the same individual creatures. Do
not even you know that a green drake, and an alder-fly, and a
dragon-fly, live under water till they change their skins, just as
Tom changed his? And if a water animal can continually change into
a land animal, why should not a land animal sometimes change into a
water animal? Don't be put down by any of Cousin Cramchild's
arguments, but stand up to him like a man, and answer him (quite
respectfully, of course) thus:-
If Cousin Cramchild says, that if there are water-babies, they must
grow into water-men, ask him how he knows that they do not? and
then, how he knows that they must, any more than the Proteus of the
Adelsberg caverns grows into a perfect newt.
If he says that it is too strange a transformation for a land-baby
to turn into a water-baby, ask him if he ever heard of the
transformation of Syllis, or the Distomas, or the common jellyfish,
of which M. Quatrefages says excellently well - "Who would
not exclaim that a miracle had come to pass, if he saw a reptile
come out of the egg dropped by the hen in his poultry-yard, and the
reptile give birth at once to an indefinite number of fishes and
birds? Yet the history of the jelly-fish is quite as wonderful as
that would be." Ask him if he knows about all this; and if he does
not, tell him to go and look for himself; and advise him (very
respectfully, of course) to settle no more what strange things
cannot happen, till he has seen what strange things do happen every
day.
If he says that things cannot degrade, that is, change downwards
into lower forms, ask him, who told him that water-babies were
lower than land-babies? But even if they were, does he know about
the strange degradation of the common goose-barnacles, which one
finds sticking on ships' bottoms; or the still stranger degradation
of some cousins of theirs, of which one hardly likes to talk, so
shocking and ugly it is?
And, lastly, if he says (as he most certainly will) that these
transformations only take place in the lower animals, and not in
the higher, say that that seems to little boys, and to some grown
people, a very strange fancy. For if the changes of the lower
animals are so wonderful, and so difficult to discover, why should
not there be changes in the higher animals far more wonderful, and
far more difficult to discover? And may not man, the crown and
flower of all things, undergo some change as much more wonderful
than all the rest, as the Great Exhibition is more wonderful than a
rabbit-burrow? Let him answer that. And if he says (as he will)
that not having seen such a change in his experience, he is not
bound to believe it, ask him respectfully, where his microscope has
been? Does not each of us, in coming into this world, go through a
transformation just as wonderful as that of a sea-egg, or a
butterfly? and do not reason and analogy, as well as Scripture,
tell us that that transformation is not the last? and that, though
what we shall be, we know not, yet we are here but as the crawling
caterpillar, and shall be hereafter as the perfect fly. The old
Greeks, heathens as they were, saw as much as that two thousand
years ago; and I care very little for Cousin Cramchild, if he sees
even less than they. And so forth, and so forth, till he is quite
cross. And then tell him that if there are no water-babies, at
least there ought to be; and that, at least, he cannot answer.
And meanwhile, my dear little man, till you know a great deal more
about nature than Professor Owen and Professor Huxley put together,
don't tell me about what cannot be, or fancy that anything is too
wonderful to be true. "We are fearfully and wonderfully made,"
said old David; and so we are; and so is everything around us, down
to the very deal table. Yes; much more fearfully and wonderfully
made, already, is the table, as it stands now, nothing but a piece
of dead deal wood, than if, as foxes say, and geese believe,
spirits could make it dance, or talk to you by rapping on it.
Am I in earnest? Oh dear no! Don't you know that this is a fairy
tale, and all fun and pretence; and that you are not to believe one
word of it, even if it is true?
But at all events, so it happened to Tom. And, therefore, the
keeper, and the groom, and Sir John made a great mistake, and were
very unhappy (Sir John at least) without any reason, when they
found a black thing in the water, and said it was Tom's body, and
that he had been drowned. They were utterly mistaken. Tom was
quite alive; and cleaner, and merrier, than he ever had been. The
fairies had washed him, you see, in the swift river, so thoroughly,
that not only his dirt, but his whole husk and shell had been
washed quite off him, and the pretty little real Tom was washed out
of the inside of it, and swam away, as a caddis does when its case
of stones and silk is bored through, and away it goes on its back,
paddling to the shore, there to split its skin, and fly away as a
caperer, on four fawn-coloured wings, with long legs and horns.
They are foolish fellows, the caperers, and fly into the candle at
night, if you leave the door open. We will hope Tom will be wiser,
now he has got safe out of his sooty old shell.
But good Sir John did not understand all this, not being a fellow
of the Linnaean Society; and he took it into his head that Tom was
drowned. When they looked into the empty pockets of his shell, and
found no jewels there, nor money - nothing but three marbles, and a
brass button with a string to it - then Sir John did something as
like crying as ever he did in his life, and blamed himself more
bitterly than he need have done. So he cried, and the groom-boy
cried, and the huntsman cried, and the dame cried, and the little
girl cried, and the dairymaid cried, and the old nurse cried (for
it was somewhat her fault), and my lady cried, for though people
have wigs, that is no reason why they should not have hearts; but
the keeper did not cry, though he had been so good-natured to Tom
the morning before; for he was so dried up with running after
poachers, that you could no more get tears out of him than milk out
of leather: and Grimes did not cry, for Sir John gave him ten
pounds, and he drank it all in a week. Sir John sent, far and
wide, to find Tom's father and mother: but he might have looked
till Doomsday for them, for one was dead, and the other was in
Botany Bay. And the little girl would not play with her dolls for
a whole week, and never forgot poor little Tom. And soon my lady
put a pretty little tombstone over Tom's shell in the little
churchyard in Vendale, where the old dalesmen all sleep side by
side between the lime-stone crags. And the dame decked it with
garlands every Sunday, till she grew so old that she could not stir
abroad; then the little children decked it, for her. And always
she sang an old old song, as she sat spinning what she called her
wedding-dress. The children could not understand it, but they
liked it none the less for that; for it was very sweet, and very
sad; and that was enough for them. And these are the words of it:-
When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.
When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down;
Creep home, and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among:
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when all was young.
Those are the words: but they are only the body of it: the soul
of the song was the dear old woman's sweet face, and sweet voice,
and the sweet old air to which she sang; and that, alas! one cannot
put on paper. And at last she grew so stiff and lame, that the
angels were forced to carry her; and they helped her on with her
wedding-dress, and carried her up over Harthover Fells, and a long
way beyond that too; and there was a new schoolmistress in Vendale,
and we will hope that she was not certificated.
And all the while Tom was swimming about in the river, with a
pretty little lace-collar of gills about his neck, as lively as a
grig, and as clean as a fresh-run salmon.
Now if you don't like my story, then go to the schoolroom and learn
your multiplication-table, and see if you like that better. Some
people, no doubt, would do so. So much the better for us, if not
for them. It takes all sorts, they say, to make a world.
CHAPTER III
"He prayeth well who loveth well
Both men and bird and beast;
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small:
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."
COLERIDGE.
Tom was now quite amphibious. You do not know what that means?
You had better, then, ask the nearest Government pupil-teacher, who
may possibly answer you smartly enough, thus -
"Amphibious. Adjective, derived from two Greek words, AMPHI, a
fish, and BIOS, a beast. An animal supposed by our ignorant
ancestors to be compounded of a fish and a beast; which therefore,
like the hippopotamus, can't live on the land, and dies in the
water."
However that may be, Tom was amphibious: and what is better still,
he was clean. For the first time in his life, he felt how
comfortable it was to have nothing on him but himself. But he only
enjoyed it: he did not know it, or think about it; just as you
enjoy life and health, and yet never think about being alive and
healthy; and may it be long before you have to think about it!
He did not remember having ever been dirty. Indeed, he did not
remember any of his old troubles, being tired, or hungry, or
beaten, or sent up dark chimneys. Since that sweet sleep, he had
forgotten all about his master, and Harthover Place, and the little
white girl, and in a word, all that had happened to him when he
lived before; and what was best of all, he had forgotten all the
bad words which he had learned from Grimes, and the rude boys with
whom he used to play.
That is not strange: for you know, when you came into this world,
and became a land-baby, you remembered nothing. So why should he,
when he became a water-baby?
Then have you lived before?
My dear child, who can tell? One can only tell that, by
remembering something which happened where we lived before; and as
we remember nothing, we know nothing about it; and no book, and no
man, can ever tell us certainly.
There was a wise man once, a very wise man, and a very good man,
who wrote a poem about the feelings which some children have about
having lived before; and this is what he said -
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath elsewhere had its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home."
There, you can know no more than that. But if I was you, I would
believe that. For then the great fairy Science, who is likely to
be queen of all the fairies for many a year to come, can only do
you good, and never do you harm; and instead of fancying with some
people, that your body makes your soul, as if a steam-engine could
make its own coke; or, with some people, that your soul has nothing
to do with your body, but is only stuck into it like a pin into a
pincushion, to fall out with the first shake; - you will believe
the one true,
orthodox, inductive,
rational, deductive,
philosophical, seductive,
logical, productive,
irrefragable, salutary,
nominalistic, comfortable,
realistic,
and on-all-accounts-to-be-received
doctrine of this wonderful fairy tale; which is, that your soul
makes your body, just as a snail makes his shell. For the rest, it
is enough for us to be sure that whether or not we lived before, we
shall live again; though not, I hope, as poor little heathen Tom
did. For he went downward into the water: but we, I hope, shall
go upward to a very different place.
But Tom was very happy in the water. He had been sadly overworked
in the land-world; and so now, to make up for that, he had nothing
but holidays in the water-world for a long, long time to come. He
had nothing to do now but enjoy himself, and look at all the pretty
things which are to be seen in the cool clear water-world, where
the sun is never too hot, and the frost is never too cold.
And what did he live on? Water-cresses, perhaps; or perhaps watergruel,
and water-milk; too many land-babies do so likewise. But we
do not know what one-tenth of the water-things eat; so we are not
answerable for the water-babies.
Sometimes he went along the smooth gravel water-ways, looking at
the crickets which ran in and out among the stones, as rabbits do
on land; or he climbed over the ledges of rock, and saw the sandpipes
hanging in thousands, with every one of them a pretty little
head and legs peeping out; or he went into a still corner, and
watched the caddises eating dead sticks as greedily as you would
eat plum-pudding, and building their houses with silk and glue.
Very fanciful ladies they were; none of them would keep to the same
materials for a day. One would begin with some pebbles; then she
would stick on a piece of green wood; then she found a shell, and
stuck it on too; and the poor shell was alive, and did not like at
all being taken to build houses with: but the caddis did not let
him have any voice in the matter, being rude and selfish, as vain
people are apt to be; then she stuck on a piece of rotten wood,
then a very smart pink stone, and so on, till she was patched all
over like an Irishman's coat. Then she found a long straw, five
times as long as herself, and said, "Hurrah! my sister has a tail,
and I'll have one too;" and she stuck it on her back, and marched
about with it quite proud, though it was very inconvenient indeed.
And, at that, tails became all the fashion among the caddis-baits
in that pool, as they were at the end of the Long Pond last May,
and they all toddled about with long straws sticking out behind,
getting between each other's legs, and tumbling over each other,
and looking so ridiculous, that Tom laughed at them till he cried,
as we did. But they were quite right, you know; for people must
always follow the fashion, even if it be spoon-bonnets.
Then sometimes he came to a deep still reach; and there he saw the
water-forests. They would have looked to you only little weeds:
but Tom, you must remember, was so little that everything looked a
hundred times as big to him as it does to you, just as things do to
a minnow, who sees and catches the little water-creatures which you
can only see in a microscope.
And in the water-forest he saw the water-monkeys and watersquirrels
(they had all six legs, though; everything almost has six
legs in the water, except efts and water-babies); and nimbly enough
they ran among the branches. There were water-flowers there too,
in thousands; and Tom tried to pick them: but as soon as he
touched them, they drew themselves in and turned into knots of
jelly; and then Tom saw that they were all alive - bells, and
stars, and wheels, and flowers, of all beautiful shapes and
colours; and all alive and busy, just as Tom was. So now he found
that there was a great deal more in the world than he had fancied
at first sight.
There was one wonderful little fellow, too, who peeped out of the
top of a house built of round bricks. He had two big wheels, and
one little one, all over teeth, spinning round and round like the
wheels in a thrashing-machine; and Tom stood and stared at him, to
see what he was going to make with his machinery. And what do you
think he was doing? Brick-making. With his two big wheels he
swept together all the mud which floated in the water: all that
was nice in it he put into his stomach and ate; and all the mud he
put into the little wheel on his breast, which really was a round
hole set with teeth; and there he spun it into a neat hard round
brick; and then he took it and stuck it on the top of his housewall,
and set to work to make another. Now was not he a clever
little fellow?
Tom thought so: but when he wanted to talk to him the brick-maker
was much too busy and proud of his work to take notice of him.
Now you must know that all the things under the water talk; only
not such a language as ours; but such as horses, and dogs, and
cows, and birds talk to each other; and Tom soon learned to
understand them and talk to them; so that he might have had very
pleasant company if he had only been a good boy. But I am sorry to
say, he was too like some other little boys, very fond of hunting
and tormenting creatures for mere sport. Some people say that boys
cannot help it; that it is nature, and only a proof that we are all
originally descended from beasts of prey. But whether it is nature
or not, little boys can help it, and must help it. For if they
have naughty, low, mischievous tricks in their nature, as monkeys
have, that is no reason why they should give way to those tricks
like monkeys, who know no better. And therefore they must not
torment dumb creatures; for if they do, a certain old lady who is
coming will surely give them exactly what they deserve.
But Tom did not know that; and he pecked and howked the poor waterthings
about sadly, till they were all afraid of him, and got out
of his way, or crept into their shells; so he had no one to speak
to or play with.
The water-fairies, of course, were very sorry to see him so
unhappy, and longed to take him, and tell him how naughty he was,
and teach him to be good, and to play and romp with him too: but
they had been forbidden to do that. Tom had to learn his lesson
for himself by sound and sharp experience, as many another foolish
person has to do, though there may be many a kind heart yearning
over them all the while, and longing to teach them what they can
only teach themselves.
At last one day he found a caddis, and wanted it to peep out of its
house: but its house-door was shut. He had never seen a caddis
with a house-door before: so what must he do, the meddlesome
little fellow, but pull it open, to see what the poor lady was
doing inside. What a shame! How should you like to have any one
breaking your bedroom-door in, to see how you looked when you where
in bed? So Tom broke to pieces the door, which was the prettiest
little grating of silk, stuck all over with shining bits of
crystal; and when he looked in, the caddis poked out her head, and
it had turned into just the shape of a bird's. But when Tom spoke
to her she could not answer; for her mouth and face were tight tied
up in a new night-cap of neat pink skin. However, if she didn't
answer, all the other caddises did; for they held up their hands
and shrieked like the cats in Struwelpeter: "Oh, you nasty horrid
boy; there you are at it again! And she had just laid herself up
for a fortnight's sleep, and then she would have come out with such
beautiful wings, and flown about, and laid such lots of eggs: and
now you have broken her door, and she can't mend it because her
mouth is tied up for a fortnight, and she will die. Who sent you
here to worry us out of our lives?"
So Tom swam away. He was very much ashamed of himself, and felt
all the naughtier; as little boys do when they have done wrong and
won't say so.
Then he came to a pool full of little trout, and began tormenting
them, and trying to catch them: but they slipped through his
fingers, and jumped clean out of water in their fright. But as Tom
chased them, he came close to a great dark hover under an alder
root, and out floushed a huge old brown trout ten times as big as
he was, and ran right against him, and knocked all the breath out
of his body; and I don't know which was the more frightened of the
two.
Then he went on sulky and lonely, as he deserved to be; and under a
bank he saw a very ugly dirty creature sitting, about half as big
as himself; which had six legs, and a big stomach, and a most
ridiculous head with two great eyes and a face just like a
donkey's.
"Oh," said Tom, "you are an ugly fellow to be sure!" and he began
making faces at him; and put his nose close to him, and halloed at
him, like a very rude boy.
When, hey presto; all the thing's donkey-face came off in a moment,
and out popped a long arm with a pair of pincers at the end of it,
and caught Tom by the nose. It did not hurt him much; but it held
him quite tight.
"Yah, ah! Oh, let me go!" cried Tom.
"Then let me go," said the creature. "I want to be quiet. I want
to split."
Tom promised to let him alone, and he let go.
"Why do you want to split?" said Tom.
"Because my brothers and sisters have all split, and turned into
beautiful creatures with wings; and I want to split too. Don't
speak to me. I am sure I shall split. I will split!"
Tom stood still, and watched him. And he swelled himself, and
puffed, and stretched himself out stiff, and at last - crack, puff,
bang - he opened all down his back, and then up to the top of his
head.
And out of his inside came the most slender, elegant, soft
creature, as soft and smooth as Tom: but very pale and weak, like
a little child who has been ill a long time in a dark room. It
moved its legs very feebly; and looked about it half ashamed, like
a girl when she goes for the first time into a ballroom; and then
it began walking slowly up a grass stem to the top of the water.
Tom was so astonished that he never said a word but he stared with
all his eyes. And he went up to the top of the water too, and
peeped out to see what would happen.
And as the creature sat in the warm bright sun, a wonderful change
came over it. It grew strong and firm; the most lovely colours
began to show on its body, blue and yellow and black, spots and
bars and rings; out of its back rose four great wings of bright
brown gauze; and its eyes grew so large that they filled all its
head, and shone like ten thousand diamonds.
"Oh, you beautiful creature!" said Tom; and he put out his hand to
catch it.
But the thing whirred up into the air, and hung poised on its wings
a moment, and then settled down again by Tom quite fearless.
"No!" it said, "you cannot catch me. I am a dragon-fly now, the
king of all the flies; and I shall dance in the sunshine, and hawk
over the river, and catch gnats, and have a beautiful wife like
myself. I know what I shall do. Hurrah!" And he flew away into
the air, and began catching gnats.
"Oh! come back, come back," cried Tom, "you beautiful creature. I
have no one to play with, and I am so lonely here. If you will but
come back I will never try to catch you."
"I don't care whether you do or not," said the dragon-fly; "for you
can't. But when I have had my dinner, and looked a little about
this pretty place, I will come back, and have a little chat about
all I have seen in my travels. Why, what a huge tree this is! and
what huge leaves on it!"
It was only a big dock: but you know the dragon-fly had never seen
any but little water-trees; starwort, and milfoil, and watercrowfoot,
and such like; so it did look very big to him. Besides,
he was very short-sighted, as all dragon-flies are; and never could
see a yard before his nose; any more than a great many other folks,
who are not half as handsome as he.
The dragon-fly did come back, and chatted away with Tom. He was a
little conceited about his fine colours and his large wings; but
you know, he had been a poor dirty ugly creature all his life
before; so there were great excuses for him. He was very fond of
talking about all the wonderful things he saw in the trees and the
meadows; and Tom liked to listen to him, for he had forgotten all
about them. So in a little while they became great friends.
And I am very glad to say, that Tom learned such a lesson that day,
that he did not torment creatures for a long time after. And then
the caddises grew quite tame, and used to tell him strange stories
about the way they built their houses, and changed their skins, and
turned at last into winged flies; till Tom began to long to change
his skin, and have wings like them some day.
And the trout and he made it up (for trout very soon forget if they
have been frightened and hurt). So Tom used to play with them at
hare and hounds, and great fun they had; and he used to try to leap
out of the water, head over heels, as they did before a shower came
on; but somehow he never could manage it. He liked most, though,
to see them rising at the flies, as they sailed round and round
under the shadow of the great oak, where the beetles fell flop into
the water, and the green caterpillars let themselves down from the
boughs by silk ropes for no reason at all; and then changed their
foolish minds for no reason at all either; and hauled themselves up
again into the tree, rolling up the rope in a ball between their
paws; which is a very clever rope-dancer's trick, and neither
Blondin nor Leotard could do it: but why they should take so much
trouble about it no one can tell; for they cannot get their living,
as Blondin and Leotard do, by trying to break their necks on a
string.
And very often Tom caught them just as they touched the water; and
caught the alder-flies, and the caperers, and the cock-tailed duns
and spinners, yellow, and brown, and claret, and gray, and gave
them to his friends the trout. Perhaps he was not quite kind to
the flies; but one must do a good turn to one's friends when one
can.
And at last he gave up catching even the flies; for he made
acquaintance with one by accident and found him a very merry little
fellow. And this was the way it happened; and it is all quite
true.
He was basking at the top of the water one hot day in July,
catching duns and feeding the trout, when he saw a new sort, a dark
gray little fellow with a brown head. He was a very little fellow
indeed: but he made the most of himself, as people ought to do.
He cocked up his head, and he cocked up his wings, and he cocked up
his tail, and he cocked up the two whisks at his tail-end, and, in
short, he looked the cockiest little man of all little men. And so
he proved to be; for instead of getting away, he hopped upon Tom's
finger, and sat there as bold as nine tailors; and he cried out in
the tiniest, shrillest, squeakiest little voice you ever heard,
"Much obliged to you, indeed; but I don't want it yet."
"Want what?" said Tom, quite taken aback by his impudence.
"Your leg, which you are kind enough to hold out for me to sit on.
I must just go and see after my wife for a few minutes. Dear me!
what a troublesome business a family is!" (though the idle little
rogue did nothing at all, but left his poor wife to lay all the
eggs by herself). "When I come back, I shall be glad of it, if
you'll be so good as to keep it sticking out just so;" and off he
flew.
Tom thought him a very cool sort of personage; and still more so,
when, in five minutes he came back, and said - "Ah, you were tired
waiting? Well, your other leg will do as well."
And he popped himself down on Tom's knee, and began chatting away
in his squeaking voice.
"So you live under the water? It's a low place. I lived there for
some time; and was very shabby and dirty. But I didn't choose that
that should last. So I turned respectable, and came up to the top,
and put on this gray suit. It's a very business-like suit, you
think, don't you?"
"Very neat and quiet indeed," said Tom.
"Yes, one must be quiet and neat and respectable, and all that sort
of thing for a little, when one becomes a family man. But I'm
tired of it, that's the truth. I've done quite enough business, I
consider, in the last week, to last me my life. So I shall put on
a ball dress, and go out and be a smart man, and see the gay world,
and have a dance or two. Why shouldn't one be jolly if one can?"
"And what will become of your wife?"
"Oh! she is a very plain stupid creature, and that's the truth; and
thinks about nothing but eggs. If she chooses to come, why she
may; and if not, why I go without her; - and here I go."
And, as he spoke, he turned quite pale, and then quite white.
"Why, you're ill!" said Tom. But he did not answer.
"You're dead," said Tom, looking at him as he stood on his knee as
white as a ghost.
"No, I ain't!" answered a little squeaking voice over his head.
"This is me up here, in my ball-dress; and that's my skin. Ha, ha!
you could not do such a trick as that!"
And no more Tom could, nor Houdin, nor Robin, nor Frikell, nor all
the conjurors in the world. For the little rogue had jumped clean
out of his own skin, and left it standing on Tom's knee, eyes,
wings, legs, tail, exactly as if it had been alive.
"Ha, ha!" he said, and he jerked and skipped up and down, never
stopping an instant, just as if he had St. Vitus's dance. "Ain't I
a pretty fellow now?"
And so he was; for his body was white, and his tail orange, and his
eyes all the colours of a peacock's tail. And what was the oddest
of all, the whisks at the end of his tail had grown five times as
long as they were before.
"Ah!" said he, "now I will see the gay world. My living, won't
cost me much, for I have no mouth, you see, and no inside; so I can
never be hungry nor have the stomach-ache neither."
No more he had. He had grown as dry and hard and empty as a quill,
as such silly shallow-hearted fellows deserve to grow.
But, instead of being ashamed of his emptiness, he was quite proud
of it, as a good many fine gentlemen are, and began flirting and
flipping up and down, and singing -
"My wife shall dance, and I shall sing,
So merrily pass the day;
For I hold it for quite the wisest thing,
To drive dull care away."
And he danced up and down for three days and three nights, till he
grew so tired, that he tumbled into the water, and floated down.
But what became of him Tom never knew, and he himself never minded;
for Tom heard him singing to the last, as he floated down -
"To drive dull care away-ay-ay!"
And if he did not care, why nobody else cared either.
But one day Tom had a new adventure. He was sitting on a waterlily
leaf, he and his friend the dragon-fly, watching the gnats
dance. The dragon-fly had eaten as many as he wanted, and was
sitting quite still and sleepy, for it was very hot and bright.
The gnats (who did not care the least for their poor brothers'
death) danced a foot over his head quite happily, and a large black
fly settled within an inch of his nose, and began washing his own
face and combing his hair with his paws: but the dragon-fly never
stirred, and kept on chatting to Tom about the times when he lived
under the water.
Suddenly, Tom heard the strangest noise up the stream; cooing, and
grunting, and whining, and squeaking, as if you had put into a bag
two stock-doves, nine mice, three guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy,
and left them there to settle themselves and make music.
He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as the
noise; a great ball rolling over and over down the stream, seeming
one moment of soft brown fur, and the next of shining glass: and
yet it was not a ball; for sometimes it broke up and streamed away
in pieces, and then it joined again; and all the while the noise
came out of it louder and louder.
Tom asked the dragon-fly what it could be: but, of course, with
his short sight, he could not even see it, though it was not ten
yards away. So he took the neatest little header into the water,
and started off to see for himself; and, when he came near, the
ball turned out to be four or five beautiful creatures, many times
larger than Tom, who were swimming about, and rolling, and diving,
and twisting, and wrestling, and cuddling, and kissing and biting,
and scratching, in the most charming fashion that ever was seen.
And if you don't believe me, you may go to the Zoological Gardens
(for I am afraid that you won't see it nearer, unless, perhaps, you
get up at five in the morning, and go down to Cordery's Moor, and
watch by the great withy pollard which hangs over the backwater,
where the otters breed sometimes), and then say, if otters at play
in the water are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creatures
you ever saw.
But, when the biggest of them saw Tom, she darted out from the
rest, and cried in the water-language sharply enough, "Quick,
children, here is something to eat, indeed!" and came at poor Tom,
showing such a wicked pair of eyes, and such a set of sharp teeth
in a grinning mouth, that Tom, who had thought her very handsome,
said to himself, HANDSOME IS THAT HANDSOME DOES, and slipped in
between the water-lily roots as fast as he could, and then turned
round and made faces at her.
"Come out," said the wicked old otter, "or it will be worse for
you."
But Tom looked at her from between two thick roots, and shook them
with all his might, making horrible faces all the while, just as he
used to grin through the railings at the old women, when he lived
before. It was not quite well bred, no doubt; but you know, Tom
had not finished his education yet.
"Come, away, children," said the otter in disgust, "it is not worth
eating, after all. It is only a nasty eft, which nothing eats, not
even those vulgar pike in the pond."
"I am not an eft!" said Tom; "efts have tails."
"You are an eft," said the otter, very positively; "I see your two
hands quite plain, and I know you have a tail."
"I tell you I have not," said Tom. "Look here!" and he turned his
pretty little self quite round; and, sure enough, he had no more
tail than you.
The otter might have got out of it by saying that Tom was a frog:
but, like a great many other people, when she had once said a
thing, she stood to it, right or wrong; so she answered:
"I say you are an eft, and therefore you are, and not fit food for
gentlefolk like me and my children. You may stay there till the
salmon eat you (she knew the salmon would not, but she wanted to
frighten poor Tom). Ha! ha! they will eat you, and we will eat
them;" and the otter laughed such a wicked cruel laugh - as you may
hear them do sometimes; and the first time that you hear it you
will probably think it is bogies.
"What are salmon?" asked Tom.
"Fish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat. They are the lords
of the fish, and we are lords of the salmon;" and she laughed
again. "We hunt them up and down the pools, and drive them up into
a corner, the silly things; they are so proud, and bully the little
trout, and the minnows, till they see us coming, and then they are
so meek all at once, and we catch them, but we disdain to eat them
all; we just bite out their soft throats and suck their sweet juice
- Oh, so good!" - (and she licked her wicked lips) - "and then
throw them away, and go and catch another. They are coming soon,
children, coming soon; I can smell the rain coming up off the sea,
and then hurrah for a fresh, and salmon, and plenty of eating all
day long."
And the otter grew so proud that she turned head over heels twice,
and then stood upright half out of the water, grinning like a
Cheshire cat.
"And where do they come from?" asked Tom, who kept himself very
close, for he was considerably frightened.
"Out of the sea, eft, the great wide sea, where they might stay and
be safe if they liked. But out of the sea the silly things come,
into the great river down below, and we come up to watch for them;
and when they go down again we go down and follow them. And there
we fish for the bass and the pollock, and have jolly days along the
shore, and toss and roll in the breakers, and sleep snug in the
warm dry crags. Ah, that is a merry life too, children, if it were
not for those horrid men."
"What are men?" asked Tom; but somehow he seemed to know before he
asked.
"Two-legged things, eft: and, now I come to look at you, they are
actually something like you, if you had not a tail" (she was
determined that Tom should have a tail), "only a great deal bigger,
worse luck for us; and they catch the fish with hooks and lines,
which get into our feet sometimes, and set pots along the rocks to
catch lobsters. They speared my poor dear husband as he went out
to find something for me to eat. I was laid up among the crags
then, and we were very low in the world, for the sea was so rough
that no fish would come in shore. But they speared him, poor
fellow, and I saw them carrying him away upon a pole. All, he lost
his life for your sakes, my children, poor dear obedient creature
that he was."
And the otter grew so sentimental (for otters can be very
sentimental when they choose, like a good many people who are both
cruel and greedy, and no good to anybody at all) that she sailed
solemnly away down the burn, and Tom saw her no more for that time.
And lucky it was for her that she did so; for no sooner was she
gone, than down the bank came seven little rough terrier doors,
snuffing and yapping, and grubbing and splashing, in full cry after
the otter. Tom hid among the water-lilies till they were gone; for
he could not guess that they were the water-fairies come to help
him.
But he could not help thinking of what the otter had said about the
great river and the broad sea. And, as he thought, he longed to go
and see them. He could not tell why; but the more he thought, the
more he grew discontented with the narrow little stream in which he
lived, and all his companions there; and wanted to get out into the
wide wide world, and enjoy all the wonderful sights of which he was
sure it was full.
And once he set off to go down the stream. But the stream was very
low; and when he came to the shallows he could not keep under
water, for there was no water left to keep under. So the sun
burned his back and made him sick; and he went back again and lay
quiet in the pool for a whole week more.
And then, on the evening of a very hot day, he saw a sight.
He had been very stupid all day, and so had the trout; for they
would not move an inch to take a fly, though there were thousands
on the water, but lay dozing at the bottom under the shade of the
stones; and Tom lay dozing too, and was glad to cuddle their smooth
cool sides, for the water was quite warm and unpleasant.
But toward evening it grew suddenly dark, and Tom looked up and saw
a blanket of black clouds lying right across the valley above his
head, resting on the crags right and left. He felt not quite
frightened, but very still; for everything was still. There was
not a whisper of wind, nor a chirp of a bird to be heard; and next
a few great drops of rain fell plop into the water, and one hit Tom
on the nose, and made him pop his head down quickly enough.
And then the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed, and leapt
across Vendale and back again, from cloud to cloud, and cliff to
cliff, till the very rocks in the stream seemed to shake: and Tom
looked up at it through the water, and thought it the finest thing
he ever saw in his life.
But out of the water he dared not put his head; for the rain came
down by bucketsful, and the hail hammered like shot on the stream,
and churned it into foam; and soon the stream rose, and rushed
down, higher and higher, and fouler and fouler, full of beetles,
and sticks; and straws, and worms, and addle-eggs, and wood-lice,
and leeches, and odds and ends, and omnium-gatherums, and this,
that, and the other, enough to fill nine museums.
Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and hid behind a rock.
But the trout did not; for out they rushed from among the stones,
and began gobbling the beetles and leeches in the most greedy and
quarrelsome way, and swimming about with great worms hanging out of
their mouths, tugging and kicking to get them away from each other.
And now, by the flashes of the lightning, Tom saw a new sight - all
the bottom of the stream alive with great eels, turning and
twisting along, all down stream and away. They had been hiding for
weeks past in the cracks of the rocks, and in burrows in the mud;
and Tom had hardly ever seen them, except now and then at night:
but now they were all out, and went hurrying past him so fiercely
and wildly that he was quite frightened. And as they hurried past
he could hear them say to each other, "We must run, we must run.
What a jolly thunderstorm! Down to the sea, down to the sea!"
And then the otter came by with all her brood, twining and sweeping
along as fast as the eels themselves; and she spied Tom as she came
by, and said "Now is your time, eft, if you want to see the world.
Come along, children, never mind those nasty eels: we shall
breakfast on salmon to-morrow. Down to the sea, down to the sea!"
Then came a flash brighter than all the rest, and by the light of
it - in the thousandth part of a second they were gone again - but
he had seen them, he was certain of it - Three beautiful little
white girls, with their arms twined round each other's necks,
floating down the torrent, as they sang, "Down to the sea, down to
the sea!"
"Oh stay! Wait for me!" cried Tom; but they were gone: yet he
could hear their voices clear and sweet through the roar of thunder
and water and wind, singing as they died away, "Down to the sea!"
"Down to the sea?" said Tom; "everything is going to the sea, and I
will go too. Good-bye, trout." But the trout were so busy
gobbling worms that they never turned to answer him; so that Tom
was spared the pain of bidding them farewell.
And now, down the rushing stream, guided by the bright flashes of
the storm; past tall birch-fringed rocks, which shone out one
moment as clear as day, and the next were dark as night; past dark
hovers under swirling banks, from which great trout rushed out on
Tom, thinking him to be good to eat, and turned back sulkily, for
the fairies sent them home again with a tremendous scolding, for
daring to meddle with a water-baby; on through narrow strids and
roaring cataracts, where Tom was deafened and blinded for a moment
by the rushing waters; along deep reaches, where the white waterlilies
tossed and flapped beneath the wind and hail; past sleeping
villages; under dark bridge-arches, and away and away to the sea.
And Tom could not stop, and did not care to stop; he would see the
great world below, and the salmon, and the breakers, and the wide
wide sea.
And when the daylight came, Tom found himself out in the salmon
river.
And what sort of a river was it? Was it like an Irish stream,
winding through the brown bogs, where the wild ducks squatter up
from among the white water-lilies, and the curlews flit to and fro,
crying "Tullie-wheep, mind your sheep;" and Dennis tells you
strange stories of the Peishtamore, the great bogy-snake which lies
in the black peat pools, among the old pine-stems, and puts his
head out at night to snap at the cattle as they come down to drink?
- But you must not believe all that Dennis tells you, mind; for if
you ask him:
"Is there a salmon here, do you think, Dennis?"
"Is it salmon, thin, your honour manes? Salmon? Cartloads it is
of thim, thin, an' ridgmens, shouldthering ache out of water, av'
ye'd but the luck to see thim."
Then you fish the pool all over, and never get a rise.
"But there can't be a salmon here, Dennis! and, if you'll but
think, if one had come up last tide, he'd be gone to the higher
pools by now."
"Shure thin, and your honour's the thrue fisherman, and understands
it all like a book. Why, ye spake as if ye'd known the wather a
thousand years! As I said, how could there be a fish here at all,
just now?"
"But you said just now they were shouldering each other out of
water?"
And then Dennis will look up at you with his handsome, sly, soft,
sleepy, good-natured, untrustable, Irish gray eye, and answer with
the prettiest smile:
"Shure, and didn't I think your honour would like a pleasant
answer?"
So you must not trust Dennis, because he is in the habit of giving
pleasant answers: but, instead of being angry with him, you must
remember that he is a poor Paddy, and knows no better; so you must
just burst out laughing; and then he will burst out laughing too,
and slave for you, and trot about after you, and show you good
sport if he can - for he is an affectionate fellow, and as fond of
sport as you are - and if he can't, tell you fibs instead, a
hundred an hour; and wonder all the while why poor ould Ireland
does not prosper like England and Scotland, and some other places,
where folk have taken up a ridiculous fancy that honesty is the
best policy.
Or was it like a Welsh salmon river, which is remarkable chiefly
(at least, till this last year) for containing no salmon, as they
have been all poached out by the enlightened peasantry, to prevent
the CYTHRAWL SASSENACH (which means you, my little dear, your kith
and kin, and signifies much the same as the Chinese FAN QUEI) from
coming bothering into Wales, with good tackle, and ready money, and
civilisation, and common honesty, and other like things of which
the Cymry stand in no need whatsoever?
Or was it such a salmon stream as I trust you will see among the
Hampshire water-meadows before your hairs are gray, under the wise
new fishing-laws? - when Winchester apprentices shall covenant, as
they did three hundred years ago, not to be made to eat salmon more
than three days a week; and fresh-run fish shall be as plentiful
under Salisbury spire as they are in Holly-hole at Christchurch; in
the good time coming, when folks shall see that, of all Heaven's
gifts of food, the one to be protected most carefully is that
worthy gentleman salmon, who is generous enough to go down to the
sea weighing five ounces, and to come back next year weighing five
pounds, without having cost the soil or the state one farthing?
Or was it like a Scotch stream, such as Arthur Clough drew in his
"Bothie":-
"Where over a ledge of granite
Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended. . . . .
Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under;
Beautiful most of all, where beads of foam uprising
Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the
stillness. . . .
Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendant birch
boughs." . . .
Ah, my little man, when you are a big man, and fish such a stream
as that, you will hardly care, I think, whether she be roaring down
in full spate, like coffee covered with scald cream, while the fish
are swirling at your fly as an oar-blade swirls in a boat-race, or
flashing up the cataract like silver arrows, out of the fiercest of
the foam; or whether the fall be dwindled to a single thread, and
the shingle below be as white and dusty as a turnpike road, while
the salmon huddle together in one dark cloud in the clear amber
pool, sleeping away their time till the rain creeps back again off
the sea. You will not care much, if you have eyes and brains; for
you will lay down your rod contentedly, and drink in at your eyes
the beauty of that glorious place; and listen to the water-ouzel
piping on the stones, and watch the yellow roes come down to drink
and look up at you with their great soft trustful eyes, as much as
to say, "You could not have the heart to shoot at us?" And then,
if you have sense, you will turn and talk to the great giant of a
gilly who lies basking on the stone beside you. He will tell you
no fibs, my little man; for he is a Scotchman, and fears God, and
not the priest; and, as you talk with him, you will be surprised
more and more at his knowledge, his sense, his humour, his
courtesy; and you will find out - unless you have found it out
before - that a man may learn from his Bible to be a more thorough
gentleman than if he had been brought up in all the drawing-rooms
in London.
No. It was none of these, the salmon stream at Harthover. It was
such a stream as you see in dear old Bewick; Bewick, who was born
and bred upon them. A full hundred yards broad it was, sliding on
from broad pool to broad shallow, and broad shallow to broad pool,
over great fields of shingle, under oak and ash coverts, past low
cliffs of sandstone, past green meadows, and fair parks, and a
great house of gray stone, and brown moors above, and here and
there against the sky the smoking chimney of a colliery. You must
look at Bewick to see just what it was like, for he has drawn it a
hundred times with the care and the love of a true north
countryman; and, even if you do not care about the salmon river,
you ought, like all good boys, to know your Bewick.
At least, so old Sir John used to say, and very sensibly he put it
too, as he was wont to do:
"If they want to describe a finished young gentleman in France, I
hear, they say of him, 'IL SAIT SON RABELAIS.' But if I want to
describe one in England, I say, 'HE KNOWS HIS BEWICK.' And I think
that is the higher compliment."
But Tom thought nothing about what the river was like. All his
fancy was, to get down to the wide wide sea.
And after a while he came to a place where the river spread out
into broad still shallow reaches, so wide that little Tom, as he
put his head out of the water, could hardly see across.
And there he stopped. He got a little frightened. "This must be
the sea," he thought. "What a wide place it is! If I go on into
it I shall surely lose my way, or some strange thing will bite me.
I will stop here and look out for the otter, or the eels, or some
one to tell me where I shall go."
So he went back a little way, and crept into a crack of the rock,
just where the river opened out into the wide shallows, and watched
for some one to tell him his way: but the otter and the eels were
gone on miles and miles down the stream.
There he waited, and slept too, for he was quite tired with his
night's journey; and, when he woke, the stream was clearing to a
beautiful amber hue, though it was still very high. And after a
while he saw a sight which made him jump up; for he knew in a
moment it was one of the things which he had come to look for.
Such a fish! ten times as big as the biggest trout, and a hundred
times as big as Tom, sculling up the stream past him, as easily as
Tom had sculled down.
Such a fish! shining silver from head to tail, and here and there a
crimson dot; with a grand hooked nose and grand curling lip, and a
grand bright eye, looking round him as proudly as a king, and
surveying the water right and left as if all belonged to him.
Surely he must be the salmon, the king of all the fish.
Tom was so frightened that he longed to creep into a hole; but he
need not have been; for salmon are all true gentlemen, and, like
true gentlemen, they look noble and proud enough, and yet, like
true gentlemen, they never harm or quarrel with any one, but go
about their own business, and leave rude fellows to themselves.
The salmon looked at him full in the face, and then went on without
minding him, with a swish or two of his tail which made the stream
boil again. And in a few minutes came another, and then four or
five, and so on; and all passed Tom, rushing and plunging up the
cataract with strong strokes of their silver tails, now and then
leaping clean out of water and up over a rock, shining gloriously
for a moment in the bright sun; while Tom was so delighted that he
could have watched them all day long.
And at last one came up bigger than all the rest; but he came
slowly, and stopped, and looked back, and seemed very anxious and
busy. And Tom saw that he was helping another salmon, an
especially handsome one, who had not a single spot upon it, but was
clothed in pure silver from nose to tail.
"My dear," said the great fish to his companion, "you really look
dreadfully tired, and you must not over-exert yourself at first.
Do rest yourself behind this rock;" and he shoved her gently with
his nose, to the rock where Tom sat.
You must know that this was the salmon's wife. For salmon, like
other true gentlemen, always choose their lady, and love her, and
are true to her, and take care of her and work for her, and fight
for her, as every true gentleman ought; and are not like vulgar
chub and roach and pike, who have no high feelings, and take no
care of their wives.
Then he saw Tom, and looked at him very fiercely one moment, as if
he was going to bite him.
"What do you want here?" he said, very fiercely.
"Oh, don't hurt me!" cried Tom. "I only want to look at you; you
are so handsome."
"Ah?" said the salmon, very stately but very civilly. "I really
beg your pardon; I see what you are, my little dear. I have met
one or two creatures like you before, and found them very agreeable
and well-behaved. Indeed, one of them showed me a great kindness
lately, which I hope to be able to repay. I hope we shall not be
in your way here. As soon as this lady is rested, we shall proceed
on our journey."
What a well-bred old salmon he was!
"So you have seen things like me before?" asked Tom.
"Several times, my dear. Indeed, it was only last night that one
at the river's mouth came and warned me and my wife of some new
stake-nets which had got into the stream, I cannot tell how, since
last winter, and showed us the way round them, in the most
charmingly obliging way."
"So there are babies in the sea?" cried Tom, and clapped his little
hands. "Then I shall have some one to play with there? How
delightful!"
"Were there no babies up this stream?" asked the lady salmon.
"No! and I grew so lonely. I thought I saw three last night; but
they were gone in an instant, down to the sea. So I went too; for
I had nothing to play with but caddises and dragon-flies and
trout."
"Ugh!" cried the lady, "what low company!"
"My dear, if he has been in low company, he has certainly not
learnt their low manners," said the salmon.
"No, indeed, poor little dear: but how sad for him to live among
such people as caddises, who have actually six legs, the nasty
things; and dragon-flies, too! why they are not even good to eat;
for I tried them once, and they are all hard and empty; and, as for
trout, every one knows what they are." Whereon she curled up her
lip, and looked dreadfully scornful, while her husband curled up
his too, till he looked as proud as Alcibiades.
"Why do you dislike the trout so?" asked Tom.
"My dear, we do not even mention them, if we can help it; for I am
sorry to say they are relations of ours who do us no credit. A
great many years ago they were just like us: but they were so
lazy, and cowardly, and greedy, that instead of going down to the
sea every year to see the world and grow strong and fat, they chose
to stay and poke about in the little streams and eat worms and
grubs; and they are very properly punished for it; for they have
grown ugly and brown and spotted and small; and are actually so
degraded in their tastes, that they will eat our children."
"And then they pretend to scrape acquaintance with us again," said
the lady. "Why, I have actually known one of them propose to a
lady salmon, the little impudent little creature."
"I should hope," said the gentleman, "that there are very few
ladies of our race who would degrade themselves by listening to
such a creature for an instant. If I saw such a thing happen, I
should consider it my duty to put them both to death upon the
spot." So the old salmon said, like an old blue-blooded hidalgo of
Spain; and what is more, he would have done it too. For you must
know, no enemies are so bitter against each other as those who are
of the same race; and a salmon looks on a trout, as some great
folks look on some little folks, as something just too much like
himself to be tolerated.
CHAPTER IV
"Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things
We murder to dissect.
Enough of science and of art:
Close up these barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives."
WORDSWORTH.
So the salmon went up, after Tom had warned them of the wicked old
otter; and Tom went down, but slowly and cautiously, coasting along
shore. He was many days about it, for it was many miles down to
the sea; and perhaps he would never have found his way, if the
fairies had not guided him, without his seeing their fair faces, or
feeling their gentle hands.
And, as he went, he had a very strange adventure. It was a clear
still September night, and the moon shone so brightly down through
the water, that he could not sleep, though he shut his eyes as
tight as possible. So at last he came up to the top, and sat upon
a little point of rock, and looked up at the broad yellow moon, and
wondered what she was, and thought that she looked at him. And he
watched the moonlight on the rippling river, and the black heads of
the firs, and the silver-frosted lawns, and listened to the owl's
hoot, and the snipe's bleat, and the fox's bark, and the otter's
laugh; and smelt the soft perfume of the birches, and the wafts of
heather honey off the grouse moor far above; and felt very happy,
though he could not well tell why. You, of course, would have been
very cold sitting there on a September night, without the least bit
of clothes on your wet back; but Tom was a water-baby, and
therefore felt cold no more than a fish.
Suddenly, he saw a beautiful sight. A bright red light moved along
the river-side, and threw down into the water a long tap-root of
flame. Tom, curious little rogue that he was, must needs go and
see what it was; so he swam to the shore, and met the light as it
stopped over a shallow run at the edge of a low rock.
And there, underneath the light, lay five or six great salmon,
looking up at the flame with their great goggle eyes, and wagging
their tails, as if they were very much pleased at it.
Tom came to the top, to look at this wonderful light nearer, and
made a splash.
And he heard a voice say:
"There was a fish rose."
He did not know what the words meant: but he seemed to know the
sound of them, and to know the voice which spoke them; and he saw
on the bank three great two-legged creatures, one of whom held the
light, flaring and sputtering, and another a long pole. And he
knew that they were men, and was frightened, and crept into a hole
in the rock, from which he could see what went on.
The man with the torch bent down over the water, and looked
earnestly in; and then he said:
"Tak' that muckle fellow, lad; he's ower fifteen punds; and haud
your hand steady."
Tom felt that there was some danger coming, and longed to warn the
foolish salmon, who kept staring up at the light as if he was
bewitched. But before he could make up his mind, down came the
pole through the water; there was a fearful splash and struggle,
and Tom saw that the poor salmon was speared right through, and was
lifted out of the water.
And then, from behind, there sprang on these three men three other
men; and there were shouts, and blows, and words which Tom
recollected to have heard before; and he shuddered and turned sick
at them now, for he felt somehow that they were strange, and ugly,
and wrong, and horrible. And it all began to come back to him.
They were men; and they were fighting; savage, desperate, up-anddown
fighting, such as Tom had seen too many times before.
And he stopped his little ears, and longed to swim away; and was
very glad that he was a water-baby, and had nothing to do any more
with horrid dirty men, with foul clothes on their backs, and foul
words on their lips; but he dared not stir out of his hole: while
the rock shook over his head with the trampling and struggling of
the keepers and the poachers.
All of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, and a frightful
flash, and a hissing, and all was still.
For into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the men; he who held
the light in his hand. Into the swift river he sank, and rolled
over and over in the current. Tom heard the men above run along
seemingly looking for him; but he drifted down into the deep hole
below, and there lay quite still, and they could not find him.
Tom waited a long time, till all was quiet; and then he peeped out,
and saw the man lying. At last he screwed up his courage and swam
down to him. "Perhaps," he thought, "the water has made him fall
asleep, as it did me."
Then he went nearer. He grew more and more curious, he could not
tell why. He must go and look at him. He would go very quietly,
of course; so he swam round and round him, closer and closer; and,
as he did not stir, at last he came quite close and looked him in
the face.
The moon shone so bright that Tom could see every feature; and, as
he saw, he recollected, bit by bit, it was his old master, Grimes.
Tom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he could.
"Oh dear me!" he thought, "now he will turn into a water-baby.
What a nasty troublesome one he will be! And perhaps he will find
me out, and beat me again."
So he went up the river again a little way, and lay there the rest
of the night under an alder root; but, when morning came, he longed
to go down again to the big pool, and see whether Mr. Grimes had
turned into a water-baby yet.
So he went very carefully, peeping round all the rocks, and hiding
under all the roots. Mr. Grimes lay there still; he had not turned
into a water-baby. In the afternoon Tom went back again. He could
not rest till he had found out what had become of Mr. Grimes. But
this time Mr. Grimes was gone; and Tom made up his mind that he was
turned into a water-baby.
He might have made himself easy, poor little man; Mr. Grimes did
not turn into a water-baby, or anything like one at all. But he
did not make himself easy; and a long time he was fearful lest he
should meet Grimes suddenly in some deep pool. He could not know
that the fairies had carried him away, and put him, where they put
everything which falls into the water, exactly where it ought to
be. But, do you know, what had happened to Mr. Grimes had such an
effect on him that he never poached salmon any more. And it is
quite certain that, when a man becomes a confirmed poacher, the
only way to cure him is to put him under water for twenty-four
hours, like Grimes. So when you grow to be a big man, do you
behave as all honest fellows should; and never touch a fish or a
head of game which belongs to another man without his express
leave; and then people will call you a gentleman, and treat you
like one; and perhaps give you good sport: instead of hitting you
into the river, or calling you a poaching snob.
Then Tom went on down, for he was afraid of staying near Grimes:
and as he went, all the vale looked sad. The red and yellow leaves
showered down into the river; the flies and beetles were all dead
and gone; the chill autumn fog lay low upon the hills, and
sometimes spread itself so thickly on the river that he could not
see his way. But he felt his way instead, following the flow of
the stream, day after day, past great bridges, past boats and
barges, past the great town, with its wharfs, and mills, and tall
smoking chimneys, and ships which rode at anchor in the stream; and
now and then he ran against their hawsers, and wondered what they
were, and peeped out, and saw the sailors lounging on board smoking
their pipes; and ducked under again, for he was terribly afraid of
being caught by man and turned into a chimney-sweep once more. He
did not know that the fairies were close to him always, shutting
the sailors' eyes lest they should see him, and turning him aside
from millraces, and sewer-mouths, and all foul and dangerous
things. Poor little fellow, it was a dreary journey for him; and
more than once he longed to be back in Vendale, playing with the
trout in the bright summer sun. But it could not be. What has
been once can never come over again. And people can be little
babies, even water-babies, only once in their lives.
Besides, people who make up their minds to go and see the world, as
Tom did, must needs find it a weary journey. Lucky for them if
they do not lose heart and stop half-way, instead of going on
bravely to the end as Tom did. For then they will remain neither
boys nor men, neither fish, flesh, nor good red-herring: having
learnt a great deal too much, and yet not enough; and sown their
wild oats, without having the advantage of reaping them.
But Tom was always a brave, determined, little English bull-dog,
who never knew when he was beaten; and on and on he held, till he
saw a long way off the red buoy through the fog. And then he found
to his surprise, the stream turned round, and running up inland.
It was the tide, of course: but Tom knew nothing of the tide. He
only knew that in a minute more the water, which had been fresh,
turned salt all round him. And then there came a change over him.
He felt as strong, and light, and fresh, as if his veins had run
champagne; and gave, he did not know why, three skips out of the
water, a yard high, and head over heels, just as the salmon do when
they first touch the noble rich salt water, which, as some wise men
tell us, is the mother of all living things.
He did not care now for the tide being against him. The red buoy
was in sight, dancing in the open sea; and to the buoy he would go,
and to it he went. He passed great shoals of bass and mullet,
leaping and rushing in after the shrimps, but he never heeded them,
or they him; and once he passed a great black shining seal, who was
coming in after the mullet. The seal put his head and shoulders
out of water, and stared at him, looking exactly like a fat old
greasy negro with a gray pate. And Tom, instead of being
frightened, said, "How d'ye do, sir; what a beautiful place the sea
is!" And the old seal, instead of trying to bite him, looked at
him with his soft sleepy winking eyes, and said, "Good tide to you,
my little man; are you looking for your brothers and sisters? I
passed them all at play outside."
"Oh, then," said Tom, "I shall have playfellows at last," and he
swam on to the buoy, and got upon it (for he was quite out of
breath) and sat there, and looked round for water-babies: but
there were none to be seen.
The sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and blew the fog away;
and the little waves danced for joy around the buoy, and the old
buoy danced with them. The shadows of the clouds ran races over
the bright blue bay, and yet never caught each other up; and the
breakers plunged merrily upon the wide white sands, and jumped up
over the rocks, to see what the green fields inside were like, and
tumbled down and broke themselves all to pieces, and never minded
it a bit, but mended themselves and jumped up again. And the terns
hovered over Tom like huge white dragon-flies with black heads, and
the gulls laughed like girls at play, and the sea-pies, with their
red bills and legs, flew to and fro from shore to shore, and
whistled sweet and wild. And Tom looked and looked, and listened;
and he would have been very happy, if he could only have seen the
water-babies. Then when the tide turned, he left the buoy, and
swam round and round in search of them: but in vain. Sometimes he
thought he heard them laughing: but it was only the laughter of
the ripples. And sometimes he thought he saw them at the bottom:
but it was only white and pink shells. And once he was sure he had
found one, for he saw two bright eyes peeping out of the sand. So
he dived down, and began scraping the sand away, and cried, "Don't
hide; I do want some one to play with so much!" And out jumped a
great turbot with his ugly eyes and mouth all awry, and flopped
away along the bottom, knocking poor Tom over. And he sat down at
the bottom of the sea, and cried salt tears from sheer
disappointment.
To have come all this way, and faced so many dangers, and yet to
find no water-babies! How hard! Well, it did seem hard: but
people, even little babies, cannot have all they want without
waiting for it, and working for it too, my little man, as you will
find out some day.
And Tom sat upon the buoy long days, long weeks, looking out to
sea, and wondering when the water-babies would come back; and yet
they never came.
Then he began to ask all the strange things which came in out of
the sea if they had seen any; and some said "Yes," and some said
nothing at all.
He asked the bass and the pollock; but they were so greedy after
the shrimps that they did not care to answer him a word.
Then there came in a whole fleet of purple sea-snails, floating
along, each on a sponge full of foam, and Tom said, "Where do you
come from, you pretty creatures? and have you seen the waterbabies?"
And the sea-snails answered, "Whence we come we know not; and
whither we are going, who can tell? We float out our life in the
mid-ocean, with the warm sunshine above our heads, and the warm
gulf-stream below; and that is enough for us. Yes; perhaps we have
seen the water-babies. We have seen many strange things as we
sailed along." And they floated away, the happy stupid things, and
all went ashore upon the sands.
Then there came in a great lazy sunfish, as big as a fat pig cut in
half; and he seemed to have been cut in half too, and squeezed in a
clothes-press till he was flat; but to all his big body and big
fins he had only a little rabbit's mouth, no bigger than Tom's;
and, when Tom questioned him, he answered in a little squeaky
feeble voice:
"I'm sure I don't know; I've lost my way. I meant to go to the
Chesapeake, and I'm afraid I've got wrong somehow. Dear me! it was
all by following that pleasant warm water. I'm sure I've lost my
way."
And, when Tom asked him again, he could only answer, "I've lost my
way. Don't talk to me; I want to think."
But, like a good many other people, the more he tried to think the
less he could think; and Tom saw him blundering about all day, till
the coast-guardsmen saw his big fin above the water, and rowed out,
and struck a boat-hook into him, and took him away. They took him
up to the town and showed him for a penny a head, and made a good
day's work of it. But of course Tom did not know that.
Then there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling as they went -
papas, and mammas, and little children - and all quite smooth and
shiny, because the fairies French-polish them every morning; and
they sighed so softly as they came by, that Tom took courage to
speak to them: but all they answered was, "Hush, hush, hush;" for
that was all they had learnt to say.
And then there came a shoal of basking sharks' some of them as long
as a boat, and Tom was frightened at them. But they were very lazy
good-natured fellows, not greedy tyrants, like white sharks and
blue sharks and ground sharks and hammer-heads, who eat men, or
saw-fish and threshers and ice-sharks, who hunt the poor old
whales. They came and rubbed their great sides against the buoy,
and lay basking in the sun with their backfins out of water; and
winked at Tom: but he never could get them to speak. They had
eaten so many herrings that they were quite stupid; and Tom was
glad when a collier brig came by and frightened them all away; for
they did smell most horribly, certainly, and he had to hold his
nose tight as long as they were there.
And then there came by a beautiful creature, like a ribbon of pure
silver with a sharp head and very long teeth; but it seemed very
sick and sad. Sometimes it rolled helpless on its side; and then
it dashed away glittering like white fire; and then it lay sick
again and motionless.
"Where do you come from?" asked Tom. "And why are YOU so sick and
sad?"
"I come from the warm Carolinas, and the sandbanks fringed with
pines; where the great owl-rays leap and flap, like giant bats,
upon the tide. But I wandered north and north, upon the
treacherous warm gulf-stream, till I met with the cold icebergs,
afloat in the mid ocean. So I got tangled among the icebergs, and
chilled with their frozen breath. But the water-babies helped me
from among them, and set me free again. And now I am mending every
day; but I am very sick and sad; and perhaps I shall never get home
again to play with the owl-rays any more."
"Oh!" cried Tom. "And you have seen water-babies? Have you seen
any near here?"
"Yes; they helped me again last night, or I should have been eaten
by a great black porpoise."
How vexatious! The water-babies close to him, and yet he could not
find one.
And then he left the buoy, and used to go along the sands and round
the rocks, and come out in the night - like the forsaken Merman in
Mr. Arnold's beautiful, beautiful poem, which you must learn by
heart some day - and sit upon a point of rock, among the shining
sea-weeds, in the low October tides, and cry and call for the
water-babies; but he never heard a voice call in return. And at
last, with his fretting and crying, he grew quite lean and thin.
But one day among the rocks he found a playfellow. It was not a
water-baby, alas! but it was a lobster; and a very distinguished
lobster he was; for he had live barnacles on his claws, which is a
great mark of distinction in lobsterdom, and no more to be bought
for money than a good conscience or the Victoria Cross.
Tom had never seen a lobster before; and he was mightily taken with
this one; for he thought him the most curious, odd, ridiculous
creature he had ever seen; and there he was not far wrong; for all
the ingenious men, and all the scientific men, and all the fanciful
men, in the world, with all the old German bogy-painters into the
bargain, could never invent, if all their wits were boiled into
one, anything so curious, and so ridiculous, as a lobster.
He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and Tom delighted in
watching him hold on to the seaweed with his knobbed claw, while he
cut up salads with his jagged one, and then put them into his
mouth, after smelling at them, like a monkey. And always the
little barnacles threw out their casting-nets and swept the water,
and came in for their share of whatever there was for dinner.
But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired himself off - snap!
like the leap-frogs which you make out of a goose's breast-bone.
Certainly he took the most wonderful shots, and backwards, too.
For, if he wanted to go into a narrow crack ten yards off, what do
you think he did? If he had gone in head foremost, of course he
could not have turned round. So he used to turn his tail to it,
and lay his long horns, which carry his sixth sense in their tips
(and nobody knows what that sixth sense is), straight down his back
to guide him, and twist his eyes back till they almost came out of
their sockets, and then made ready, present, fire, snap! - and away
he went, pop into the hole; and peeped out and twiddled his
whiskers, as much as to say, "You couldn't do that."
Tom asked him about water-babies. "Yes," he said. He had seen
them often. But he did not think much of them. They were
meddlesome little creatures, that went about helping fish and
shells which got into scrapes. Well, for his part, he should be
ashamed to be helped by little soft creatures that had not even a
shell on their backs. He had lived quite long enough in the world
to take care of himself.
He was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not very civil to
Tom; and you will hear how he had to alter his mind before he was
done, as conceited people generally have. But he was so funny, and
Tom so lonely, that he could not quarrel with him; and they used to
sit in holes in the rocks, and chat for hours.
And about this time there happened to Tom a very strange and
important adventure - so important, indeed, that he was very near
never finding the water-babies at all; and I am sure you would have
been sorry for that.
I hope that you have not forgotten the little white lady all this
while. At least, here she comes, looking like a clean white good
little darling, as she always was, and always will be. For it
befell in the pleasant short December days, when the wind always
blows from the south-west, till Old Father Christmas comes and
spreads the great white table-cloth, ready for little boys and
girls to give the birds their Christmas dinner of crumbs - it
befell (to go on) in the pleasant December days, that Sir John was
so busy hunting that nobody at home could get a word out of him.
Four days a week he hunted, and very good sport he had; and the
other two he went to the bench and the board of guardians, and very
good justice he did; and, when he got home in time, he dined at
five; for he hated this absurd new fashion of dining at eight in
the hunting season, which forces a man to make interest with the
footman for cold beef and beer as soon as he comes in, and so spoil
his appetite, and then sleep in an arm-chair in his bedroom, all
stiff and tired, for two or three hours before he can get his
dinner like a gentleman. And do you be like Sir John, my dear
little man, when you are your own master; and, if you want either
to read hard or ride hard, stick to the good old Cambridge hours of
breakfast at eight and dinner at five; by which you may get two
days' work out of one. But, of course, if you find a fox at three
in the afternoon and run him till dark, and leave off twenty miles
from home, why you must wait for your dinner till you can get it,
as better men than you have done. Only see that, if you go hungry,
your horse does not; but give him his warm gruel and beer, and take
him gently home, remembering that good horses don't grow on the
hedge like blackberries.
It befell (to go on a second time) that Sir John, hunting all day,
and dining at five, fell asleep every evening, and snored so
terribly that all the windows in Harthover shook, and the soot fell
down the chimneys. Whereon My Lady, being no more able to get
conversation out of him than a song out of a dead nightingale,
determined to go off and leave him, and the doctor, and Captain
Swinger the agent, to snore in concert every evening to their
hearts' content. So she started for the seaside with all the
children, in order to put herself and them into condition by mild
applications of iodine. She might as well have stayed at home and
used Parry's liquid horse-blister, for there was plenty of it in
the stables; and then she would have saved her money, and saved the
chance, also, of making all the children ill instead of well (as
hundreds are made), by taking them to some nasty smelling undrained
lodging, and then wondering how they caught scarlatina and
diphtheria: but people won't be wise enough to understand that
till they are dead of bad smells, and then it will be too late;
besides you see, Sir John did certainly snore very loud.
But where she went to nobody must know, for fear young ladies
should begin to fancy that there are water-babies there! and so
hunt and howk after them (besides raising the price of lodgings),
and keep them in aquariums, as the ladies at Pompeii (as you may
see by the paintings) used to keep Cupids in cages. But nobody
ever heard that they starved the Cupids, or let them die of dirt
and neglect, as English young ladies do by the poor sea-beasts. So
nobody must know where My Lady went. Letting water-babies die is
as bad as taking singing birds' eggs; for, though there are
thousands, ay, millions, of both of them in the world, yet there is
not one too many.
Now it befell that, on the very shore, and over the very rocks,
where Tom was sitting with his friend the lobster, there walked one
day the little white lady, Ellie herself, and with her a very wise
man indeed - Professor Ptthmllnsprts.
His mother was a Dutchwoman, and therefore he was born at Curacao
(of course you have learnt your geography, and therefore know why);
and his father a Pole, and therefore he was brought up at
Petropaulowski (of course you have learnt your modern politics, and
therefore know why): but for all that he was as thorough an
Englishman as ever coveted his neighbour's goods. And his name, as
I said, was Professor Ptthmllnsprts, which is a very ancient and
noble Polish name.
He was, as I said, a very great naturalist, and chief professor of
Necrobioneopalaeonthydrochthonanthropopithekology in the new
university which the king of the Cannibal Islands had founded; and,
being a member of the Acclimatisation Society, he had come here to
collect all the nasty things which he could find on the coast of
England, and turn them loose round the Cannibal Islands, because
they had not nasty things enough there to eat what they left.
But he was a very worthy kind good-natured little old gentleman;
and very fond of children (for he was not the least a cannibal
himself); and very good to all the world as long as it was good to
him. Only one fault he had, which cock-robins have likewise, as
you may see if you look out of the nursery window - that, when any
one else found a curious worm, he would hop round them, and peck
them, and set up his tail, and bristle up his feathers, just as a
cock-robin would; and declare that he found the worm first; and
that it was his worm; and, if not, that then it was not a worm at
all.
He had met Sir John at Scarborough, or Fleetwood, or somewhere or
other (if you don't care where, nobody else does), and had made
acquaintance with him, and become very fond of his children. Now,
Sir John knew nothing about sea-cockyolybirds, and cared less,
provided the fishmonger sent him good fish for dinner; and My Lady
knew as little: but she thought it proper that the children should
know something. For in the stupid old times, you must understand,
children were taught to know one thing, and to know it well; but in
these enlightened new times they are taught to know a little about
everything, and to know it all ill; which is a great deal
pleasanter and easier, and therefore quite right.
So Ellie and he were walking on the rocks, and he was showing her
about one in ten thousand of all the beautiful and curious things
which are to be seen there. But little Ellie was not satisfied
with them at all. She liked much better to play with live
children, or even with dolls, which she could pretend were alive;
and at last she said honestly, "I don't care about all these
things, because they can't play with me, or talk to me. If there
were little children now in the water, as there used to be, and I
could see them, I should like that."
"Children in the water, you strange little duck?" said the
professor.
"Yes," said Ellie. "I know there used to be children in the water,
and mermaids too, and mermen. I saw them all in a picture at home,
of a beautiful lady sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and babies
flying round her, and one sitting in her lap; and the mermaids
swimming and playing, and the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells;
and it is called 'The Triumph of Galatea;' and there is a burning
mountain in the picture behind. It hangs on the great staircase,
and I have looked at it ever since I was a baby, and dreamt about
it a hundred times; and it is so beautiful, that it must be true."
But the professor had not the least notion of allowing that things
were true, merely because people thought them beautiful. For at
that rate, he said, the Baltas would be quite right in thinking it
a fine thing to eat their grandpapas, because they thought it an
ugly thing to put them underground. The professor, indeed, went
further, and held that no man was forced to believe anything to be
true, but what he could see, hear, taste, or handle.
He held very strange theories about a good many things. He had
even got up once at the British Association, and declared that apes
had hippopotamus majors in their brains just as men have. Which
was a shocking thing to say; for, if it were so, what would become
of the faith, hope, and charity of immortal millions? You may
think that there are other more important differences between you
and an ape, such as being able to speak, and make machines, and
know right from wrong, and say your prayers, and other little
matters of that kind; but that is a child's fancy, my dear.
Nothing is to be depended on but the great hippopotamus test. If
you have a hippopotamus major in your brain, you are no ape, though
you had four hands, no feet, and were more apish than the apes of
all aperies. But if a hippopotamus major is ever discovered in one
single ape's brain, nothing will save your great-great-great-greatgreat-
great-great-great-great-great-great-greater-greatestgrandmother
from having been an ape too. No, my dear little man;
always remember that the one true, certain, final, and allimportant
difference between you and an ape is, that you have a
hippopotamus major in your brain, and it has none; and that,
therefore, to discover one in its brain will be a very wrong and
dangerous thing, at which every one will be very much shocked, as
we may suppose they were at the professor. - Though really, after
all, it don't much matter; because - as Lord Dundreary and others
would put it - nobody but men have hippopotamuses in their brains;
so, if a hippopotamus was discovered in an ape's brain, why it
would not be one, you know, but something else.
But the professor had gone, I am sorry to say, even further than
that; for he had read at the British Association at Melbourne,
Australia, in the year 1999, a paper which assured every one who
found himself the better or wiser for the news, that there were
not, never had been, and could not be, any rational or halfrational
beings except men, anywhere, anywhen, or anyhow; that
NYMPHS, SATYRS, FAUNS, INUI, DWARFS, TROLLS, ELVES, GNOMES,
FAIRIES, BROWNIES, NIXES, WILLS, KOBOLDS, LEPRECHAUNES,
CLURICAUNES, BANSHEES, WILL-O'-THE-WISPS, FOLLETS, LUTINS,
MAGOTS,
GOBLINS, AFRITS, MARIDS, JINNS, GHOULS, PERIS, DEEVS, ANGELS,
ARCHANGELS, IMPS, BOGIES, or worse, were nothing at all, and pure
bosh and wind. And he had to get up very early in the morning to
prove that, and to eat his breakfast overnight; but he did it, at
least to his own satisfaction. Whereon a certain great divine, and
a very clever divine was he, called him a regular Sadducee; and
probably he was quite right. Whereon the professor, in return,
called him a regular Pharisee; and probably he was quite right too.
But they did not quarrel in the least; for, when men are men of the
world, hard words run off them like water off a duck's back. So
the professor and the divine met at dinner that evening, and sat
together on the sofa afterwards for an hour, and talked over the
state of female labour on the antarctic continent (for nobody talks
shop after his claret), and each vowed that the other was the best
company he ever met in his life. What an advantage it is to be men
of the world!
From all which you may guess that the professor was not the least
of little Ellie's opinion. So he gave her a succinct compendium of
his famous paper at the British Association, in a form suited for
the youthful mind. But, as we have gone over his arguments against
water-babies once already, which is once too often, we will not
repeat them here.
Now little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; for, instead
of being convinced by Professor Ptthmllnsprts' arguments, she only
asked the same question over again.
"But why are there not water-babies?"
I trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at that
moment on the edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt one of his
corns sadly, that he answered quite sharply, forgetting that he was
a scientific man, and therefore ought to have known that he
couldn't know; and that he was a logician, and therefore ought to
have known that he could not prove a universal negative - I say, I
trust and hope it was because the mussel hurt his corn, that the
professor answered quite sharply:
"Because there ain't."
Which was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as you
must know from Aunt Agitate's Arguments, the professor ought to
have said, if he was so angry as to say anything of the kind -
Because there are not: or are none: or are none of them; or (if
he had been reading Aunt Agitate too) because they do not exist.
And he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, that, as
it befell, he caught poor little Tom.
He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly, with Tom all
entangled in the meshes.
"Dear me!" he cried. "What a large pink Holothurian; with hands,
too! It must be connected with Synapta."
And he took him out.
"It has actually eyes!" he cried. "Why, it must be a Cephalopod!
This is most extraordinary!"
"No, I ain't!" cried Tom, as loud as he could; for he did not like
to be called bad names.
"It is a water-baby!" cried Ellie; and of course it was.
"Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!" said the professor; and he turned
away sharply.
There was no denying it. It was a water-baby: and he had said a
moment ago that there were none. What was he to do?
He would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom home in a bucket.
He would not have put him in spirits. Of course not. He would
have kept him alive, and petted him (for he was a very kind old
gentleman), and written a book about him, and given him two long
names, of which the first would have said a little about Tom, and
the second all about himself; for of course he would have called
him Hydrotecnon Ptthmllnsprtsianum, or some other long name like
that; for they are forced to call everything by long names now,
because they have used up all the short ones, ever since they took
to making nine species out of one. But - what would all the
learned men say to him after his speech at the British Association?
And what would Ellie say, after what he had just told her?
There was a wise old heathen once, who said, "Maxima debetur pueris
reverentia" - The greatest reverence is due to children; that is,
that grown people should never say or do anything wrong before
children, lest they should set them a bad example. - Cousin
Cramchild says it means, "The greatest respectfulness is expected
from little boys." But he was raised in a country where little
boys are not expected to be respectful, because all of them are as
good as the President:- Well, every one knows his own concerns
best; so perhaps they are. But poor Cousin Cramchild, to do him
justice, not being of that opinion, and having a moral mission, and
being no scholar to speak of, and hard up for an authority - why,
it was a very great temptation for him. But some people, and I am
afraid the professor was one of them, interpret that in a more
strange, curious, one-sided, left-handed, topsy-turvy, inside-out,
behind-before fashion than even Cousin Cramchild; for they make it
mean, that you must show your respect for children, by never
confessing yourself in the wrong to them, even if you know that you
are so, lest they should lose confidence in their elders.
Now, if the professor had said to Ellie, "Yes, my darling, it is a
water-baby, and a very wonderful thing it is; and it shows how
little I know of the wonders of nature, in spite of forty years'
honest labour. I was just telling you that there could be no such
creatures; and, behold! here is one come to confound my conceit and
show me that Nature can do, and has done, beyond all that man's
poor fancy can imagine. So, let us thank the Maker, and Inspirer,
and Lord of Nature for all His wonderful and glorious works, and
try and find out something about this one;" - I think that, if the
professor had said that, little Ellie would have believed him more
firmly, and respected him more deeply, and loved him better, than
ever she had done before. But he was of a different opinion. He
hesitated a moment. He longed to keep Tom, and yet he half wished
he never had caught him; and at last he quite longed to get rid of
him. So he turned away and poked Tom with his finger, for want of
anything better to do; and said carelessly, "My dear little maid,
you must have dreamt of water-babies last night, your head is so
full of them."
Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable fright all
the while; and had kept as quiet as he could, though he was called
a Holothurian and a Cephalopod; for it was fixed in his little head
that if a man with clothes on caught him, he might put clothes on
him too, and make a dirty black chimney-sweep of him again. But,
when the professor poked him, it was more than he could bear; and,
between fright and rage, he turned to bay as valiantly as a mouse
in a corner, and bit the professor's finger till it bled.
"Oh! ah! yah!" cried he; and glad of an excuse to be rid of Tom,
dropped him on to the seaweed, and thence he dived into the water
and was gone in a moment.
"But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak!" cried Ellie. "Ah,
it is gone!" And she jumped down off the rock, to try and catch
Tom before he slipped into the sea.
Too late! and what was worse, as she sprang down, she slipped, and
fell some six feet, with her head on a sharp rock, and lay quite
still.
The professor picked her up, and tried to waken her, and called to
her, and cried over her, for he loved her very much: but she would
not waken at all. So he took her up in his arms and carried her to
her governess, and they all went home; and little Ellie was put to
bed, and lay there quite still; only now and then she woke up and
called out about the water-baby: but no one knew what she meant,
and the professor did not tell, for he was ashamed to tell.
And, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies came flying in
at the window and brought her such a pretty pair of wings that she
could not help putting them on; and she flew with them out of the
window, and over the land, and over the sea, and up through the
clouds, and nobody heard or saw anything of her for a very long
while.
And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a waterbaby.
For my part, I believe that the naturalists get dozens of
them when they are out dredging; but they say nothing about them,
and throw them overboard again, for fear of spoiling their
theories. But, you see the professor was found out, as every one
is in due time. A very terrible old fairy found the professor out;
she felt his bumps, and cast his nativity, and took the lunars of
him carefully inside and out; and so she knew what he would do as
well as if she had seen it in a print book, as they say in the dear
old west country; and he did it; and so he was found out
beforehand, as everybody always is; and the old fairy will find out
the naturalists some day, and put them in the TIMES, and then on
whose side will the laugh be?
So the old fairy took him in hand very severely there and then.
But she says she is always most severe with the best people,
because there is most chance of curing them, and therefore they are
the patients who pay her best; for she has to work on the same
salary as the Emperor of China's physicians (it is a pity that all
do not), no cure, no pay.
So she took the poor professor in hand: and because he was not
content with things as they are, she filled his head with things as
they are not, to try if he would like them better; and because he
did not choose to believe in a water-baby when he saw it, she made
him believe in worse things than water-babies - in UNICORNS, FIREDRAKES,
MANTICORAS, BASILISKS, AMPHISBAENAS, GRIFFINS, PHOENIXES,
ROCS, ORCS, DOG-HEADED MEN, THREE-HEADED DOGS, THREE-BODIED
GERYONS, and other pleasant creatures, which folks think never
existed yet, and which folks hope never will exist, though they
know nothing about the matter, and never will; and these creatures
so upset, terrified, flustered, aggravated, confused, astounded,
horrified, and totally flabbergasted the poor professor that the
doctors said that he was out of his wits for three months; and
perhaps they were right, as they are now and then.
So all the doctors in the county were called in to make a report on
his case; and of course every one of them flatly contradicted the
other: else what use is there in being men of science? But at
last the majority agreed on a report in the true medical language,
one half bad Latin, the other half worse Greek, and the rest what
might have been English, if they had only learnt to write it. And
this is the beginning thereof -
"The subanhypaposupernal anastomoses of peritomic diacellurite in
the encephalo digital region of the distinguished individual of
whose symptomatic phoenomena we had the melancholy honour
(subsequently to a preliminary diagnostic inspection) of making an
inspectorial diagnosis, presenting the interexclusively
quadrilateral and antinomian diathesis known as Bumpsterhausen's
blue follicles, we proceeded" -
But what they proceeded to do My Lady never knew; for she was so
frightened at the long words that she ran for her life, and locked
herself into her bedroom, for fear of being squashed by the words
and strangled by the sentence. A boa constrictor, she said, was
bad company enough: but what was a boa constrictor made of paving
stones?
"It was quite shocking! What can they think is the matter with
him?" said she to the old nurse.
"That his wit's just addled; may be wi' unbelief and heathenry,"
quoth she.
"Then why can't they say so?"
And the heaven, and the sea, and the rocks, and the vales re-echoed
- "Why indeed?" But the doctors never heard them.
So she made Sir John write to the TIMES to command the Chancellor
of the Exchequer for the time being to put a tax on long words; -
A light tax on words over three syllables, which are necessary
evils, like rats: but, like them, must be kept down judiciously.
A heavy tax on words over four syllables, as HETERODOXY,
SPONTANEITY, SPIRITUALISM, SPURIOSITY, ETC.
And on words over five syllables (of which I hope no one will wish
to see any examples), a totally prohibitory tax.
And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from three or more
languages at once; words derived from two languages having become
so common that there was no more hope of rooting out them than of
rooting out peth-winds.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and a man of
sense, jumped at the notion; for he saw in it the one and only plan
for abolishing Schedule D: but when he brought in his bill, most
of the Irish members, and (I am sorry to say) some of the Scotch
likewise, opposed it most strongly, on the ground that in a free
country no man was bound either to understand himself or to let
others understand him. So the bill fell through on the first
reading; and the Chancellor, being a philosopher, comforted himself
with the thought that it was not the first time that a woman had
hit off a grand idea and the men turned up their stupid noses
thereat.
Now the doctors had it all their own way; and to work they went in
earnest, and they gave the poor professor divers and sundry
medicines, as prescribed by the ancients and moderns, from
Hippocrates to Feuchtersleben, as below, viz.-
1. Hellebore, to wit -
Hellebore of AEta.
Hellebore of Galatia.
Hellebore of Sicily.
And all other Hellebores, after the method of the Helleborising
Helleborists of the Helleboric era. But that would not do.
Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles would not stir an inch out of his
encephalo digital region.
2. Trying to find out what was the matter with him, after the
method of
Hippocrates,
Aretaeus,
Celsus,
Coelius Aurelianus,
And Galen.
But they found that a great deal too much trouble, as most people
have since; and so had recourse to -
3. Borage.
Cauteries.
Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says Gordonius)
"will, without doubt, do much good." But it didn't.
Bezoar stone.
Diamargaritum.
A ram's brain boiled in spice.
Oil of wormwood.
Water of Nile.
Capers.
Good wine (but there was none to be got).
The water of a smith's forge.
Ambergris.
Mandrake pillows.
Dormouse fat.
Hares' ears.
Starvation.
Camphor.
Salts and senna.
Musk.
Opium.
Strait-waistcoats.
Bullyings.
Bumpings.
Bleedings.
Bucketings with cold water.
Knockings down.
Kneeling on his chest till they broke it in, etc. etc.; after the
medieval or monkish method: but that would not do.
Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles stuck there still.
Then -
4. Coaxing.
Kissing.
Champagne and turtle.
Red herrings and soda water.
Good advice.
Gardening.
Croquet.
Musical soirees.
Aunt Salty.
Mild tobacco.
The Saturday Review.
A carriage with outriders, etc. etc.
After the modern method. But that would not do.
And if he had but been a convict lunatic, and had shot at the
Queen, killed all his creditors to avoid paying them, or indulged
in any other little amiable eccentricity of that kind, they would
have given him in addition -
The healthiest situation in England, on Easthampstead Plain.
Free run of Windsor Forest.
The TIMES every morning.
A double-barrelled gun and pointers, and leave to shoot three
Wellington College boys a week (not more) in case black game was
scarce.
But as he was neither mad enough nor bad enough to be allowed such
luxuries, they grew desperate, and fell into bad ways, viz. -
5. Suffumigations of sulphur.
Herrwiggius his "Incomparable drink for madmen:"
Only they could not find out what it was.
Suffumigation of the liver of the fish * * *
Only they had forgotten its name, so Dr. Gray could not well
procure them a specimen.
Metallic tractors.
Holloway's Ointment.
Electro-biology.
Valentine Greatrakes his Stroking Cure.
Spirit-rapping.
Holloway's Pills.
Table-turning.
Morison's Pills.
Homoeopathy.
Parr's Life Pills.
Mesmerism.
Pure Bosh.
Exorcisms, for which the read Maleus Maleficarum, Nideri
Formicarium, Delrio, Wierus, etc.
But could not get one that mentioned water-babies.
Hydropathy.
Madame Rachel's Elixir of Youth.
The Poughkeepsie Seer his Prophecies.
The distilled liquor of addle eggs.
Pyropathy.
As successfully employed by the old inquisitors to cure the malady
of thought, and now by the Persian Mollahs to cure that of
rheumatism.
Geopathy, or burying him.
Atmopathy, or steaming him.
Sympathy, after the method of Basil Valentine his Triumph of
Antimony, and Kenelm Digby his Weapon-salve, which some call a hair
of the dog that bit him.
Hermopathy, or pouring mercury down his throat to move the animal
spirits.
Meteoropathy, or going up to the moon to look for his lost wits, as
Ruggiero did for Orlando Furioso's: only, having no hippogriff,
they were forced to use a balloon; and, falling into the North Sea,
were picked up by a Yarmouth herring-boat, and came home much the
wiser, and all over scales.
Antipathy, or using him like "a man and a brother."
Apathy, or doing nothing at all.
With all other ipathies and opathies which Noodle has invented, and
Foodle tried, since black-fellows chipped flints at Abbeville -
which is a considerable time ago, to judge by the Great Exhibition.
But nothing would do; for he screamed and cried all day for a
water-baby, to come and drive away the monsters; and of course they
did not try to find one, because they did not believe in them, and
were thinking of nothing but Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles;
having, as usual, set the cart before the horse, and taken the
effect for the cause.
So they were forced at last to let the poor professor ease his mind
by writing a great book, exactly contrary to all his old opinions;
in which he proved that the moon was made of green cheese, and that
all the mites in it (which you may see sometimes quite plain
through a telescope, if you will only keep the lens dirty enough,
as Mr. Weekes kept his voltaic battery) are nothing in the world
but little babies, who are hatching and swarming up there in
millions, ready to come down into this world whenever children want
a new little brother or sister.
Which must be a mistake, for this one reason: that, there being no
atmosphere round the moon (though some one or other says there is,
at least on the other side, and that he has been round at the back
of it to see, and found that the moon was just the shape of a Bath
bun, and so wet that the man in the moon went about on Midsummerday
in Macintoshes and Cording's boots, spearing eels and
sneezing); that, therefore, I say, there being no atmosphere, there
can be no evaporation; and therefore the dew-point can never fall
below 71.5 degrees below zero of Fahrenheit: and, therefore, it
cannot be cold enough there about four o'clock in the morning to
condense the babies' mesenteric apophthegms into their left
ventricles; and, therefore, they can never catch the hooping-cough;
and if they do not have hooping-cough, they cannot be babies at
all; and, therefore, there are no babies in the moon. - Q.E.D.
Which may seem a roundabout reason; and so, perhaps, it is: but
you will have heard worse ones in your time, and from better men
than you are.
But one thing is certain; that, when the good old doctor got his
book written, he felt considerably relieved from Bumpsterhausen's
blue follicles, and a few things infinitely worse; to wit, from
pride and vain-glory, and from blindness and hardness of heart;
which are the true causes of Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles, and
of a good many other ugly things besides. Whereon the foul floodwater
in his brains ran down, and cleared to a fine coffee colour,
such as fish like to rise in, till very fine clean fresh-run fish
did begin to rise in his brains; and he caught two or three of them
(which is exceedingly fine sport, for brain rivers), and anatomised
them carefully, and never mentioned what he found out from them,
except to little children; and became ever after a sadder and a
wiser man; which is a very good thing to become, my dear little
boy, even though one has to pay a heavy price for the blessing.
CHAPTER V
"Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face:
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong."
WORDSWORTH, Ode to Duty.
What became of little Tom?
He slipped away off the rocks into the water, as I said before.
But he could not help thinking of little Ellie. He did not
remember who she was; but he knew that she was a little girl,
though she was a hundred times as big as he. That is not
surprising: size has nothing to do with kindred. A tiny weed may
be first cousin to a great tree; and a little dog like Vick knows
that Lioness is a dog too, though she is twenty times larger than
herself. So Tom knew that Ellie was a little girl, and thought
about her all that day, and longed to have had her to play with;
but he had very soon to think of something else. And here is the
account of what happened to him, as it was published next morning,
in the Water-proof Gazette, on the finest watered paper, for the
use of the great fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, who reads the news
very carefully every morning, and especially the police cases, as
you will hear very soon.
He was going along the rocks in three-fathom water, watching the
pollock catch prawns, and the wrasses nibble barnacles off the
rocks, shells and all, when he saw a round cage of green withes;
and inside it, looking very much ashamed of himself, sat his friend
the lobster, twiddling his horns, instead of thumbs.
"What, have you been naughty, and have they put you in the lockup?"
asked Tom.
The lobster felt a little indignant at such a notion, but he was
too much depressed in spirits to argue; so he only said, "I can't
get out."
"Why did you get in?"
"After that nasty piece of dead fish." He had thought it looked
and smelt very nice when he was outside, and so it did, for a
lobster: but now he turned round and abused it because he was
angry with himself.
"Where did you get in?"
"Through that round hole at the top."
"Then why don't you get out through it?"
"Because I can't:" and the lobster twiddled his horns more fiercely
than ever, but he was forced to confess.
"I have jumped upwards, downwards, backwards, and sideways, at
least four thousand times; and I can't get out: I always get up
underneath there, and can't find the hole."
Tom looked at the trap, and having more wit than the lobster, he
saw plainly enough what was the matter; as you may if you will look
at a lobster-pot.
"Stop a bit," said Tom. "Turn your tail up to me, and I'll pull
you through hindforemost, and then you won't stick in the spikes."
But the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he couldn't hit the
hole. Like a great many fox-hunters, he was very sharp as long as
he was in his own country; but as soon as they get out of it they
lose their heads; and so the lobster, so to speak, lost his tail.
Tom reached and clawed down the hole after him, till he caught hold
of him; and then, as was to be expected, the clumsy lobster pulled
him in head foremost.
"Hullo! here is a pretty business," said Tom. "Now take your great
claws, and break the points off those spikes, and then we shall
both get out easily."
"Dear me, I never thought of that," said the lobster; "and after
all the experience of life that I have had!"
You see, experience is of very little good unless a man, or a
lobster, has wit enough to make use of it. For a good many people,
like old Polonius, have seen all the world, and yet remain little
better than children after all.
But they had not got half the spikes away when they saw a great
dark cloud over them: and lo, and behold, it was the otter.
How she did grin and grin when she saw Tom. "Yar!" said she, "you
little meddlesome wretch, I have you now! I will serve you out for
telling the salmon where I was!" And she crawled all over the pot
to get in.
Tom was horribly frightened, and still more frightened when she
found the hole in the top, and squeezed herself right down through
it, all eyes and teeth. But no sooner was her head inside than
valiant Mr. Lobster caught her by the nose and held on.
And there they were all three in the pot, rolling over and over,
and very tight packing it was. And the lobster tore at the otter,
and the otter tore at the lobster, and both squeezed and thumped
poor Tom till he had no breath left in his body; and I don't know
what would have happened to him if he had not at last got on the
otter's back, and safe out of the hole.
He was right glad when he got out: but he would not desert his
friend who had saved him; and the first time he saw his tail
uppermost he caught hold of it, and pulled with all his might.
But the lobster would not let go.
"Come along," said Tom; "don't you see she is dead?" And so she
was, quite drowned and dead.
And that was the end of the wicked otter.
But the lobster would not let go.
"Come along, you stupid old stick-in-the-mud," cried Tom, "or the
fisherman will catch you!" And that was true, for Tom felt some
one above beginning to haul up the pot.
But the lobster would not let go. Tom saw the fisherman haul him
up to the boat-side, and thought it was all up with him. But when
Mr. Lobster saw the fisherman, he gave such a furious and
tremendous snap, that he snapped out of his hand, and out of the
pot, and safe into the sea. But he left his knobbed claw behind
him; for it never came into his stupid head to let go after all, so
he just shook his claw off as the easier method. It was something
of a bull, that; but you must know the lobster was an Irish
lobster, and was hatched off Island Magee at the mouth of Belfast
Lough.
Tom asked the lobster why he never thought of letting go. He said
very determinedly that it was a point of honour among lobsters.
And so it is, as the Mayor of Plymouth found out once to his cost -
eight or nine hundred years ago, of course; for if it had happened
lately it would be personal to mention it.
For one day he was so tired with sitting on a hard chair, in a
grand furred gown, with a gold chain round his neck, hearing one
policeman after another come in and sing, "What shall we do with
the drunken sailor, so early in the morning?" and answering them
each exactly alike:
"Put him in the round house till he gets sober, so early in the
morning" -
That, when it was over, he jumped up, and played leap-frog with the
town-clerk till he burst his buttons, and then had his luncheon,
and burst some more buttons, and then said: "It is a low springtide;
I shall go out this afternoon and cut my capers."
Now he did not mean to cut such capers as you eat with boiled
mutton. It was the commandant of artillery at Valetta who used to
amuse himself with cutting them, and who stuck upon one of the
bastions a notice, "No one allowed to cut capers here but me,"
which greatly edified the midshipmen in port, and the Maltese on
the Nix Mangiare stairs. But all that the mayor meant was that he
would go and have an afternoon's fun, like any schoolboy, and catch
lobsters with an iron hook.
So to the Mewstone he went, and for lobsters he looked. And when
he came to a certain crack in the rocks he was so excited that,
instead of putting in his hook, he put in his hand; and Mr. Lobster
was at home, and caught him by the finger, and held on.
"Yah!" said the mayor, and pulled as hard as he dared: but the
more he pulled, the more the lobster pinched, till he was forced to
be quiet.
Then he tried to get his hook in with his other hand; but the hole
was too narrow.
Then he pulled again; but he could not stand the pain.
Then he shouted and bawled for help: but there was no one nearer
him than the men-of-war inside the breakwater.
Then he began to turn a little pale; for the tide flowed, and still
the lobster held on.
Then he turned quite white; for the tide was up to his knees, and
still the lobster held on.
Then he thought of cutting off his finger; but he wanted two things
to do it with - courage and a knife; and he had got neither.
Then he turned quite yellow; for the tide was up to his waist, and
still the lobster held on.
Then he thought over all the naughty things he ever had done; all
the sand which he had put in the sugar, and the sloe-leaves in the
tea, and the water in the treacle, and the salt in the tobacco
(because his brother was a brewer, and a man must help his own
kin).
Then he turned quite blue; for the tide was up to his breast, and
still the lobster held on.
Then, I have no doubt, he repented fully of all the said naughty
things which he had done, and promised to mend his life, as too
many do when they think they have no life left to mend. Whereby,
as they fancy, they make a very cheap bargain. But the old fairy
with the birch rod soon undeceives them.
And then he grew all colours at once, and turned up his eyes like a
duck in thunder; for the water was up to his chin, and still the
lobster held on.
And then came a man-of-war's boat round the Mewstone, and saw his
head sticking up out of the water. One said it was a keg of
brandy, and another that it was a cocoa-nut, and another that it
was a buoy loose, and another that it was a black diver, and wanted
to fire at it, which would not have been pleasant for the mayor:
but just then such a yell came out of a great hole in the middle of
it that the midshipman in charge guessed what it was, and bade pull
up to it as fast as they could. So somehow or other the Jack-tars
got the lobster out, and set the mayor free, and put him ashore at
the Barbican. He never went lobster-catching again; and we will
hope he put no more salt in the tobacco, not even to sell his
brother's beer.
And that is the story of the Mayor of Plymouth, which has two
advantages - first, that of being quite true; and second, that of
having (as folks say all good stories ought to have) no moral
whatsoever: no more, indeed, has any part of this book, because it
is a fairy tale, you know.
And now happened to Tom a most wonderful thing; for he had not left
the lobster five minutes before he came upon a water-baby.
A real live water-baby, sitting on the white sand, very busy about
a little point of rock. And when it saw Tom it looked up for a
moment, and then cried, "Why, you are not one of us. You are a new
baby! Oh, how delightful!"
And it ran to Tom, and Tom ran to it, and they hugged and kissed
each other for ever so long, they did not know why. But they did
not want any introductions there under the water.
At last Tom said, "Oh, where have you been all this while? I have
been looking for you so long, and I have been so lonely."
"We have been here for days and days. There are hundreds of us
about the rocks. How was it you did not see us, or hear us when we
sing and romp every evening before we go home?"
Tom looked at the baby again, and then he said:
"Well, this is wonderful! I have seen things just like you again
and again, but I thought you were shells, or sea-creatures. I
never took you for water-babies like myself."
Now, was not that very odd? So odd, indeed, that you will, no
doubt, want to know how it happened, and why Tom could never find a
water-baby till after he had got the lobster out of the pot. And,
if you will read this story nine times over, and then think for
yourself, you will find out why. It is not good for little boys to
be told everything, and never to be forced to use their own wits.
They would learn, then, no more than they do at Dr. Dulcimer's
famous suburban establishment for the idler members of the youthful
aristocracy, where the masters learn the lessons and the boys hear
them - which saves a great deal of trouble - for the time being.
"Now," said the baby, "come and help me, or I shall not have
finished before my brothers and sisters come, and it is time to go
home."
"What shall I help you at?"
"At this poor dear little rock; a great clumsy boulder came rolling
by in the last storm, and knocked all its head off, and rubbed off
all its flowers. And now I must plant it again with seaweeds, and
coralline, and anemones, and I will make it the prettiest little
rock-garden on all the shore."
So they worked away at the rock, and planted it, and smoothed the
sand down round, it, and capital fun they had till the tide began
to turn. And then Tom heard all the other babies coming, laughing
and singing and shouting and romping; and the noise they made was
just like the noise of the ripple. So he knew that he had been
hearing and seeing the water-babies all along; only he did not know
them, because his eyes and ears were not opened.
And in they came, dozens and dozens of them, some bigger than Tom
and some smaller, all in the neatest little white bathing dresses;
and when they found that he was a new baby, they hugged him and
kissed him, and then put him in the middle and danced round him on
the sand, and there was no one ever so happy as poor little Tom.
"Now then," they cried all at once, "we must come away home, we
must come away home, or the tide will leave us dry. We have mended
all the broken sea-weed, and put all the rock-pools in order, and
planted all the shells again in the sand, and nobody will see where
the ugly storm swept in last week."
And this is the reason why the rock-pools are always so neat and
clean; because the water-babies come inshore after every storm to
sweep them out, and comb them down, and put them all to rights
again.
Only where men are wasteful and dirty, and let sewers run into the
sea instead of putting the stuff upon the fields like thrifty
reasonable souls; or throw herrings' heads and dead dog-fish, or
any other refuse, into the water; or in any way make a mess upon
the clean shore - there the water-babies will not come, sometimes
not for hundreds of years (for they cannot abide anything smelly or
foul), but leave the sea-anemones and the crabs to clear away
everything, till the good tidy sea has covered up all the dirt in
soft mud and clean sand, where the water-babies can plant live
cockles and whelks and razor-shells and sea-cucumbers and goldencombs,
and make a pretty live garden again, after man's dirt is
cleared away. And that, I suppose, is the reason why there are no
water-babies at any watering-place which I have ever seen.
And where is the home of the water-babies? In St. Brandan's fairy
isle.
Did you never hear of the blessed St. Brandan, how he preached to
the wild Irish on the wild, wild Kerry coast, he and five other
hermits, till they were weary and longed to rest? For the wild
Irish would not listen to them, or come to confession and to mass,
but liked better to brew potheen, and dance the pater o'pee, and
knock each other over the head with shillelaghs, and shoot each
other from behind turf-dykes, and steal each other's cattle, and
burn each other's homes; till St. Brandan and his friends were
weary of them, for they would not learn to be peaceable Christians
at all.
So St. Brandan went out to the point of Old Dunmore, and looked
over the tide-way roaring round the Blasquets, at the end of all
the world, and away into the ocean, and sighed - "Ah that I had
wings as a dove!" And far away, before the setting sun, he saw a
blue fairy sea, and golden fairy islands, and he said, "Those are
the islands of the blest." Then he and his friends got into a
hooker, and sailed away and away to the westward, and were never
heard of more. But the people who would not hear him were changed
into gorillas, and gorillas they are until this day.
And when St. Brandan and the hermits came to that fairy isle they
found it overgrown with cedars and full of beautiful birds; and he
sat down under the cedars and preached to all the birds in the air.
And they liked his sermons so well that they told the fishes in the
sea; and they came, and St. Brandan preached to them; and the
fishes told the water-babies, who live in the caves under the isle;
and they came up by hundreds every Sunday, and St. Brandan got
quite a neat little Sunday-school. And there he taught the waterbabies
for a great many hundred years, till his eyes grew too dim
to see, and his beard grew so long that he dared not walk for fear
of treading on it, and then he might have tumbled down. And at
last he and the five hermits fell fast asleep under the cedarshades,
and there they sleep unto this day. But the fairies took
to the water-babies, and taught them their lessons themselves.
And some say that St. Brandan will awake and begin to teach the
babies once more: but some think that he will sleep on, for better
for worse, till the coming of the Cocqcigrues. But, on still clear
summer evenings, when the sun sinks down into the sea, among golden
cloud-capes and cloud-islands, and locks and friths of azure sky,
the sailors fancy that they see, away to westward, St. Brandan's
fairy isle.
But whether men can see it or not, St. Brandan's Isle once actually
stood there; a great land out in the ocean, which has sunk and sunk
beneath the waves. Old Plato called it Atlantis, and told strange
tales of the wise men who lived therein, and of the wars they
fought in the old times. And from off that island came strange
flowers, which linger still about this land:- the Cornish heath,
and Cornish moneywort, and the delicate Venus's hair, and the
London-pride which covers the Kerry mountains, and the little pink
butterwort of Devon, and the great blue butterwort of Ireland, and
the Connemara heath, and the bristle-fern of the Turk waterfall,
and many a strange plant more; all fairy tokens left for wise men
and good children from off St. Brandan's Isle.
Now when Tom got there, he found that the isle stood all on
pillars, and that its roots were full of caves. There were pillars
of black basalt, like Staffa; and pillars of green and crimson
serpentine, like Kynance; and pillars ribboned with red and white
and yellow sandstone, like Livermead; and there were blue grottoes
like Capri, and white grottoes like Adelsberg; all curtained and
draped with seaweeds, purple and crimson, green and brown; and
strewn with soft white sand, on which the water-babies sleep every
night. But, to keep the place clean and sweet, the crabs picked up
all the scraps off the floor and ate them like so many monkeys;
while the rocks were covered with ten thousand sea-anemones, and
corals and madrepores, who scavenged the water all day long, and
kept it nice and pure. But, to make up to them for having to do
such nasty work, they were not left black and dirty, as poor
chimney-sweeps and dustmen are. No; the fairies are more
considerate and just than that, and have dressed them all in the
most beautiful colours and patterns, till they look like vast
flower-beds of gay blossoms. If you think I am talking nonsense, I
can only say that it is true; and that an old gentleman named
Fourier used to say that we ought to do the same by chimney-sweeps
and dustmen, and honour them instead of despising them; and he was
a very clever old gentleman: but, unfortunately for him and the
world, as mad as a March hare.
And, instead of watchmen and policemen to keep out nasty things at
night, there were thousands and thousands of water-snakes, and most
wonderful creatures they were. They were all named after the
Nereids, the sea-fairies who took care of them, Eunice and Polynoe,
Phyllodoce and Psamathe, and all the rest of the pretty darlings
who swim round their Queen Amphitrite, and her car of cameo shell.
They were dressed in green velvet, and black velvet, and purple
velvet; and were all jointed in rings; and some of them had three
hundred brains apiece, so that they must have been uncommonly
shrewd detectives; and some had eyes in their tails; and some had
eyes in every joint, so that they kept a very sharp look-out; and
when they wanted a baby-snake, they just grew one at the end of
their own tails, and when it was able to take care of itself it
dropped off; so that they brought up their families very cheaply.
But if any nasty thing came by, out they rushed upon it; and then
out of each of their hundreds of feet there sprang a whole cutler's
shop of
Scythes, Javelins,
Billhooks, Lances,
Pickaxes, Halberts,
Forks, Gisarines,
Penknives, Poleaxes,
Rapiers, Fishhooks,
Sabres, Bradawls,
Yataghans, Gimblets,
Creeses, Corkscrews,
Ghoorka swords, Pins,
Tucks, Needles,
And so forth,
which stabbed, shot, poked, pricked, scratched, ripped, pinked, and
crimped those naughty beasts so terribly, that they had to run for
their lives, or else be chopped into small pieces and be eaten
afterwards. And, if that is not all, every word, true, then there
is no faith in microscopes, and all is over with the Linnaean
Society.
And there were the water-babies in thousands, more than Tom, or you
either, could count. - All the little children whom the good
fairies take to, because their cruel mothers and fathers will not;
all who are untaught and brought up heathens, and all who come to
grief by ill-usage or ignorance or neglect; all the little children
who are overlaid, or given gin when they are young, or are let to
drink out of hot kettles, or to fall into the fire; all the little
children in alleys and courts, and tumble-down cottages, who die by
fever, and cholera, and measles, and scarlatina, and nasty
complaints which no one has any business to have, and which no one
will have some day, when folks have common sense; and all the
little children who have been killed by cruel masters and wicked
soldiers; they were all there, except, of course, the babes of
Bethlehem who were killed by wicked King Herod; for they were taken
straight to heaven long ago, as everybody knows, and we call them
the Holy Innocents.
But I wish Tom had given up all his naughty tricks, and left off
tormenting dumb animals now that he had plenty of playfellows to
amuse him. Instead of that, I am sorry to say, he would meddle
with the creatures, all but the water-snakes, for they would stand
no nonsense. So he tickled the madrepores, to make them shut up;
and frightened the crabs, to make them hide in the sand and peep
out at him with the tips of their eyes; and put stones into the
anemones' mouths, to make them fancy that their dinner was coming.
The other children warned him, and said, "Take care what you are
at. Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is coming." But Tom never heeded them,
being quite riotous with high spirits and good luck, till, one
Friday morning early, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid came indeed.
A very tremendous lady she was; and when the children saw her they
all stood in a row, very upright indeed, and smoothed down their
bathing dresses, and put their hands behind them, just as if they
were going to be examined by the inspector.
And she had on a black bonnet, and a black shawl, and no crinoline
at all; and a pair of large green spectacles, and a great hooked
nose, hooked so much that the bridge of it stood quite up above her
eyebrows; and under her arm she carried a great birch-rod. Indeed,
she was so ugly that Tom was tempted to make faces at her: but did
not; for he did not admire the look of the birch-rod under her arm.
And she looked at the children one by one, and seemed very much
pleased with them, though she never asked them one question about
how they were behaving; and then began giving them all sorts of
nice sea-things - sea-cakes, sea-apples, sea-oranges, seabullseyes,
sea-toffee; and to the very best of all she gave seaices,
made out of sea-cows' cream, which never melt under water.
And, if you don't quite believe me, then just think - What is more
cheap and plentiful than sea-rock? Then why should there not be
sea-toffee as well? And every one can find sea-lemons (ready
quartered too) if they will look for them at low tide; and seagrapes
too sometimes, hanging in bunches; and, if you will go to
Nice, you will find the fish-market full of sea-fruit, which they
call "frutta di mare:" though I suppose they call them "fruits de
mer" now, out of compliment to that most successful, and therefore
most immaculate, potentate who is seemingly desirous of inheriting
the blessing pronounced on those who remove their neighbours' landmark.
And, perhaps, that is the very reason why the place is
called Nice, because there are so many nice things in the sea
there: at least, if it is not, it ought to be.
Now little Tom watched all these sweet things given away, till his
mouth watered, and his eyes grew as round as an owl's. For he
hoped that his turn would come at last; and so it did. For the
lady called him up, and held out her fingers with something in
them, and popped it into his mouth; and, lo and behold, it was a
nasty cold hard pebble.
"You are a very cruel woman," said he, and began to whimper.
"And you are a very cruel boy; who puts pebbles into the seaanemones'
mouths, to take them in, and make them fancy that they
had caught a good dinner! As you did to them, so I must do to
you."
"Who told you that?" said Tom.
"You did yourself, this very minute."
Tom had never opened his lips; so he was very much taken aback
indeed.
"Yes; every one tells me exactly what they have done wrong; and
that without knowing it themselves. So there is no use trying to
hide anything from me. Now go, and be a good boy, and I will put
no more pebbles in your mouth, if you put none in other
creatures'."
"I did not know there was any harm in it," said Tom.
"Then you know now. People continually say that to me: but I tell
them, if you don't know that fire burns, that is no reason that it
should not burn you; and if you don't know that dirt breeds fever,
that is no reason why the fevers should not kill you. The lobster
did not know that there was any harm in getting into the lobsterpot;
but it caught him all the same."
"Dear me," thought Tom, "she knows everything!" And so she did,
indeed.
"And so, if you do not know that things are wrong that is no reason
why you should not be punished for them; though not as much, not as
much, my little man" (and the lady looked very kindly, after all),
"as if you did know."
"Well, you are a little hard on a poor lad," said Tom.
"Not at all; I am the best friend you ever had in all your life.
But I will tell you; I cannot help punishing people when they do
wrong. I like it no more than they do; I am often very, very sorry
for them, poor things: but I cannot help it. If I tried not to do
it, I should do it all the same. For I work by machinery, just
like an engine; and am full of wheels and springs inside; and am
wound up very carefully, so that I cannot help going."
"Was it long ago since they wound you up?" asked Tom. For he
thought, the cunning little fellow, "She will run down some day:
or they may forget to wind her up, as old Grimes used to forget to
wind up his watch when he came in from the public-house; and then I
shall be safe."
"I was wound up once and for all, so long ago, that I forget all
about it."
"Dear me," said Tom, "you must have been made a long time!"
"I never was made, my child; and I shall go for ever and ever; for
I am as old as Eternity, and yet as young as Time."
And there came over the lady's face a very curious expression -
very solemn, and very sad; and yet very, very sweet. And she
looked up and away, as if she were gazing through the sea, and
through the sky, at something far, far off; and as she did so,
there came such a quiet, tender, patient, hopeful smile over her
face that Tom thought for the moment that she did not look ugly at
all. And no more she did; for she was like a great many people who
have not a pretty feature in their faces, and yet are lovely to
behold, and draw little children's hearts to them at once because
though the house is plain enough, yet from the windows a beautiful
and good spirit is looking forth.
And Tom smiled in her face, she looked so pleasant for the moment.
And the strange fairy smiled too, and said:
"Yes. You thought me very ugly just now, did you not?"
Tom hung down his head, and got very red about the ears.
"And I am very ugly. I am the ugliest fairy in the world; and I
shall be, till people behave themselves as they ought to do. And
then I shall grow as handsome as my sister, who is the loveliest
fairy in the world; and her name is Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby. So
she begins where I end, and I begin where she ends; and those who
will not listen to her must listen to me, as you will see. Now,
all of you run away, except Tom; and he may stay and see what I am
going to do. It will be a very good warning for him to begin with,
before he goes to school.
"Now, Tom, every Friday I come down here and call up all who have
ill-used little children and serve them as they served the
children."
And at that Tom was frightened, and crept under a stone; which made
the two crabs who lived there very angry, and frightened their
friend the butter-fish into flapping hysterics: but he would not
move for them.
And first she called up all the doctors who give little children so
much physic (they were most of them old ones; for the young ones
have learnt better, all but a few army surgeons, who still fancy
that a baby's inside is much like a Scotch grenadier's), and she
set them all in a row; and very rueful they looked; for they knew
what was coming.
And first she pulled all their teeth out; and then she bled them
all round: and then she dosed them with calomel, and jalap, and
salts and senna, and brimstone and treacle; and horrible faces they
made; and then she gave them a great emetic of mustard and water,
and no basons; and began all over again; and that was the way she
spent the morning.
And then she called up a whole troop of foolish ladies, who pinch
up their children's waists and toes; and she laced them all up in
tight stays, so that they were choked and sick, and their noses
grew red, and their hands and feet swelled; and then she crammed
their poor feet into the most dreadfully tight boots, and made them
all dance, which they did most clumsily indeed; and then she asked
them how they liked it; and when they said not at all, she let them
go: because they had only done it out of foolish fashion, fancying
it was for their children's good, as if wasps' waists and pigs'
toes could be pretty, or wholesome, or of any use to anybody.
Then she called up all the careless nurserymaids, and stuck pins
into them all over, and wheeled them about in perambulators with
tight straps across their stomachs and their heads and arms hanging
over the side, till they were quite sick and stupid, and would have
had sun-strokes: but, being under the water, they could only have
water-strokes; which, I assure you, are nearly as bad, as you will
find if you try to sit under a mill-wheel. And mind - when you
hear a rumbling at the bottom of the sea, sailors will tell you
that it is a ground-swell: but now you know better. It is the old
lady wheeling the maids about in perambulators.
And by that time she was so tired, she had to go to luncheon.
And after luncheon she set to work again, and called up all the
cruel schoolmasters - whole regiments and brigades of them; and
when she saw them, she frowned most terribly, and set to work in
earnest, as if the best part of the day's work was to come. More
than half of them were nasty, dirty, frowzy, grubby, smelly old
monks, who, because they dare not hit a man of their own size,
amused themselves with beating little children instead; as you may
see in the picture of old Pope Gregory (good man and true though he
was, when he meddled with things which he did understand), teaching
children to sing their fa-fa-mi-fa with a cat-o'-nine tails under
his chair: but, because they never had any children of their own,
they took into their heads (as some folks do still) that they were
the only people in the world who knew how to manage children: and
they first brought into England, in the old Anglo-Saxon times, the
fashion of treating free boys, and girls too, worse than you would
treat a dog or a horse: but Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has caught them
all long ago; and given them many a taste of their own rods; and
much good may it do them.
And she boxed their ears, and thumped them over the head with
rulers, and pandied their hands with canes, and told them that they
told stories, and were this and that bad sort of people; and the
more they were very indignant, and stood upon their honour, and
declared they told the truth, the more she declared they were not,
and that they were only telling lies; and at last she birched them
all round soundly with her great birch-rod and set them each an
imposition of three hundred thousand lines of Hebrew to learn by
heart before she came back next Friday. And at that they all cried
and howled so, that their breaths came all up through the sea like
bubbles out of soda-water; and that is one reason of the bubbles in
the sea. There are others: but that is the one which principally
concerns little boys. And by that time she was so tired that she
was glad to stop; and, indeed, she had done a very good day's work.
Tom did not quite dislike the old lady: but he could not help
thinking her a little spiteful - and no wonder if she was, poor old
soul; for if she has to wait to grow handsome till people do as
they would be done by, she will have to wait a very long time.
Poor old Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid! she has a great deal of hard work
before her, and had better have been born a washerwoman, and stood
over a tub all day: but, you see, people cannot always choose
their own profession.
But Tom longed to ask her one question; and after all, whenever she
looked at him, she did not look cross at all; and now and then
there was a funny smile in her face, and she chuckled to herself in
a way which gave Tom courage, and at last he said:
"Pray, ma'am, may I ask you a question?"
"Certainly, my little dear."
"Why don't you bring all the bad masters here and serve them out
too? The butties that knock about the poor collier-boys; and the
nailers that file off their lads' noses and hammer their fingers;
and all the master sweeps, like my master Grimes? I saw him fall
into the water long ago; so I surely expected he would have been
here. I'm sure he was bad enough to me."
Then the old lady looked so very stern that Tom was quite
frightened, and sorry that he had been so bold. But she was not
angry with him. She only answered, "I look after them all the week
round; and they are in a very different place from this, because
they knew that they were doing wrong."
She spoke very quietly; but there was something in her voice which
made Tom tingle from head to foot, as if he had got into a shoal of
sea-nettles.
"But these people," she went on, "did not know that they were doing
wrong: they were only stupid and impatient; and therefore I only
punish them till they become patient, and learn to use their common
sense like reasonable beings. But as for chimney-sweeps, and
collier-boys, and nailer lads, my sister has set good people to
stop all that sort of thing; and very much obliged to her I am; for
if she could only stop the cruel masters from ill-using poor
children, I should grow handsome at least a thousand years sooner.
And now do you be a good boy, and do as you would be done by, which
they did not; and then, when my sister, MADAME
DOASYOUWOULDBEDONEBY, comes on Sunday, perhaps she will take notice
of you, and teach you how to behave. She understands that better
than I do." And so she went.
Tom was very glad to hear that there was no chance of meeting
Grimes again, though he was a little sorry for him, considering
that he used sometimes to give him the leavings of the beer: but
he determined to be a very good boy all Saturday; and he was; for
he never frightened one crab, nor tickled any live corals, nor put
stones into the sea anemones' mouths, to make them fancy they had
got a dinner; and when Sunday morning came, sure enough, MRS.
DOASYOUWOULDBEDONEBY came too. Whereat all the little children
began dancing and clapping their hands, and Tom danced too with all
his might.
And as for the pretty lady, I cannot tell you what the colour of
her hair was, or, of her eyes: no more could Tom; for, when any
one looks at her, all they can think of is, that she has the
sweetest, kindest, tenderest, funniest, merriest face they ever
saw, or want to see. But Tom saw that she was a very tall woman,
as tall as her sister: but instead of being gnarly and horny, and
scaly, and prickly, like her, she was the most nice, soft, fat,
smooth, pussy, cuddly, delicious creature who ever nursed a baby;
and she understood babies thoroughly, for she had plenty of her
own, whole rows and regiments of them, and has to this day. And
all her delight was, whenever she had a spare moment, to play with
babies, in which she showed herself a woman of sense; for babies
are the best company, and the pleasantest playfellows, in the
world; at least, so all the wise people in the world think. And
therefore when the children saw her, they naturally all caught hold
of her, and pulled her till she sat down on a stone, and climbed
into her lap, and clung round her neck, and caught hold of her
hands; and then they all put their thumbs into their mouths, and
began cuddling and purring like so many kittens, as they ought to
have done. While those who could get nowhere else sat down on the
sand, and cuddled her feet - for no one, you know, wear shoes in
the water, except horrid old bathing-women, who are afraid of the
water-babies pinching their horny toes. And Tom stood staring at
them; for he could not understand what it was all about.
"And who are you, you little darling?" she said.
"Oh, that is the new baby!" they all cried, pulling their thumbs
out of their mouths; "and he never had any mother," and they all
put their thumbs back again, for they did not wish to lose any
time.
"Then I will be his mother, and he shall have the very best place;
so get out, all of you, this moment."
And she took up two great armfuls of babies - nine hundred under
one arm, and thirteen hundred under the other - and threw them
away, right and left, into the water. But they minded it no more
than the naughty boys in Struwelpeter minded when St. Nicholas
dipped them in his inkstand; and did not even take their thumbs out
of their mouths, but came paddling and wriggling back to her like
so many tadpoles, till you could see nothing of her from head to
foot for the swarm of little babies.
But she took Tom in her arms, and laid him in the softest place of
all, and kissed him, and patted him, and talked to him, tenderly
and low, such things as he had never heard before in his life; and
Tom looked up into her eyes, and loved her, and loved, till he fell
fast asleep from pure love.
And when he woke she was telling the children a story. And what
story did she tell them? One story she told them, which begins
every Christmas Eve, and yet never ends at all for ever and ever;
and, as she went on, the children took their thumbs out of their
mouths and listened quite seriously; but not sadly at all; for she
never told them anything sad; and Tom listened too, and never grew
tired of listening. And he listened so long that he fell fast
asleep again, and, when he woke, the lady was nursing him still.
"Don't go away," said little Tom. "This is so nice. I never had
any one to cuddle me before."
"Don't go away," said all the children; "you have not sung us one
song."
"Well, I have time for only one. So what shall it be?"
"The doll you lost! The doll you lost!" cried all the babies at
once.
So the strange fairy sang:-
I once had a sweet little doll, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world;
Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears,
And her hair was so charmingly curled.
But I lost my poor little doll, dears,
As I played in the heath one day;
And I cried for her more than a week, dears,
But I never could find where she lay.
I found my poor little doll, dears,
As I played in the heath one day:
Folks say she is terribly changed, dears,
For her paint is all washed away,
And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears,
And her hair not the least bit curled:
Yet, for old sakes' sake she is still, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world.
What a silly song for a fairy to sing!
And what silly water-babies to be quite delighted at it!
Well, but you see they have not the advantage of Aunt Agitate's
Arguments in the sea-land down below.
"Now," said the fairy to Tom, "will you be a good boy for my sake,
and torment no more sea-beasts till I come back?"
"And you will cuddle me again?" said poor little Tom.
"Of course I will, you little duck. I should like to take you with
me and cuddle you all the way, only I must not;" and away she went.
So Tom really tried to be a good boy, and tormented no sea-beasts
after that as long as he lived; and he is quite alive, I assure
you, still.
Oh, how good little boys ought to be who have kind pussy mammas to
cuddle them and tell them stories; and how afraid they ought to be
of growing naughty, and bringing tears into their mammas' pretty
eyes!
CHAPTER VI
"Thou little child, yet glorious in the night
Of heaven-born freedom on thy Being's height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The Years to bring the inevitable yoke -
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life."
WORDSWORTH.
I come to the very saddest part of all my story. I know some
people will only laugh at it, and call it much ado about nothing.
But I know one man who would not; and he was an officer with a pair
of gray moustaches as long as your arm, who said once in company
that two of the most heart-rending sights in the world, which moved
him most to tears, which he would do anything to prevent or remedy,
were a child over a broken toy and a child stealing sweets.
The company did not laugh at him; his moustaches were too long and
too gray for that: but, after he was gone, they called him
sentimental and so forth, all but one dear little old Quaker lady
with a soul as white as her cap, who was not, of course, generally
partial to soldiers; and she said very quietly, like a Quaker:
"Friends, it is borne upon my mind that that is a truly brave man."
Now you may fancy that Tom was quite good, when he had everything
that he could want or wish: but you would be very much mistaken.
Being quite comfortable is a very good thing; but it does not make
people good. Indeed, it sometimes makes them naughty, as it has
made the people in America; and as it made the people in the Bible,
who waxed fat and kicked, like horses overfed and underworked. And
I am very sorry to say that this happened to little Tom. For he
grew so fond of the sea-bullseyes and sea-lollipops that his
foolish little head could think of nothing else: and he was always
longing for more, and wondering when the strange lady would come
again and give him some, and what she would give him, and how much,
and whether she would give him more than the others. And he
thought of nothing but lollipops by day, and dreamt of nothing else
by night - and what happened then?
That he began to watch the lady to see where she kept the sweet
things: and began hiding, and sneaking, and following her about,
and pretending to be looking the other way, or going after
something else, till he found out that she kept them in a beautiful
mother-of-pearl cabinet away in a deep crack of the rocks.
And he longed to go to the cabinet, and yet he was afraid; and then
he longed again, and was less afraid; and at last, by continual
thinking about it, he longed so violently that he was not afraid at
all. And one night, when all the other children were asleep, and
he could not sleep for thinking of lollipops, he crept away among
the rocks, and got to the cabinet, and behold! it was open.
But, when he saw all the nice things inside, instead of being
delighted, he was quite frightened, and wished he had never come
there. And then he would only touch them, and he did; and then he
would only taste one, and he did; and then he would only eat one,
and he did; and then he would only eat two, and then three, and so
on; and then he was terrified lest she should come and catch him,
and began gobbling them down so fast that he did not taste them, or
have any pleasure in them; and then he felt sick, and would have
only one more; and then only one more again; and so on till he had
eaten them all up.
And all the while, close behind him, stood Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.
Some people may say, But why did she not keep her cupboard locked?
Well, I know. - It may seem a very strange thing, but she never
does keep her cupboard locked; every one may go and taste for
themselves, and fare accordingly. It is very odd, but so it is;
and I am quite sure that she knows best. Perhaps she wishes people
to keep their fingers out of the fire, by having them burned.
She took off her spectacles, because she did not like to see too
much; and in her pity she arched up her eyebrows into her very
hair, and her eyes grew so wide that they would have taken in all
the sorrows of the world, and filled with great big tears, as they
too often do.
But all she said was:
"Ah, you poor little dear! you are just like all the rest."
But she said it to herself, and Tom neither heard nor saw her.
Now, you must not fancy that she was sentimental at all. If you
do, and think that she is going to let off you, or me, or any human
being when we do wrong, because she is too tender-hearted to punish
us, then you will find yourself very much mistaken, as many a man
does every year and every day.
But what did the strange fairy do when she saw all her lollipops
eaten?
Did she fly at Tom, catch him by the scruff of the neck, hold him,
howk him, hump him, hurry him, hit him, poke him, pull him, pinch
him, pound him, put him in the corner, shake him, slap him, set him
on a cold stone to reconsider himself, and so forth?
Not a bit. You may watch her at work if you know where to find
her. But you will never see her do that. For, if she had, she
knew quite well Tom would have fought, and kicked, and bit, and
said bad words, and turned again that moment into a naughty little
heathen chimney-sweep, with his hand, like Ishmael's of old,
against every man, and every man's hand against him.
Did she question him, hurry him, frighten him, threaten him, to
make him confess? Not a bit. You may see her, as I said, at her
work often enough if you know where to look for her: but you will
never see her do that. For, if she had, she would have tempted him
to tell lies in his fright; and that would have been worse for him,
if possible, than even becoming a heathen chimney-sweep again.
No. She leaves that for anxious parents and teachers (lazy ones,
some call them), who, instead of giving children a fair trial, such
as they would expect and demand for themselves, force them by
fright to confess their own faults - which is so cruel and unfair
that no judge on the bench dare do it to the wickedest thief or
murderer, for the good British law forbids it - ay, and even punish
them to make them confess, which is so detestable a crime that it
is never committed now, save by Inquisitors, and Kings of Naples,
and a few other wretched people of whom the world is weary. And
then they say, "We have trained up the child in the way he should
go, and when he grew up he has departed from it. Why then did
Solomon say that he would not depart from it?" But perhaps the way
of beating, and hurrying and frightening, and questioning, was not
the way that the child should go; for it is not even the way in
which a colt should go if you want to break it in and make it a
quiet serviceable horse.
Some folks may say, "Ah! but the Fairy does not need to do that if
she knows everything already." True. But, if she did not know,
she would not surely behave worse than a British judge and jury;
and no more should parents and teachers either.
So she just said nothing at all about the matter, not even when Tom
came next day with the rest for sweet things. He was horribly
afraid of coming: but he was still more afraid of staying away,
lest any one should suspect him. He was dreadfully afraid, too,
lest there should be no sweets - as was to be expected, he having
eaten them all - and lest then the fairy should inquire who had
taken them. But, behold! she pulled out just as many as ever,
which astonished Tom, and frightened him still more.
And, when the fairy looked him full in the face, he shook from head
to foot: however she gave him his share like the rest, and he
thought within himself that she could not have found him out.
But, when he put the sweets into his mouth, he hated the taste of
them; and they made him so sick that he had to get away as fast as
he could; and terribly sick he was, and very cross and unhappy, all
the week after.
Then, when next week came, he had his share again; and again the
fairy looked him full in the face; but more sadly than she had ever
looked. And he could not bear the sweets: but took them again in
spite of himself.
And when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, he wanted to be cuddled
like the rest; but she said very seriously:
"I should like to cuddle you; but I cannot, you are so horny and
prickly."
And Tom looked at himself: and he was all over prickles, just like
a sea-egg.
Which was quite natural; for you must know and believe that
people's souls make their bodies just as a snail makes its shell (I
am not joking, my little man; I am in serious, solemn earnest).
And therefore, when Tom's soul grew all prickly with naughty
tempers, his body could not help growing prickly, too, so that
nobody would cuddle him, or play with him, or even like to look at
him.
What could Tom do now but go away and hide in a corner and cry?
For nobody would play with him, and he knew full well why.
And he was so miserable all that week that when the ugly fairy came
and looked at him once more full in the face, more seriously and
sadly than ever, he could stand it no longer, and thrust the
sweetmeats away, saying, "No, I don't want any: I can't bear them
now," and then burst out crying, poor little man, and told Mrs.
Bedonebyasyoudid every word as it happened.
He was horribly frightened when he had done so; for he expected her
to punish him very severely. But, instead, she only took him up
and kissed him, which was not quite pleasant, for her chin was very
bristly indeed; but he was so lonely-hearted, he thought that rough
kissing was better than none.
"I will forgive you, little man," she said. "I always forgive
every one the moment they tell me the truth of their own accord."
"Then you will take away all these nasty prickles?"
"That is a very different matter. You put them there yourself, and
only you can take them away."
"But how can I do that?" asked Tom, crying afresh.
"Well, I think it is time for you to go to school; so I shall fetch
you a schoolmistress, who will teach you how to get rid of your
prickles." And so she went away.
Tom was frightened at the notion of a school-mistress; for he
thought she would certainly come with a birch-rod or a cane; but he
comforted himself, at last, that she might be something like the
old woman in Vendale - which she was not in the least; for, when
the fairy brought her, she was the most beautiful little girl that
ever was seen, with long curls floating behind her like a golden
cloud, and long robes floating all round her like a silver one.
"There he is," said the fairy; "and you must teach him to be good,
whether you like or not."
"I know," said the little girl; but she did not seem quite to like,
for she put her finger in her mouth, and looked at Tom under her
brows; and Tom put his finger in his mouth, and looked at her under
his brows, for he was horribly ashamed of himself.
The little girl seemed hardly to know how to begin; and perhaps she
would never have begun at all if poor Tom had not burst out crying,
and begged her to teach him to be good and help him to cure his
prickles; and at that she grew so tender-hearted that she began
teaching him as prettily as ever child was taught in the world.
And what did the little girl teach Tom? She taught him, first,
what you have been taught ever since you said your first prayers at
your mother's knees; but she taught him much more simply. For the
lessons in that world, my child, have no such hard words in them as
the lessons in this, and therefore the water-babies like them
better than you like your lessons, and long to learn them more and
more; and grown men cannot puzzle nor quarrel over their meaning,
as they do here on land; for those lessons all rise clear and pure,
like the Test out of Overton Pool, out of the everlasting ground of
all life and truth.
So she taught Tom every day in the week; only on Sundays she always
went away home, and the kind fairy took her place. And before she
had taught Tom many Sundays, his prickles had vanished quite away,
and his skin was smooth and clean again.
"Dear me!" said the little girl; "why, I know you now. You are the
very same little chimney-sweep who came into my bedroom."
"Dear me!" cried Tom. "And I know you, too, now. You are the very
little white lady whom I saw in bed." And he jumped at her, and
longed to hug and kiss her; but did not, remembering that she was a
lady born; so he only jumped round and round her till he was quite
tired.
And then they began telling each other all their story - how he had
got into the water, and she had fallen over the rock; and how he
had swum down to the sea, and how she had flown out of the window;
and how this, that, and the other, till it was all talked out: and
then they both began over again, and I can't say which of the two
talked fastest.
And then they set to work at their lessons again, and both liked
them so well that they went on well till seven full years were past
and gone.
You may fancy that Tom was quite content and happy all those seven
years; but the truth is, he was not. He had always one thing on
his mind, and that was - where little Ellie went, when she went
home on Sundays.
To a very beautiful place, she said.
But what was the beautiful place like, and where was it?
Ah! that is just what she could not say. And it is strange, but
true, that no one can say; and that those who have been oftenest in
it, or even nearest to it, can say least about it, and make people
understand least what it is like. There are a good many folks
about the Other-end-of-Nowhere (where Tom went afterwards), who
pretend to know it from north to south as well as if they had been
penny postmen there; but, as they are safe at the Other-end-of-
Nowhere, nine hundred and ninety-nine million miles away, what they
say cannot concern us.
But the dear, sweet, loving, wise, good, self-sacrificing people,
who really go there, can never tell you anything about it, save
that it is the most beautiful place in all the world; and, if you
ask them more, they grow modest, and hold their peace, for fear of
being laughed at; and quite right they are.
So all that good little Ellie could say was, that it was worth all
the rest of the world put together. And of course that only made
Tom the more anxious to go likewise.
"Miss Ellie," he said at last, "I will know why I cannot go with
you when you go home on Sundays, or I shall have no peace, and give
you none either."
"You must ask the fairies that."
So when the fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, came next, Tom asked her.
"Little boys who are only fit to play with sea-beasts cannot go
there," she said. "Those who go there must go first where they do
not like, and do what they do not like, and help somebody they do
not like."
"Why, did Ellie do that?"
"Ask her."
And Ellie blushed, and said, "Yes, Tom; I did not like coming here
at first; I was so much happier at home, where it is always Sunday.
And I was afraid of you, Tom, at first, because - because - "
"Because I was all over prickles? But I am not prickly now, am I,
Miss Ellie?"
"No," said Ellie. "I like you very much now; and I like coming
here, too."
"And perhaps," said the fairy, "you will learn to like going where
you don't like, and helping some one that you don't like, as Ellie
has."
But Tom put his finger in his mouth, and hung his head down; for he
did not see that at all.
So when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, Tom asked her; for he
thought in his little head, She is not so strict as her sister, and
perhaps she may let me off more easily.
Ah, Tom, Tom, silly fellow! and yet I don't know why I should blame
you, while so many grown people have got the very same notion in
their heads.
But, when they try it, they get just the same answer as Tom did.
For, when he asked the second fairy, she told him just what the
first did, and in the very same words.
Tom was very unhappy at that. And, when Ellie went home on Sunday,
he fretted and cried all day, and did not care to listen to the
fairy's stories about good children, though they were prettier than
ever. Indeed, the more he overheard of them, the less he liked to
listen, because they were all about children who did what they did
not like, and took trouble for other people, and worked to feed
their little brothers and sisters instead of caring only for their
play. And, when she began to tell a story about a holy child in
old times, who was martyred by the heathen because it would not
worship idols, Tom could bear no more, and ran away and hid among
the rocks.
And, when Ellie came back, he was shy with her, because he fancied
she looked down on him, and thought him a coward. And then he grew
quite cross with her, because she was superior to him, and did what
he could not do. And poor Ellie was quite surprised and sad; and
at last Tom burst out crying; but he would not tell her what was
really in his mind.
And all the while he was eaten up with curiosity to know where
Ellie went to; so that he began not to care for his playmates, or
for the sea-palace or anything else. But perhaps that made matters
all the easier for him; for he grew so discontented with everything
round him that he did not care to stay, and did not care where he
went.
"Well," he said, at last, "I am so miserable here, I'll go; if only
you will go with me?"
"Ah!" said Ellie, "I wish I might; but the worst of it is, that the
fairy says that you must go alone if you go at all. Now don't poke
that poor crab about, Tom" (for he was feeling very naughty and
mischievous), "or the fairy will have to punish you."
Tom was very nearly saying, "I don't care if she does;" but he
stopped himself in time.
"I know what she wants me to do," he said, whining most dolefully.
"She wants me to go after that horrid old Grimes. I don't like
him, that's certain. And if I find him, he will turn me into a
chimney-sweep again, I know. That's what I have been afraid of all
along."
"No, he won't - I know as much as that. Nobody can turn waterbabies
into sweeps, or hurt them at all, as long as they are good."
"Ah," said naughty Tom, "I see what you want; you are persuading me
all along to go, because you are tired of me, and want to get rid
of me."
Little Ellie opened her eyes very wide at that, and they were all
brimming over with tears.
"Oh, Tom, Tom!" she said, very mournfully - and then she cried,
"Oh, Tom! where are you?"
And Tom cried, "Oh, Ellie, where are you?"
For neither of them could see each other - not the least. Little
Ellie vanished quite away, and Tom heard her voice calling him, and
growing smaller and smaller, and fainter and fainter, till all was
silent.
Who was frightened then but Tom? He swam up and down among the
rocks, into all the halls and chambers, faster than ever he swam
before, but could not find her. He shouted after her, but she did
not answer; he asked all the other children, but they had not seen
her; and at last he went up to the top of the water and began
crying and screaming for Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid - which perhaps was
the best thing to do - for she came in a moment.
"Oh!" said Tom. "Oh dear, oh dear! I have been naughty to Ellie,
and I have killed her - I know I have killed her."
"Not quite that," said the fairy; "but I have sent her away home,
and she will not come back again for I do not know how long."
And at that Tom cried so bitterly that the salt sea was swelled
with his tears, and the tide was .3,954,620,819 of an inch higher
than it had been the day before: but perhaps that was owing to the
waxing of the moon. It may have been so; but it is considered
right in the new philosophy, you know, to give spiritual causes for
physical phenomena - especially in parlour-tables; and, of course,
physical causes for spiritual ones, like thinking, and praying, and
knowing right from wrong. And so they odds it till it comes even,
as folks say down in Berkshire.
"How cruel of you to send Ellie away!" sobbed Tom. "However, I
will find her again, if I go to the world's end to look for her."
The fairy did not slap Tom, and tell him to hold his tongue: but
she took him on her lap very kindly, just as her sister would have
done; and put him in mind how it was not her fault, because she was
wound up inside, like watches, and could not help doing things
whether she liked or not. And then she told him how he had been in
the nursery long enough, and must go out now and see the world, if
he intended ever to be a man; and how he must go all alone by
himself, as every one else that ever was born has to go, and see
with his own eyes, and smell with his own nose, and make his own
bed and lie on it, and burn his own fingers if he put them into the
fire. And then she told him how many fine things there were to be
seen in the world, and what an odd, curious, pleasant, orderly,
respectable, well-managed, and, on the whole, successful (as,
indeed, might have been expected) sort of a place it was, if people
would only be tolerably brave and honest and good in it; and then
she told him not to be afraid of anything he met, for nothing would
harm him if he remembered all his lessons, and did what he knew was
right. And at last she comforted poor little Tom so much that he
was quite eager to go, and wanted to set out that minute. "Only,"
he said, "if I might see Ellie once before I went!"
"Why do you want that?"
"Because - because I should be so much happier if I thought she had
forgiven me."
And in the twinkling of an eye there stood Ellie, smiling, and
looking so happy that Tom longed to kiss her; but was still afraid
it would not be respectful, because she was a lady born.
"I am going, Ellie!" said Tom. "I am going, if it is to the
world's end. But I don't like going at all, and that's the truth."
"Pooh! pooh! pooh!" said the fairy. "You will like it very well
indeed, you little rogue, and you know that at the bottom of your
heart. But if you don't, I will make you like it. Come here, and
see what happens to people who do only what is pleasant."
And she took out of one of her cupboards (she had all sorts of
mysterious cupboards in the cracks of the rocks) the most wonderful
waterproof book, full of such photographs as never were seen. For
she had found out photography (and this is a fact) more than
13,598,000 years before anybody was born; and, what is more, her
photographs did not merely represent light and shade, as ours do,
but colour also, and all colours, as you may see if you look at a
black-cock's tail, or a butterfly's wing, or indeed most things
that are or can be, so to speak. And therefore her photographs
were very curious and famous, and the children looked with great
delight for the opening of the book.
And on the title-page was written, "The History of the great and
famous nation of the Doasyoulikes, who came away from the country
of Hardwork, because they wanted to play on the Jews' harp all day
long."
In the first picture they saw these Doasyoulikes living in the land
of Readymade, at the foot of the Happy-go-lucky Mountains, where
flapdoodle grows wild; and if you want to know what that is, you
must read Peter Simple.
They lived very much such a life as those jolly old Greeks in
Sicily, whom you may see painted on the ancient vases, and really
there seemed to be great excuses for them, for they had no need to
work.
Instead of houses they lived in the beautiful caves of tufa, and
bathed in the warm springs three times a day; and, as for clothes,
it was so warm there that the gentlemen walked about in little
beside a cocked hat and a pair of straps, or some light summer
tackle of that kind; and the ladies all gathered gossamer in autumn
(when they were not too lazy) to make their winter dresses.
They were very fond of music, but it was too much trouble to learn
the piano or the violin; and as for dancing, that would have been
too great an exertion. So they sat on ant-hills all day long, and
played on the Jews' harp; and, if the ants bit them, why they just
got up and went to the next ant-hill, till they were bitten there
likewise.
And they sat under the flapdoodle-trees, and let the flapdoodle
drop into their mouths; and under the vines, and squeezed the
grape-juice down their throats; and, if any little pigs ran about
ready roasted, crying, "Come and eat me," as was their fashion in
that country, they waited till the pigs ran against their mouths,
and then took a bite, and were content, just as so many oysters
would have been.
They needed no weapons, for no enemies ever came near their land;
and no tools, for everything was readymade to their hand; and the
stern old fairy Necessity never came near them to hunt them up, and
make them use their wits, or die.
And so on, and so on, and so on, till there were never such
comfortable, easy-going, happy-go-lucky people in the world.
"Well, that is a jolly life," said Tom.
"You think so?" said the fairy. "Do you see that great peaked
mountain there behind," said the fairy, "with smoke coming out of
its top?"
"Yes."
"And do you see all those ashes, and slag, and cinders lying
about?"
"Yes."
"Then turn over the next five hundred years, and you will see what
happens next."
And behold the mountain had blown up like a barrel of gunpowder,
and then boiled over like a kettle; whereby one-third of the
Doasyoulikes were blown into the air, and another third were
smothered in ashes; so that there was only one-third left.
"You see," said the fairy, "what comes of living on a burning
mountain."
"Oh, why did you not warn them?" said little Ellie.
"I did warn them all that I could. I let the smoke come out of the
mountain; and wherever there is smoke there is fire. And I laid
the ashes and cinders all about; and wherever there are cinders,
cinders may be again. But they did not like to face facts, my
dears, as very few people do; and so they invented a cock-and-bull
story, which, I am sure, I never told them, that the smoke was the
breath of a giant, whom some gods or other had buried under the
mountain; and that the cinders were what the dwarfs roasted the
little pigs whole with; and other nonsense of that kind. And, when
folks are in that humour, I cannot teach them, save by the good old
birch-rod."
And then she turned over the next five hundred years: and there
were the remnant of the Doasyoulikes, doing as they liked, as
before. They were too lazy to move away from the mountain; so they
said, If it has blown up once, that is all the more reason that it
should not blow up again. And they were few in number: but they
only said, The more the merrier, but the fewer the better fare.
However, that was not quite true; for all the flapdoodle-trees were
killed by the volcano, and they had eaten all the roast pigs, who,
of course, could not be expected to have little ones. So they had
to live very hard, on nuts and roots which they scratched out of
the ground with sticks. Some of them talked of sowing corn, as
their ancestors used to do, before they came into the land of
Readymade; but they had forgotten how to make ploughs (they had
forgotten even how to make Jews' harps by this time), and had eaten
all the seed-corn which they brought out of the land of Hardwork
years since; and of course it was too much trouble to go away and
find more. So they lived miserably on roots and nuts, and all the
weakly little children had great stomachs, and then died.
"Why," said Tom, "they are growing no better than savages."
"And look how ugly they are all getting," said Ellie.
"Yes; when people live on poor vegetables instead of roast beef and
plum-pudding, their jaws grow large, and their lips grow coarse,
like the poor Paddies who eat potatoes."
And she turned over the next five hundred years. And there they
were all living up in trees, and making nests to keep off the rain.
And underneath the trees lions were prowling about.
"Why," said Ellie, "the lions seem to have eaten a good many of
them, for there are very few left now."
"Yes," said the fairy; "you see it was only the strongest and most
active ones who could climb the trees, and so escape."
"But what great, hulking, broad-shouldered chaps they are," said
Tom; "they are a rough lot as ever I saw."
"Yes, they are getting very strong now; for the ladies will not
marry any but the very strongest and fiercest gentlemen, who can
help them up the trees out of the lions' way."
And she turned over the next five hundred years. And in that they
were fewer still, and stronger, and fiercer; but their feet had
changed shape very oddly, for they laid hold of the branches with
their great toes, as if they had been thumbs, just as a Hindoo
tailor uses his toes to thread his needle.
The children were very much surprised, and asked the fairy whether
that was her doing.
"Yes, and no," she said, smiling. "It was only those who could use
their feet as well as their hands who could get a good living: or,
indeed, get married; so that they got the best of everything, and
starved out all the rest; and those who are left keep up a regular
breed of toe-thumb-men, as a breed of short-horns, or are skyeterriers,
or fancy pigeons is kept up."
"But there is a hairy one among them," said Ellie.
"Ah!" said the fairy, "that will be a great man in his time, and
chief of all the tribe."
And, when she turned over the next five hundred years, it was true.
For this hairy chief had had hairy children, and they hairier
children still; and every one wished to marry hairy husbands, and
have hairy children too; for the climate was growing so damp that
none but the hairy ones could live: all the rest coughed and
sneezed, and had sore throats, and went into consumptions, before
they could grow up to be men and women.
Then the fairy turned over the next five hundred years. And they
were fewer still.
"Why, there is one on the ground picking up roots," said Ellie,
"and he cannot walk upright."
No more he could; for in the same way that the shape of their feet
had altered, the shape of their backs had altered also.
"Why," cried Tom, "I declare they are all apes."
"Something fearfully like it, poor foolish creatures," said the
fairy. "They are grown so stupid now, that they can hardly think:
for none of them have used their wits for many hundred years. They
have almost forgotten, too, how to talk. For each stupid child
forgot some of the words it heard from its stupid parents, and had
not wits enough to make fresh words for itself. Beside, they are
grown so fierce and suspicious and brutal that they keep out of
each other's way, and mope and sulk in the dark forests, never
hearing each other's voice, till they have forgotten almost what
speech is like. I am afraid they will all be apes very soon, and
all by doing only what they liked."
And in the next five hundred years they were all dead and gone, by
bad food and wild beasts and hunters; all except one tremendous old
fellow with jaws like a jack, who stood full seven feet high; and
M. Du Chaillu came up to him, and shot him, as he stood roaring and
thumping his breast. And he remembered that his ancestors had once
been men, and tried to say, "Am I not a man and a brother?" but had
forgotten how to use his tongue; and then he had tried to call for
a doctor, but he had forgotten the word for one. So all he said
was "Ubboboo!" and died.
And that was the end of the great and jolly nation of the
Doasyoulikes. And, when Tom and Ellie came to the end of the book,
they looked very sad and solemn; and they had good reason so to do,
for they really fancied that the men were apes, and never thought,
in their simplicity, of asking whether the creatures had
hippopotamus majors in their brains or not; in which case, as you
have been told already, they could not possibly have been apes,
though they were more apish than the apes of all aperies.
"But could you not have saved them from becoming apes?" said little
Ellie, at last.
"At first, my dear; if only they would have behaved like men, and
set to work to do what they did not like. But the longer they
waited, and behaved like the dumb beasts, who only do what they
like, the stupider and clumsier they grew; till at last they were
past all cure, for they had thrown their own wits away. It is such
things as this that help to make me so ugly, that I know not when I
shall grow fair."
"And where are they all now?" asked Ellie.
"Exactly where they ought to be, my dear."
"Yes!" said the fairy, solemnly, half to herself, as she closed the
wonderful book. "Folks say now that I can make beasts into men, by
circumstance, and selection, and competition, and so forth. Well,
perhaps they are right; and perhaps, again, they are wrong. That
is one of the seven things which I am forbidden to tell, till the
coming of the Cocqcigrues; and, at all events, it is no concern of
theirs. Whatever their ancestors were, men they are; and I advise
them to behave as such, and act accordingly. But let them
recollect this, that there are two sides to every question, and a
downhill as well as an uphill road; and, if I can turn beasts into
men, I can, by the same laws of circumstance, and selection, and
competition, turn men into beasts. You were very near being turned
into a beast once or twice, little Tom. Indeed, if you had not
made up your mind to go on this journey, and see the world, like an
Englishman, I am not sure but that you would have ended as an eft
in a pond."
"Oh, dear me!" said Tom; "sooner than that, and be all over slime,
I'll go this minute, if it is to the world's end."
CHAPTER VII
"And Nature, the old Nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying, 'Here is a story book
Thy father hath written for thee.
"'Come wander with me,' she said,
'Into regions yet untrod,
And read what is still unread
In the Manuscripts of God.'
"And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old Nurse,
Who sang to him night and day
The rhymes of the universe."
LONGFELLOW.
"Now," said Tom, "I am ready be off, if it's to the world's end."
"Ah!" said the fairy, "that is a brave, good boy. But you must go
farther than the world's end, if you want to find Mr. Grimes; for
he is at the Other-end-of-Nowhere. You must go to Shiny Wall, and
through the white gate that never was opened; and then you will
come to Peacepool, and Mother Carey's Haven, where the good whales
go when they die. And there Mother Carey will tell you the way to
the Other-end-of-Nowhere, and there you will find Mr. Grimes."
"Oh, dear!" said Tom. "But I do not know my way to Shiny Wall, or
where it is at all."
"Little boys must take the trouble to find out things for
themselves, or they will never grow to be men; so that you must ask
all the beasts in the sea and the birds in the air, and if you have
been good to them, some of them will tell you the way to Shiny
Wall."
"Well," said Tom, "it will be a long journey, so I had better start
at once. Good-bye, Miss Ellie; you know I am getting a big boy,
and I must go out and see the world."
"I know you must," said Ellie; "but you will not forget me, Tom. I
shall wait here till you come."
And she shook hands with him, and bade him good-bye. Tom longed
very much again to kiss her; but he thought it would not be
respectful, considering she was a lady born; so he promised not to
forget her: but his little whirl-about of a head was so full of
the notion of going out to see the world, that it forgot her in
five minutes: however, though his head forgot her, I am glad to
say his heart did not.
So he asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the birds in the
air, but none of them knew the way to Shiny Wall. For why? He was
still too far down south.
Then he met a ship, far larger than he had ever seen - a gallant
ocean-steamer, with a long cloud of smoke trailing behind; and he
wondered how she went on without sails, and swam up to her to see.
A school of dolphins were running races round and round her, going
three feet for her one, and Tom asked them the way to Shiny Wall:
but they did not know. Then he tried to find out how she moved,
and at last he saw her screw, and was so delighted with it that he
played under her quarter all day, till he nearly had his nose
knocked off by the fans, and thought it time to move. Then he
watched the sailors upon deck, and the ladies, with their bonnets
and parasols: but none of them could see him, because their eyes
were not opened, - as, indeed, most people's eyes are not.
At last there came out into the quarter-gallery a very pretty lady,
in deep black widow's weeds, and in her arms a baby. She leaned
over the quarter-gallery, and looked back and back toward England
far away; and as she looked she sang:
I.
"Soft soft wind, from out the sweet south sliding,
Waft thy silver cloud-webs athwart the summer sea;
Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining
Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me.
II.
"Deep deep Love, within thine own abyss abiding,
Pour Thyself abroad, O Lord, on earth and air and sea;
Worn weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding,
Shield from sorrow, sin, and shame my helpless babe and me."
Her voice was so soft and low, and the music of the air so sweet,
that Tom could have listened to it all day. But as she held the
baby over the gallery rail, to show it the dolphins leaping and the
water gurgling in the ship's wake, lo! and behold, the baby saw
Tom.
He was quite sure of that for when their eyes met, the baby smiled
and held out his hands; and Tom smiled and held out his hands too;
and the baby kicked and leaped, as if it wanted to jump overboard
to him.
"What do you see, my darling?" said the lady; and her eyes followed
the baby's till she too caught sight of Tom, swimming about among
the foam-beads below.
She gave a little shriek and start; and then she said, quite
quietly, "Babies in the sea? Well, perhaps it is the happiest
place for them;" and waved her hand to Tom, and cried, "Wait a
little, darling, only a little: and perhaps we shall go with you
and be at rest."
And at that an old nurse, all in black, came out and talked to her,
and drew her in. And Tom turned away northward, sad and wondering;
and watched the great steamer slide away into the dusk, and the
lights on board peep out one by one, and die out again, and the
long bar of smoke fade away into the evening mist, till all was out
of sight.
And he swam northward again, day after day, till at last he met the
King of the Herrings, with a curry-comb growing out of his nose,
and a sprat in his mouth for a cigar, and asked him the way to
Shiny Wall; so he bolted his sprat head foremost, and said:
"If I were you, young Gentleman, I should go to the Allalonestone,
and ask the last of the Gairfowl. She is of a very ancient clan,
very nearly as ancient as my own; and knows a good deal which these
modern upstarts don't, as ladies of old houses are likely to do."
Tom asked his way to her, and the King of the Herrings told him
very kindly, for he was a courteous old gentleman of the old
school, though he was horribly ugly, and strangely bedizened too,
like the old dandies who lounge in the club-house windows.
But just as Tom had thanked him and set off, he called after him:
"Hi! I say, can you fly?"
"I never tried," says Tom. "Why?"
"Because, if you can, I should advise you to say nothing to the old
lady about it. There; take a hint. Good-bye."
And away Tom went for seven days and seven nights due north-west,
till he came to a great codbank, the like of which he never saw
before. The great cod lay below in tens of thousands, and gobbled
shell-fish all day long; and the blue sharks roved above in
hundreds, and gobbled them when they came up. So they ate, and
ate, and ate each other, as they had done since the making of the
world; for no man had come here yet to catch them, and find out how
rich old Mother Carey is.
And there he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing up on the
Allalonestones all alone. And a very grand old lady she was, full
three feet high, and bolt upright, like some old Highland
chieftainess. She had on a black velvet gown, and a white pinner
and apron, and a very high bridge to her nose (which is a sure mark
of high breeding), and a large pair of white spectacles on it,
which made her look rather odd: but it was the ancient fashion of
her house.
And instead of wings, she had two little feathery arms, with which
she fanned herself, and complained of the dreadful heat; and she
kept on crooning an old song to herself, which she learnt when she
was a little baby-bird, long ago -
"Two little birds they sat on a stone,
One swam away, and then there was one,
With a fal-lal-la-lady.
"The other swam after, and then there was none,
And so the poor stone was left all alone;
With a fal-lal-la-lady."
It was "flew" away, properly, and not "swam" away: but, as she
could not fly, she had a right to alter it. However, it was a very
fit song for her to sing, because she was a lady herself.
Tom came up to her very humbly, and made his bow; and the first
thing she said was -
"Have you wings? Can you fly?"
"Oh dear, no, ma'am; I should not think of such thing," said
cunning little Tom.
"Then I shall have great pleasure in talking to you, my dear. It
is quite refreshing nowadays to see anything without wings. They
must all have wings, forsooth, now, every new upstart sort of bird,
and fly. What can they want with flying, and raising themselves
above their proper station in life? In the days of my ancestors no
birds ever thought of having wings, and did very well without; and
now they all laugh at me because I keep to the good old fashion.
Why, the very marrocks and dovekies have got wings, the vulgar
creatures, and poor little ones enough they are; and my own cousins
too, the razor-bills, who are gentlefolk born, and ought to know
better than to ape their inferiors."
And so she was running on, while Tom tried to get in a word
edgeways; and at last he did, when the old lady got out of breath,
and began fanning herself again; and then he asked if she knew the
way to Shiny Wall.
"Shiny Wall? Who should know better than I? We all came from
Shiny Wall, thousands of years ago, when it was decently cold, and
the climate was fit for gentlefolk; but now, what with the heat,
and what with these vulgar-winged things who fly up and down and
eat everything, so that gentlepeople's hunting is all spoilt, and
one really cannot get one's living, or hardly venture off the rock
for fear of being flown against by some creature that would not
have dared to come within a mile of one a thousand years ago - what
was I saying? Why, we have quite gone down in the world, my dear,
and have nothing left but our honour. And I am the last of my
family. A friend of mine and I came and settled on this rock when
we were young, to be out of the way of low people. Once we were a
great nation, and spread over all the Northern Isles. But men shot
us so, and knocked us on the head, and took our eggs - why, if you
will believe it, they say that on the coast of Labrador the sailors
used to lay a plank from the rock on board the thing called their
ship, and drive us along the plank by hundreds, till we tumbled
down into the ship's waist in heaps; and then, I suppose, they ate
us, the nasty fellows! Well - but - what was I saying? At last,
there were none of us left, except on the old Gairfowlskerry, just
off the Iceland coast, up which no man could climb. Even there we
had no peace; for one day, when I was quite a young girl, the land
rocked, and the sea boiled, and the sky grew dark, and all the air
was filled with smoke and dust, and down tumbled the old
Gairfowlskerry into the sea. The dovekies and marrocks, of course,
all flew away; but we were too proud to do that. Some of us were
dashed to pieces, and some drowned; and those who were left got
away to Eldey, and the dovekies tell me they are all dead now, and
that another Gairfowlskerry has risen out of the sea close to the
old one, but that it is such a poor flat place that it is not safe
to live on: and so here I am left alone."
This was the Gairfowl's story, and, strange as it may seem, it is
every word of it true.
"If you only had had wings!" said Tom; "then you might all have
flown away too."
"Yes, young gentleman: and if people are not gentleman and ladies,
and forget that NOBLESSE OBLIGE, they will find it as easy to get
on in the world as other people who don't care what they do. Why,
if I had not recollected that NOBLESSE OBLIGE, I should not have
been all alone now." And the poor old lady sighed.
"How was that, ma'am?"
"Why, my dear, a gentleman came hither with me, and after we had
been here some time, he wanted to marry - in fact, he actually
proposed to me. Well, I can't blame him; I was young, and very
handsome then, I don't deny: but you see, I could not hear of such
a thing, because he was my deceased sister's husband, you see?"
"Of course not, ma'am," said Tom; though, of course, he knew
nothing about it. "She was very much diseased, I suppose?"
"You do not understand me, my dear. I mean, that being a lady, and
with right and honourable feelings, as our house always has had, I
felt it my duty to snub him, and howk him, and peck him
continually, to keep him at his proper distance; and, to tell the
truth, I once pecked him a little too hard, poor fellow, and he
tumbled backwards off the rock, and - really, it was very
unfortunate, but it was not my fault - a shark coming by saw him
flapping, and snapped him up. And since then I have lived all alone
-
'With a fal-lal-la-lady.'
And soon I shall be gone, my little dear, and nobody will miss me;
and then the poor stone will be left all alone."
"But, please, which is the way to Shiny Wall?" said Tom.
"Oh, you must go, my little dear - you must go. Let me see - I am
sure - that is - really, my poor old brains are getting quite
puzzled. Do you know, my little dear, I am afraid, if you want to
know, you must ask some of these vulgar birds about, for I have
quite forgotten."
And the poor old Gairfowl began to cry tears of pure oil; and Tom
was quite sorry for her; and for himself too, for he was at his
wit's end whom to ask.
But by there came a flock of petrels, who are Mother Carey's own
chickens; and Tom thought them much prettier than Lady Gairfowl,
and so perhaps they were; for Mother Carey had had a great deal of
fresh experience between the time that she invented the Gairfowl
and the time that she invented them. They flitted along like a
flock of black swallows, and hopped and skipped from wave to wave,
lifting up their little feet behind them so daintily, and whistling
to each other so tenderly, that Tom fell in love with them at once,
and called them to know the way to Shiny Wall.
"Shiny Wall? Do you want Shiny Wall? Then come with us, and we
will show you. We are Mother Carey's own chickens, and she sends
us out over all the seas, to show the good birds the way home."
Tom was delighted, and swam off to them, after he had made his bow
to the Gairfowl. But she would not return his bow: but held
herself bolt upright, and wept tears of oil as she sang:
"And so the poor stone was left all alone;
With a fal-lal-la-lady."
But she was wrong there; for the stone was not left all alone: and
the next time that Tom goes by it, he will see a sight worth
seeing.
The old Gairfowl is gone already: but there are better things come
in her place; and when Tom comes he will see the fishing-smacks
anchored there in hundreds, from Scotland, and from Ireland, and
from the Orkneys, and the Shetlands, and from all the Northern
ports, full of the children of the old Norse Vikings, the masters
of the sea. And the men will be hauling in the great cod by
thousands, till their hands are sore from the lines; and they will
be making cod-liver oil and guano, and salting down the fish; and
there will be a man-of-war steamer there to protect them, and a
lighthouse to show them the way; and you and I, perhaps, shall go
some day to the Allalonestone to the great summer sea-fair, and
dredge strange creatures such as man never saw before; and we shall
hear the sailors boast that it is not the worst jewel in Queen
Victoria's crown, for there are eighty miles of codbank, and food
for all the poor folk in the land. That is what Tom will see, and
perhaps you and I shall see it too. And then we shall not be sorry
because we cannot get a Gairfowl to stuff, much less find gairfowl
enough to drive them into stone pens and slaughter them, as the old
Norsemen did, or drive them on board along a plank till the ship
was victualled with them, as the old English and French rovers used
to do, of whom dear old Hakluyt tells: but we shall remember what
Mr. Tennyson says: how
"The old order changeth, giving place to the new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways."
And now Tom was all agog to start for Shiny Wall; but the petrels
said no. They must go first to Allfowlsness, and wait there for
the great gathering of all the sea-birds, before they start for
their summer breeding-places far away in the Northern Isles; and
there they would be sure to find some birds which were going to
Shiny Wall: but where Allfowlsness was, he must promise never to
tell, lest men should go there and shoot the birds, and stuff them,
and put them into stupid museums, instead of leaving them to play
and breed and work in Mother Carey's water-garden, where they ought
to be.
So where Allfowlsness is nobody must know; and all that is to be
said about it is, that Tom waited there many days; and as he
waited, he saw a very curious sight. On the rabbit burrows on the
shore there gathered hundreds and hundreds of hoodie-crows, such as
you see in Cambridgeshire. And they made such a noise, that Tom
came on shore and went up to see what was the matter.
And there he found them holding their great caucus, which they hold
every year in the North; and all their stump-orators were
speechifying; and for a tribune, the speaker stood on an old
sheep's skull.
And they cawed and cawed, and boasted of all the clever things they
had done; how many lambs' eyes they had picked out, and how many
dead bullocks they had eaten, and how many young grouse they had
swallowed whole, and how many grouse-eggs they had flown away with,
stuck on the point of their bills, which is the hoodie-crow's
particularly clever feat, of which he is as proud as a gipsy is of
doing the hokany-baro; and what that is, I won't tell you.
And at last they brought out the prettiest, neatest young lady-crow
that ever was seen, and set her in the middle, and all began
abusing and vilifying, and rating, and bullyragging at her, because
she had stolen no grouse-eggs, and had actually dared to say that
she would not steal any. So she was to be tried publicly by their
laws (for the hoodies always try some offenders in their great
yearly parliament). And there she stood in the middle, in her
black gown and gray hood, looking as meek and as neat as a
Quakeress, and they all bawled at her at once -
And it was in vain that she pleaded -
That she did not like grouse-eggs;
That she could get her living very well without them;
That she was afraid to eat them, for fear of the gamekeepers;
That she had not the heart to eat them, because the grouse were
such pretty, kind, jolly birds;
And a dozen reasons more.
For all the other scaul-crows set upon her, and pecked her to death
there and then, before Tom could come to help her; and then flew
away, very proud of what they had done.
Now, was not this a scandalous transaction?
But they are true republicans, these hoodies, who do every one just
what he likes, and make other people do so too; so that, for any
freedom of speech, thought, or action, which is allowed among them,
they might as well be American citizens of the new school.
But the fairies took the good crow, and gave her nine new sets of
feathers running, and turned her at last into the most beautiful
bird of paradise with a green velvet suit and a long tail, and sent
her to eat fruit in the Spice Islands, where cloves and nutmegs
grow.
And Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid settled her account with the wicked
hoodies. For, as they flew away, what should they find but a nasty
dead dog? - on which they all set to work, peeking and gobbling and
cawing and quarrelling to their hearts' content. But the moment
afterwards, they all threw up their bills into the air, and gave
one screech; and then turned head over heels backward, and fell
down dead, one hundred and twenty-three of them at once. For why?
The fairy had told the gamekeeper in a dream, to fill the dead dog
full of strychnine; and so he did.
And after a while the birds began to gather at Allfowlsness, in
thousands and tens of thousands, blackening all the air; swans and
brant geese, harlequins and eiders, harolds and garganeys, smews
and goosanders, divers and loons, grebes and dovekies, auks and
razor-bills, gannets and petrels, skuas and terns, with gulls
beyond all naming or numbering; and they paddled and washed and
splashed and combed and brushed themselves on the sand, till the
shore was white with feathers; and they quacked and clucked and
gabbled and chattered and screamed and whooped as they talked over
matters with their friends, and settled where they were to go and
breed that summer, till you might have heard them ten miles off;
and lucky it was for them that there was no one to hear them but
the old keeper, who lived all alone upon the Ness, in a turf hut
thatched with heather and fringed round with great stones slung
across the roof by bent-ropes, lest the winter gales should blow
the hut right away. But he never minded the birds nor hurt them,
because they were not in season; indeed, he minded but two things
in the whole world, and those were, his Bible and his grouse; for
he was as good an old Scotchman as ever knit stockings on a
winter's night: only, when all the birds were going, he toddled
out, and took off his cap to them, and wished them a merry journey
and a safe return; and then gathered up all the feathers which they
had left, and cleaned them to sell down south, and make featherbeds
for stuffy people to lie on.
Then the petrels asked this bird and that whether they would take
Tom to Shiny Wall: but one set was going to Sutherland, and one to
the Shetlands, and one to Norway, and one to Spitzbergen, and one
to Iceland, and one to Greenland: but none would go to Shiny Wall.
So the good-natured petrels said that they would show him part of
the way themselves, but they were only going as far as Jan Mayen's
Land; and after that he must shift for himself.
And then all the birds rose up, and streamed away in long black
lines, north, and north-east, and north-west, across the bright
blue summer sky; and their cry was like ten thousand packs of
hounds, and ten thousand peals of bells. Only the puffins stayed
behind, and killed the young rabbits, and laid their eggs in the
rabbit-burrows; which was rough practice, certainly; but a man must
see to his own family.
And, as Tom and the petrels went north-eastward, it began to blow
right hard; for the old gentleman in the gray great-coat, who looks
after the big copper boiler, in the gulf of Mexico, had got
behindhand with his work; so Mother Carey had sent an electric
message to him for more steam; and now the steam was coming, as
much in an hour as ought to have come in a week, puffing and
roaring and swishing and swirling, till you could not see where the
sky ended and the sea began. But Tom and the petrels never cared,
for the gale was right abaft, and away they went over the crests of
the billows, as merry as so many flying-fish.
And at last they saw an ugly sight - the black side of a great
ship, waterlogged in the trough of the sea. Her funnel and her
masts were overboard, and swayed and surged under her lee; her
decks were swept as clean as a barn floor, and there was no living
soul on board.
The petrels flew up to her, and wailed round her; for they were
very sorry indeed, and also they expected to find some salt pork;
and Tom scrambled on board of her and looked round, frightened and
sad.
And there, in a little cot, lashed tight under the bulwark, lay a
baby fast asleep; the very same baby, Tom saw at once, which he had
seen in the singing lady's arms.
He went up to it, and wanted to wake it; but behold, from under the
cot out jumped a little black and tan terrier dog, and began
barking and snapping at Tom, and would not let him touch the cot.
Tom knew the dog's teeth could not hurt him: but at least it could
shove him away, and did; and he and the dog fought and struggled,
for he wanted to help the baby, and did not want to throw the poor
dog overboard: but as they were struggling there came a tall green
sea, and walked in over the weather side of the ship, and swept
them all into the waves.
"Oh, the baby, the baby!" screamed Tom: but the next moment he did
not scream at all; for he saw the cot settling down through the
green water, with the baby, smiling in it, fast asleep; and he saw
the fairies come up from below, and carry baby and cradle gently
down in their soft arms; and then he knew it was all right, and
that there would be a new water-baby in St. Brandan's Isle.
And the poor little dog?
Why, after he had kicked and coughed a little, he sneezed so hard,
that he sneezed himself clean out of his skin, and turned into a
water-dog, and jumped and danced round Tom, and ran over the crests
of the waves, and snapped at the jelly-fish and the mackerel, and
followed Tom the whole way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.
Then they went on again, till they began to see the peak of Jan
Mayen's Land, standing-up like a white sugar-loaf, two miles above
the clouds.
And there they fell in with a whole flock of molly-mocks, who were
feeding on a dead whale.
"These are the fellows to show you the way," said Mother Carey's
chickens; "we cannot help you farther north. We don't like to get
among the ice pack, for fear it should nip our toes: but the
mollys dare fly anywhere."
So the petrels called to the mollys: but they were so busy and
greedy, gobbling and peeking and spluttering and fighting over the
blubber, that they did not take the least notice.
"Come, come," said the petrels, "you lazy greedy lubbers, this
young gentleman is going to Mother Carey, and if you don't attend
on him, you won't earn your discharge from her, you know."
"Greedy we are," says a great fat old molly, "but lazy we ain't;
and, as for lubbers, we're no more lubbers than you. Let's have a
look at the lad."
And he flapped right into Tom's face, and stared at him in the most
impudent way (for the mollys are audacious fellows, as all whalers
know), and then asked him where he hailed from, and what land he
sighted last.
And, when Tom told him, he seemed pleased, and said he was a good
plucked one to have got so far.
"Come along, lads," he said to the rest, "and give this little chap
a cast over the pack, for Mother Carey's sake. We've eaten blubber
enough for to-day, and we'll e'en work out a bit of our time by
helping the lad."
So the mollys took Tom up on their backs, and flew off with him,
laughing and joking - and oh, how they did smell of train oil!
"Who are you, you jolly birds?" asked Tom.
"We are the spirits of the old Greenland skippers (as every sailor
knows), who hunted here, right whales and horse-whales, full
hundreds of years agone. But, because we were saucy and greedy, we
were all turned into mollys, to eat whale's blubber all our days.
But lubbers we are none, and could sail a ship now against any man
in the North seas, though we don't hold with this new-fangled
steam. And it's a shame of those black imps of petrels to call us
so; but because they're her grace's pets, they think they may say
anything they like."
"And who are you?" asked Tom of him, for he saw that he was the
king of all the birds.
"My name is Hendrick Hudson, and a right good skipper was I; and my
name will last to the world's end, in spite of all the wrong I did.
For I discovered Hudson River, and I named Hudson's Bay; and many
have come in my wake that dared not have shown me the way. But I
was a hard man in my time, that's truth, and stole the poor Indians
off the coast of Maine, and sold them for slaves down in Virginia;
and at last I was so cruel to my sailors, here in these very seas,
that they set me adrift in an open boat, and I never was heard of
more. So now I'm the king of all mollys, till I've worked out my
time."
And now they came to the edge of the pack, and beyond it they could
see Shiny Wall looming, through mist, and snow, and storm. But the
pack rolled horribly upon the swell, and the ice giants fought and
roared, and leapt upon each other's backs, and ground each other to
powder, so that Tom was afraid to venture among them, lest he
should be ground to powder too. And he was the more afraid, when
he saw lying among the ice pack the wrecks of many a gallant ship;
some with masts and yards all standing, some with the seamen frozen
fast on board. Alas, alas, for them! They were all true English
hearts; and they came to their end like good knights-errant, in
searching for the white gate that never was opened yet.
But the good mollys took Tom and his dog up, and flew with them
safe over the pack and the roaring ice giants, and set them down at
the foot of Shiny Wall.
"And where is the gate?" asked Tom.
"There is no gate," said the mollys.
"No gate?" cried Tom, aghast.
"None; never a crack of one, and that's the whole of the secret, as
better fellows, lad, than you have found to their cost; and if
there had been, they'd have killed by now every right whale that
swims the sea."
"What am I to do, then?"
"Dive under the floe, to be sure, if you have pluck."
"I've not come so far to turn now," said Tom; "so here goes for a
header."
"A lucky voyage to you, lad," said the mollys; "we knew you were
one of the right sort. So good-bye."
"Why don't you come too?" asked Tom.
But the mollys only wailed sadly, "We can't go yet, we can't go
yet," and flew away over the pack.
So Tom dived under the great white gate which never was opened yet,
and went on in black darkness, at the bottom of the sea, for seven
days and seven nights. And yet he was not a bit frightened. Why
should he be? He was a brave English lad, whose business is to go
out and see all the world.
And at last he saw the light, and clear clear water overhead; and
up he came a thousand fathoms, among clouds of sea-moths, which
fluttered round his head. There were moths with pink heads and
wings and opal bodies, that flapped about slowly; moths with brown
wings that flapped about quickly; yellow shrimps that hopped and
skipped most quickly of all; and jellies of all the colours in the
world, that neither hopped nor skipped, but only dawdled and
yawned, and would not get out of his way. The dog snapped at them
till his jaws were tired; but Tom hardly minded them at all, he was
so eager to get to the top of the water, and see the pool where the
good whales go.
And a very large pool it was, miles and miles across, though the
air was so clear that the ice cliffs on the opposite side looked as
if they were close at hand. All round it the ice cliffs rose, in
walls and spires and battlements, and caves and bridges, and
stories and galleries, in which the ice-fairies live, and drive
away the storms and clouds, that Mother Carey's pool may lie calm
from year's end to year's end. And the sun acted policeman, and
walked round outside every day, peeping just over the top of the
ice wall, to see that all went right; and now and then he played
conjuring tricks, or had an exhibition of fireworks, to amuse the
ice-fairies. For he would make himself into four or five suns at
once, or paint the sky with rings and crosses and crescents of
white fire, and stick himself in the middle of them, and wink at
the fairies; and I daresay they were very much amused; for
anything's fun in the country.
And there the good whales lay, the happy sleepy beasts, upon the
still oily sea. They were all right whales, you must know, and
finners, and razor-backs, and bottle-noses, and spotted seaunicorns
with long ivory horns. But the sperm whales are such
raging, ramping, roaring, rumbustious fellows, that, if Mother
Carey let them in, there would be no more peace in Peacepool. So
she packs them away in a great pond by themselves at the South
Pole, two hundred and sixty-three miles south-south-east of Mount
Erebus, the great volcano in the ice; and there they butt each
other with their ugly noses, day and night from year's end to
year's end.
But here there were only good quiet beasts, lying about like the
black hulls of sloops, and blowing every now and then jets of white
steam, or sculling round with their huge mouths open, for the seamoths
to swim down their throats. There were no threshers there to
thresh their poor old backs, or sword-fish to stab their stomachs,
or saw-fish to rip them up, or ice-sharks to bite lumps out of
their sides, or whalers to harpoon and lance them. They were quite
safe and happy there; and all they had to do was to wait quietly in
Peacepool, till Mother Carey sent for them to make them out of old
beasts into new.
Tom swam up to the nearest whale, and asked the way to Mother
Carey.
"There she sits in the middle," said the whale.
Tom looked; but he could see nothing in the middle of the pool, but
one peaked iceberg: and he said so.
"That's Mother Carey," said the whale, "as you will find when you
get to her. There she sits making old beasts into new all the year
round."
"How does she do that?"
"That's her concern, not mine," said the old whale; and yawned so
wide (for he was very large) that there swam into his mouth 943
sea-moths, 13,846 jelly-fish no bigger than pins' heads, a string
of salpae nine yards long, and forty-three little ice-crabs, who
gave each other a parting pinch all round, tucked their legs under
their stomachs, and determined to die decently, like Julius Caesar.
"I suppose," said Tom, "she cuts up a great whale like you into a
whole shoal of porpoises?"
At which the old whale laughed so violently that he coughed up all
the creatures; who swam away again very thankful at having escaped
out of that terrible whalebone net of his, from which bourne no
traveller returns; and Tom went on to the iceberg, wondering.
And, when he came near it, it took the form of the grandest old
lady he had ever seen - a white marble lady, sitting on a white
marble throne. And from the foot of the throne there swum away,
out and out into the sea, millions of new-born creatures, of more
shapes and colours than man ever dreamed. And they were Mother
Carey's children, whom she makes out of the sea-water all day long.
He expected, of course - like some grown people who ought to know
better - to find her snipping, piecing, fitting, stitching,
cobbling, basting, filing, planing, hammering, turning, polishing,
moulding, measuring, chiselling, clipping, and so forth, as men do
when they go to work to make anything.
But, instead of that, she sat quite still with her chin upon her
hand, looking down into the sea with two great grand blue eyes, as
blue as the sea itself. Her hair was as white as the snow - for
she was very very old - in fact, as old as anything which you are
likely to come across, except the difference between right and
wrong.
And, when she saw Tom, she looked at him very kindly.
"What do you want, my little man? It is long since I have seen a
water-baby here."
Tom told her his errand, and asked the way to the Other-end-ofNowhere.
"You ought to know yourself, for you have been there already."
"Have I, ma'am? I'm sure I forget all about it."
"Then look at me."
And, as Tom looked into her great blue eyes, he recollected the way
perfectly.
Now, was not that strange?
"Thank you, ma'am," said Tom. "Then I won't trouble your ladyship
any more; I hear you are very busy."
"I am never more busy than I am now," she said, without stirring a
finger.
"I heard, ma'am, that you were always making new beasts out of
old."
"So people fancy. But I am not going to trouble myself to make
things, my little dear. I sit here and make them make themselves."
"You are a clever fairy, indeed," thought Tom. And he was quite
right.
That is a grand trick of good old Mother Carey's, and a grand
answer, which she has had occasion to make several times to
impertinent people.
There was once, for instance, a fairy who was so clever that she
found out how to make butterflies. I don't mean sham ones; no:
but real live ones, which would fly, and eat, and lay eggs, and do
everything that they ought; and she was so proud of her skill that
she went flying straight off to the North Pole, to boast to Mother
Carey how she could make butterflies.
But Mother Carey laughed.
"Know, silly child," she said, "that any one can make things, if
they will take time and trouble enough: but it is not every one
who, like me, can make things make themselves."
But people do not yet believe that Mother Carey is as clever as all
that comes to; and they will not till they, too, go the journey to
the Other-end-of-Nowhere.
"And now, my pretty little man," said Mother Carey, "you are sure
you know the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere?"
Tom thought; and behold, he had forgotten it utterly.
"That is because you took your eyes off me."
Tom looked at her again, and recollected; and then looked away, and
forgot in an instant.
"But what am I to do, ma'am? For I can't keep looking at you when
I am somewhere else."
"You must do without me, as most people have to do, for nine
hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of their lives; and look at the
dog instead; for he knows the way well enough, and will not forget
it. Besides, you may meet some very queer-tempered people there,
who will not let you pass without this passport of mine, which you
must hang round your neck and take care of; and, of course, as the
dog will always go behind you, you must go the whole way backward."
"Backward!" cried Tom. "Then I shall not be able to see my way."
"On the contrary, if you look forward, you will not see a step
before you, and be certain to go wrong; but, if you look behind
you, and watch carefully whatever you have passed, and especially
keep your eye on the dog, who goes by instinct, and therefore can't
go wrong, then you will know what is coming next, as plainly as if
you saw it in a looking-glass."
Tom was very much astonished: but he obeyed her, for he had learnt
always to believe what the fairies told him.
"So it is, my dear child," said Mother Carey; "and I will tell you
a story, which will show you that I am perfectly right, as it is my
custom to be.
"Once on a time, there were two brothers. One was called
Prometheus, because he always looked before him, and boasted that
he was wise beforehand. The other was called Epimetheus, because
he always looked behind him, and did not boast at all; but said
humbly, like the Irishman, that he had sooner prophesy after the
event.
"Well, Prometheus was a very clever fellow, of course, and invented
all sorts of wonderful things. But, unfortunately, when they were
set to work, to work was just what they would not do: wherefore
very little has come of them, and very little is left of them; and
now nobody knows what they were, save a few archaeological old
gentlemen who scratch in queer corners, and find little there save
Ptinum Furem, Blaptem Mortisagam, Acarum Horridum, and Tineam
Laciniarum.
"But Epimetheus was a very slow fellow, certainly, and went among
men for a clod, and a muff, and a milksop, and a slowcoach, and a
bloke, and a boodle, and so forth. And very little he did, for
many years: but what he did, he never had to do over again.
"And what happened at last? There came to the two brothers the
most beautiful creature that ever was seen, Pandora by name; which
means, All the gifts of the Gods. But because she had a strange
box in her hand, this fanciful, forecasting, suspicious,
prudential, theoretical, deductive, prophesying Prometheus, who was
always settling what was going to happen, would have nothing to do
with pretty Pandora and her box.
"But Epimetheus took her and it, as he took everything that came;
and married her for better for worse, as every man ought, whenever
he has even the chance of a good wife. And they opened the box
between them, of course, to see what was inside: for, else, of
what possible use could it have been to them?
"And out flew all the ills which flesh is heir to; all the children
of the four great bogies, Self-will, Ignorance, Fear, and Dirt -
for instance:
Measles, Famines,
Monks, Quacks,
Scarlatina, Unpaid bills,
Idols, Tight stays,
Hooping-coughs, Potatoes,
Popes, Bad Wine,
Wars, Despots,
Peacemongers, Demagogues,
And, worst of all, Naughty Boys and Girls.
But one thing remained at the bottom of the box, and that was,
Hope.
"So Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, as most men do in this
world: but he got the three best things in the world into the
bargain - a good wife, and experience, and hope: while Prometheus
had just as much trouble, and a great deal more (as you will hear),
of his own making; with nothing beside, save fancies spun out of
his own brain, as a spider spins her web out of her stomach.
"And Prometheus kept on looking before him so far ahead, that as he
was running about with a box of lucifers (which were the only
useful things he ever invented, and do as much harm as good), he
trod on his own nose, and tumbled down (as most deductive
philosophers do), whereby he set the Thames on fire; and they have
hardly put it out again yet. So he had to be chained to the top of
a mountain, with a vulture by him to give him a peck whenever he
stirred, lest he should turn the whole world upside down with his
prophecies and his theories.
"But stupid old Epimetheus went working and grubbing on, with the
help of his wife Pandora, always looking behind him to see what had
happened, till he really learnt to know now and then what would
happen next; and understood so well which side his bread was
buttered, and which way the cat jumped, that he began to make
things which would work, and go on working, too; to till and drain
the ground, and to make looms, and ships, and railroads, and steam
ploughs, and electric telegraphs, and all the things which you see
in the Great Exhibition; and to foretell famine, and bad weather,
and the price of stocks and (what is hardest of all) the next
vagary of the great idol Whirligig, which some call Public Opinion;
till at last he grew as rich as a Jew, and as fat as a farmer, and
people thought twice before they meddled with him, but only once
before they asked him to help them; for, because he earned his
money well, he could afford to spend it well likewise.
"And his children are the men of science, who get good lasting work
done in the world; but the children of Prometheus are the fanatics,
and the theorists, and the bigots, and the bores, and the noisy
windy people, who go telling silly folk what will happen, instead
of looking to see what has happened already."
Now, was not Mother Carey's a wonderful story? And, I am happy to
say, Tom believed it every word.
For so it happened to Tom likewise. He was very sorely tried; for
though, by keeping the dog to heels (or rather to toes, for he had
to walk backward), he could see pretty well which way the dog was
hunting, yet it was much slower work to go backwards than to go
forwards. But, what was more trying still, no sooner had he got
out of Peacepool, than there came running to him all the conjurors,
fortune-tellers, astrologers, prophesiers, projectors,
prestigiators, as many as were in those parts (and there are too
many of them everywhere), Old Mother Shipton on her broomstick,
with Merlin, Thomas the Rhymer, Gerbertus, Rabanus Maurus,
Nostradamus, Zadkiel, Raphael, Moore, Old Nixon, and a good many in
black coats and white ties who might have known better, considering
in what century they were born, all bawling and screaming at him,
"Look a-head, only look a-head; and we will show you what man never
saw before, and right away to the end of the world!"
But I am proud to say that, though Tom had not been to Cambridge -
for, if he had, he would have certainly been senior wrangler - he
was such a little dogged, hard, gnarly, foursquare brick of an
English boy, that he never turned his head round once all the way
from Peacepool to the Other-end-of-Nowhere: but kept his eye on
the dog, and let him pick out the scent, hot or cold, straight or
crooked, wet or dry, up hill or down dale; by which means he never
made a single mistake, and saw all the wonderful and hitherto byno-
mortal-man-imagined things, which it is my duty to relate to you
in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VIII AND LAST
"Come to me, O ye children!
For I hear you at your play;
And the questions that perplexed me
Have vanished quite away.
"Ye open the Eastern windows,
That look towards the sun,
Where thoughts are singing swallows,
And the brooks of morning run.
* * * * *
"For what are all our contrivings
And the wisdom of our books,
When compared with your caresses,
And the gladness of your looks?
"Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead."
LONGFELLOW.
Here begins the never-to-be-too-much-studied account of the ninehundred-
and-ninety-ninth part of the wonderful things which Tom saw
on his journey to the Other-end-of-Nowhere; which all good little
children are requested to read; that, if ever they get to the
Other-end-of-Nowhere, as they may very probably do, they may not
burst out laughing, or try to run away, or do any other silly
vulgar thing which may offend Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.
Now, as soon as Tom had left Peacepool, he came to the white lap of
the great sea-mother, ten thousand fathoms deep; where she makes
world-pap all day long, for the steam-giants to knead, and the
fire-giants to bake, till it has risen and hardened into mountainloaves
and island-cakes.
And there Tom was very near being kneaded up in the world-pap, and
turned into a fossil water-baby; which would have astonished the
Geological Society of New Zealand some hundreds of thousands of
years hence.
For, as he walked along in the silence of the sea-twilight, on the
soft white ocean floor, he was aware of a hissing, and a roaring,
and a thumping, and a pumping, as of all the steam-engines in the
world at once. And, when he came near, the water grew boiling-hot;
not that that hurt him in the least: but it also grew as foul as
gruel; and every moment he stumbled over dead shells, and fish, and
sharks, and seals, and whales, which had been killed by the hot
water.
And at last he came to the great sea-serpent himself, lying dead at
the bottom; and as he was too thick to scramble over, Tom had to
walk round him three-quarters of a mile and more, which put him out
of his path sadly; and, when he had got round, he came to the place
called Stop. And there he stopped, and just in time.
For he was on the edge of a vast hole in the bottom of the sea, up
which was rushing and roaring clear steam enough to work all the
engines in the world at once; so clear, indeed, that it was quite
light at moments; and Tom could see almost up to the top of the
water above, and down below into the pit for nobody knows how far.
But, as soon as he bent his head over the edge, he got such a rap
on the nose from pebbles, that he jumped back again; for the steam,
as it rushed up, rasped away the sides of the hole, and hurled it
up into the sea in a shower of mud and gravel and ashes; and then
it spread all around, and sank again, and covered in the dead fish
so fast, that before Tom had stood there five minutes he was buried
in silt up to his ankles, and began to be afraid that he should
have been buried alive.
And perhaps he would have been, but that while he was thinking, the
whole piece of ground on which he stood was torn off and blown
upwards, and away flew Tom a mile up through the sea, wondering
what was coming next.
At last he stopped - thump! and found himself tight in the legs of
the most wonderful bogy which he had ever seen.
It had I don't know how many wings, as big as the sails of a
windmill, and spread out in a ring like them; and with them it
hovered over the steam which rushed up, as a ball hovers over the
top of a fountain. And for every wing above it had a leg below,
with a claw like a comb at the tip, and a nostril at the root; and
in the middle it had no stomach and one eye; and as for its mouth,
that was all on one side, as the madreporiform tubercle in a starfish
is. Well, it was a very strange beast; but no stranger than
some dozens which you may see.
"What do you want here," it cried quite peevishly, "getting in my
way?" and it tried to drop Tom: but he held on tight to its claws,
thinking himself safer where he was.
So Tom told him who he was, and what his errand was. And the thing
winked its one eye, and sneered:
"I am too old to be taken in in that way. You are come after gold
- I know you are."
"Gold! What is gold?" And really Tom did not know; but the
suspicious old bogy would not believe him.
But after a while Tom began to understand a little. For, as the
vapours came up out of the hole, the bogy smelt them with his
nostrils, and combed them and sorted them with his combs; and then,
when they steamed up through them against his wings, they were
changed into showers and streams of metal. From one wing fell
gold-dust, and from another silver, and from another copper, and
from another tin, and from another lead, and so on, and sank into
the soft mud, into veins and cracks, and hardened there. Whereby
it comes to pass that the rocks are full of metal.
But, all of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam below, and the
hole was left empty in an instant: and then down rushed the water
into the hole, in such a whirlpool that the bogy spun round and
round as fast as a teetotum. But that was all in his day's work,
like a fair fall with the hounds; so all he did was to say to Tom -
"Now is your time, youngster, to get down, if you are in earnest,
which I don't believe."
"You'll soon see," said Tom; and away he went, as bold as Baron
Munchausen, and shot down the rushing cataract like a salmon at
Ballisodare.
And, when he got to the bottom, he swam till he was washed on shore
safe upon the Other-end-of-Nowhere; and he found it, to his
surprise, as most other people do, much more like This-End-of-
Somewhere than he had been in the habit of expecting
And first he went through Waste-paper-land, where all the stupid
books lie in heaps, up hill and down dale, like leaves in a winter
wood; and there he saw people digging and grubbing among them, to
make worse books out of bad ones, and thrashing chaff to save the
dust of it; and a very good trade they drove thereby, especially
among children.
Then he went by the sea of slops, to the mountain of messes, and
the territory of tuck, where the ground was very sticky, for it was
all made of bad toffee (not Everton toffee, of course), and full of
deep cracks and holes choked with wind-fallen fruit, and green
goose-berries, and sloes, and crabs, and whinberries, and hips and
haws, and all the nasty things which little children will eat, if
they can get them. But the fairies hide them out of the way in
that country as fast as they can, and very hard work they have, and
of very little use it is. For as fast as they hide away the old
trash, foolish and wicked people make fresh trash full of lime and
poisonous paints, and actually go and steal receipts out of old
Madame Science's big book to invent poisons for little children,
and sell them at wakes and fairs and tuck-shops. Very well. Let
them go on. Dr. Letheby and Dr. Hassall cannot catch them, though
they are setting traps for them all day long. But the Fairy with
the birch-rod will catch them all in time, and make them begin at
one corner of their shops, and eat their way out at the other: by
which time they will have got such stomach-aches as will cure them
of poisoning little children.
Next he saw all the little people in the world, writing all the
little books in the world, about all the other little people in the
world; probably because they had no great people to write about:
and if the names of the books were not Squeeky, nor the Pumplighter,
nor the Narrow Narrow World, nor the Hills of the
Chattermuch, nor the Children's Twaddeday, why then they were
something else. And, all the rest of the little people in the
world read the books, and thought themselves each as good as the
President; and perhaps they were right, for every one knows his own
business best. But Tom thought he would sooner have a jolly good
fairy tale, about Jack the Giant-killer or Beauty and the Beast,
which taught him something that he didn't know already.
And next he came to the centre of Creation (the hub, they call it
there), which lies in latitude 42.21 degrees south, and longitude
108.56 degrees east.
And there he found all the wise people instructing mankind in the
science of spirit-rapping, while their house was burning over their
heads: and when Tom told them of the fire, they held an
indignation meeting forthwith, and unanimously determined to hang
Tom's dog for coming into their country with gunpowder in his
mouth. Tom couldn't help saying that though they did fancy they
had carried all the wit away with them out of Lincolnshire two
hundred years ago, yet if they had had one such Lincolnshire
nobleman among them as good old Lord Yarborough, he would have
called for the fire-engines before he hanged other people's dogs.
But it was of no use, and the dog was hanged: and Tom couldn't
even have his carcase; for they had abolished the have-his-carcase
act in that country, for fear lest when rogues fell out, honest men
should come by their own. And so they would have succeeded
perfectly, as they always do, only that (as they also always do)
they failed in one little particular, viz. that the dog would not
die, being a water-dog, but bit their fingers so abominably that
they were forced to let him go, and Tom likewise, as British
subjects. Whereon they recommenced rapping for the spirits of
their fathers; and very much astonished the poor old spirits were
when they came, and saw how, according to the laws of Mrs.
Bedonebyasyoudid, their descendants had weakened their constitution
by hard living.
Then came Tom to the Island of Polupragmosyne (which some call
Rogues' Harbour; but they are wrong; for that is in the middle of
Bramshill Bushes, and the county police have cleared it out long
ago). There every one knows his neighbour's business better than
his own; and a very noisy place it is, as might be expected,
considering that all the inhabitants are EX OFFICIO on the wrong
side of the house in the "Parliament of Man, and the Federation of
the World;" and are always making wry mouths, and crying that the
fairies' grapes were sour.
There Tom saw ploughs drawing horses, nails driving hammers, birds'
nests taking boys, books making authors, bulls keeping china-shops,
monkeys shaving cats, dead dogs drilling live lions, blind
brigadiers shelfed as principals of colleges, play-actors not in
the least shelfed as popular preachers; and, in short, every one
set to do something which he had not learnt, because in what he had
learnt, or pretended to learn, he had failed.
There stands the Pantheon of the Great Unsuccessful, from the
builders of the Tower of Babel to those of the Trafalgar Fountains;
in which politicians lecture on the constitutions which ought to
have marched, conspirators on the revolutions which ought to have
succeeded, economists on the schemes which ought to have made every
one's fortune, and projectors on the discoveries which ought to
have set the Thames on fire. There cobblers lecture on orthopedy
(whatsoever that may be) because they cannot sell their shoes; and
poets on AEsthetics (whatsoever that may be) because they cannot
sell their poetry. There philosophers demonstrate that England
would be the freest and richest country in the world, if she would
only turn Papist again; penny-a-liners abuse the Times, because
they have not wit enough to get on its staff; and young ladies walk
about with lockets of Charles the First's hair (or of somebody
else's, when the Jews' genuine stock is used up), inscribed with
the neat and appropriate legend - which indeed is popular through
all that land, and which, I hope, you will learn to translate in
due time and to perpend likewise:-
"VICTRIX CAUSA DIIS PLACUIT, SED VICTA PUELLIS."
When he got into the middle of the town, they all set on him at
once, to show him his way; or rather, to show him that he did not
know his way; for as for asking him what way he wanted to go, no
one ever thought of that.
But one pulled him hither, and another poked him thither, and a
third cried -
"You mustn't go west, I tell you; it is destruction to go west."
"But I am not going west, as you may see," said Tom.
And another, "The east lies here, my dear; I assure you this is the
east."
"But I don't want to go east," said Tom.
"Well, then, at all events, whichever way you are going, you are
going wrong," cried they all with one voice - which was the only
thing which they ever agreed about; and all pointed at once to all
the thirty-and-two points of the compass, till Tom thought all the
sign-posts in England had got together, and fallen fighting.
And whether he would have ever escaped out of the town, it is hard
to say, if the dog had not taken it into his head that they were
going to pull his master in pieces, and tackled them so sharply
about the gastrocnemius muscle, that he gave them some business of
their own to think of at last; and while they were rubbing their
bitten calves, Tom and the dog got safe away.
On the borders of that island he found Gotham, where the wise men
live; the same who dragged the pond because the moon had fallen
into it, and planted a hedge round the cuckoo, to keep spring all
the year. And he found them bricking up the town gate, because it
was so wide that little folks could not get through. And, when he
asked why, they told him they were expanding their liturgy. So he
went on; for it was no business of his: only he could not help
saying that in his country, if the kitten could not get in at the
same hole as the cat, she might stay outside and mew.
But he saw the end of such fellows, when he came to the island of
the Golden Asses, where nothing but thistles grow. For there they
were all turned into mokes with ears a yard long, for meddling with
matters which they do not understand, as Lucius did in the story.
And like him, mokes they must remain, till, by the laws of
development, the thistles develop into roses. Till then, they must
comfort themselves with the thought, that the longer their ears
are, the thicker their hides; and so a good beating don't hurt
them.
Then came Tom to the great land of Hearsay, in which are no less
than thirty and odd kings, beside half a dozen Republics, and
perhaps more by next mail.
And there he fell in with a deep, dark, deadly, and destructive
war, waged by the princes and potentates of those parts, both
spiritual and temporal, against what do you think? One thing I am
sure of. That unless I told you, you would never know; nor how
they waged that war either; for all their strategy and art military
consisted in the safe and easy process of stopping their ears and
screaming, "Oh, don't tell us!" and then running away.
So when Tom came into that land, he found them all, high and low,
man, woman, and child, running for their lives day and night
continually, and entreating not to be told they didn't know what:
only the land being an island, and they having a dislike to the
water (being a musty lot for the most part), they ran round and
round the shore for ever, which (as the island was exactly of the
same circumference as the planet on which we have the honour of
living) was hard work, especially to those who had business to look
after. But before them, as bandmaster and fugleman, ran a
gentleman shearing a pig; the melodious strains of which animal led
them for ever, if not to conquest, still to flight; and kept up
their spirits mightily with the thought that they would at least
have the pig's wool for their pains.
And running after them, day and night, came such a poor, lean,
seedy, hard-worked old giant, as ought to have been cockered up,
and had a good dinner given him, and a good wife found him, and
been set to play with little children; and then he would have been
a very presentable old fellow after all; for he had a heart, though
it was considerably overgrown with brains.
He was made up principally of fish bones and parchment, put
together with wire and Canada balsam; and smelt strongly of
spirits, though he never drank anything but water: but spirits he
used somehow, there was no denying. He had a great pair of
spectacles on his nose, and a butterfly-net in one hand, and a
geological hammer in the other; and was hung all over with pockets,
full of collecting boxes, bottles, microscopes, telescopes,
barometers, ordnance maps, scalpels, forceps, photographic
apparatus, and all other tackle for finding out everything about
everything, and a little more too. And, most strange of all, he
was running not forwards but backwards, as fast as he could.
Away all the good folks ran from him, except Tom, who stood his
ground and dodged between his legs; and the giant, when he had
passed him, looked down, and cried, as if he was quite pleased and
comforted, -
"What? who are you? And you actually don't run away, like all the
rest?" But he had to take his spectacles off, Tom remarked, in
order to see him plainly.
Tom told him who he was; and the giant pulled out a bottle and a
cork instantly, to collect him with.
But Tom was too sharp for that, and dodged between his legs and in
front of him; and then the giant could not see him at all.
"No, no, no!" said Tom, "I've not been round the world, and through
the world, and up to Mother Carey's haven, beside being caught in a
net and called a Holothurian and a Cephalopod, to be bottled up by
any old giant like you."
And when the giant understood what a great traveller Tom had been,
he made a truce with him at once, and would have kept him there to
this day to pick his brains, so delighted was he at finding any one
to tell him what he did not know before.
"Ah, you lucky little dog!" said he at last, quite simply - for he
was the simplest, pleasantest, honestest, kindliest old Dominie
Sampson of a giant that ever turned the world upside down without
intending it - "ah, you lucky little dog! If I had only been where
you have been, to see what you have seen!"
"Well," said Tom, "if you want to do that, you had best put your
head under water for a few hours, as I did, and turn into a waterbaby,
or some other baby, and then you might have a chance."
"Turn into a baby, eh? If I could do that, and know what was
happening to me for but one hour, I should know everything then,
and be at rest. But I can't; I can't be a little child again; and
I suppose if I could, it would be no use, because then I should
then know nothing about what was happening to me. Ah, you lucky
little dog!" said the poor old giant.
"But why do you run after all these poor people?" said Tom, who
liked the giant very much.
"My dear, it's they that have been running after me, father and
son, for hundreds and hundreds of years, throwing stones at me till
they have knocked off my spectacles fifty times, and calling me a
malignant and a turbaned Turk, who beat a Venetian and traduced the
State - goodness only knows what they mean, for I never read poetry
- and hunting me round and round - though catch me they can't, for
every time I go over the same ground, I go the faster, and grow the
bigger. While all I want is to be friends with them, and to tell
them something to their advantage, like Mr. Joseph Ady: only
somehow they are so strangely afraid of hearing it. But, I suppose
I am not a man of the world, and have no tact."
"But why don't you turn round and tell them so?"
"Because I can't. You see, I am one of the sons of Epimetheus, and
must go backwards, if I am to go at all."
"But why don't you stop, and let them come up to you?"
"Why, my dear, only think. If I did, all the butterflies and
cockyolybirds would fly past me, and then I should catch no more
new species, and should grow rusty and mouldy, and die. And I
don't intend to do that, my dear; for I have a destiny before me,
they say: though what it is I don't know, and don't care."
"Don't care?" said Tom.
"No. Do the duty which lies nearest you, and catch the first
beetle you come across, is my motto; and I have thriven by it for
some hundred years. Now I must go on. Dear me, while I have been
talking to you, at least nine new species have escaped me."
And on went the giant, behind before, like a bull in a china-shop,
till he ran into the steeple of the great idol temple (for they are
all idolaters in those parts, of course, else they would never be
afraid of giants), and knocked the upper half clean off, hurting
himself horribly about the small of the back.
But little he cared; for as soon as the ruins of the steeple were
well between his legs, he poked and peered among the falling
stones, and shifted his spectacles, and pulled out his pocketmagnifier,
and cried -
"An entirely new Oniscus, and three obscure Podurellae! Besides a
moth which M. le Roi des Papillons (though he, like all Frenchmen,
is given to hasty inductions) says is confined to the limits of the
Glacial Drift. This is most important!"
And down he sat on the nave of the temple (not being a man of the
world) to examine his Podurellae. Whereon (as was to be expected)
the roof caved in bodily, smashing the idols, and sending the
priests flying out of doors and windows, like rabbits out of a
burrow when a ferret goes in.
But he never heeded; for out of the dust flew a bat, and the giant
had him in a moment.
"Dear me! This is even more important! Here is a cognate species
to that which Macgilliwaukie Brown insists is confined to the
Buddhist temples of Little Thibet; and now when I look at it, it
may be only a variety produced by difference of climate!"
And having bagged his bat, up he got, and on he went; while all the
people ran, being in none the better humour for having their temple
smashed for the sake of three obscure species of Podurella, and a
Buddhist bat.
"Well," thought Tom, "this is a very pretty quarrel, with a good
deal to be said on both sides. But it is no business of mine."
And no more it was, because he was a water-baby, and had the
original sow by the right ear; which you will never have, unless
you be a baby, whether of the water, the land, or the air, matters
not, provided you can only keep on continually being a baby.
So the giant ran round after the people, and the people ran round
after the giant, and they are running, unto this day for aught I
know, or do not know; and will run till either he, or they, or
both, turn into little children. And then, as Shakespeare says
(and therefore it must be true) -
"Jack shall have Gill
Nought shall go ill
The man shall have his mare again, and all go well."
Then Tom came to a very famous island, which was called, in the
days of the great traveller Captain Gulliver, the Isle of Laputa.
But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has named it over again the Isle of
Tomtoddies, all heads and no bodies.
And when Tom came near it, he heard such a grumbling and grunting
and growling and wailing and weeping and whining that he thought
people must be ringing little pigs, or cropping puppies' ears, or
drowning kittens: but when he came nearer still, he began to hear
words among the noise; which was the Tomtoddies' song which they
sing morning and evening, and all night too, to their great idol
Examination -
"I can't learn my lesson: the examiner's coming!"
And that was the only song which they knew.
And when Tom got on shore the first thing he saw was a great
pillar, on one side of which was inscribed, "Playthings not allowed
here;" at which he was so shocked that he would not stay to see
what was written on the other side. Then he looked round for the
people of the island: but instead of men, women, and children, he
found nothing but turnips and radishes, beet and mangold wurzel,
without a single green leaf among them, and half of them burst and
decayed, with toad-stools growing out of them. Those which were
left began crying to Tom, in half a dozen different languages at
once, and all of them badly spoken, "I can't learn my lesson; do
come and help me!" And one cried, "Can you show me how to extract
this square root?"
And another, "Can you tell me the distance between [alpha] Lyrae
and [beta] Camelopardis?"
And another, "What is the latitude and longitude of Snooksville, in
Noman's County, Oregon, U.S.?"
And another, "What was the name of Mutius Scaevola's thirteenth
cousin's grandmother's maid's cat?"
And another, "How long would it take a school-inspector of average
activity to tumble head over heels from London to York?"
And another, "Can you tell me the name of a place that nobody ever
heard of, where nothing ever happened, in a country which has not
been discovered yet?"
And another, "Can you show me how to correct this hopelessly
corrupt passage of Graidiocolosyrtus Tabenniticus, on the cause why
crocodiles have no tongues?"
And so on, and so on, and so on, till one would have thought they
were all trying for tide-waiters' places, or cornetcies in the
heavy dragoons.
"And what good on earth will it do you if I did tell you?" quoth
Tom.
Well, they didn't know that: all they knew was the examiner was
coming.
Then Tom stumbled on the hugest and softest nimblecomequick turnip
you ever saw filling a hole in a crop of swedes, and it cried to
him, "Can you tell me anything at all about anything you like?"
"About what?" says Tom.
"About anything you like; for as fast as I learn things I forget
them again. So my mamma says that my intellect is not adapted for
methodic science, and says that I must go in for general
information."
Tom told him that he did not know general information, nor any
officers in the army; only he had a friend once that went for a
drummer: but he could tell him a great many strange things which
he had seen in his travels.
So he told him prettily enough, while the poor turnip listened very
carefully; and the more he listened, the more he forgot, and the
more water ran out of him.
Tom thought he was crying: but it was only his poor brains running
away, from being worked so hard; and as Tom talked, the unhappy
turnip streamed down all over with juice, and split and shrank till
nothing was left of him but rind and water; whereat Tom ran away in
a fright, for he thought he might be taken up for killing the
turnip.
But, on the contrary, the turnip's parents were highly delighted,
and considered him a saint and a martyr, and put up a long
inscription over his tomb about his wonderful talents, early
development, and unparalleled precocity. Were they not a foolish
couple? But there was a still more foolish couple next to them,
who were beating a wretched little radish, no bigger than my thumb,
for sullenness and obstinacy and wilful stupidity, and never knew
that the reason why it couldn't learn or hardly even speak was,
that there was a great worm inside it eating out all its brains.
But even they are no foolisher than some hundred score of papas and
mammas, who fetch the rod when they ought to fetch a new toy, and
send to the dark cupboard instead of to the doctor.
Tom was so puzzled and frightened with all he saw, that he was
longing to ask the meaning of it; and at last he stumbled over a
respectable old stick lying half covered with earth. But a very
stout and worthy stick it was, for it belonged to good Roger Ascham
in old time, and had carved on its head King Edward the Sixth, with
the Bible in his hand.
"You see," said the stick, "there were as pretty little children
once as you could wish to see, and might have been so still if they
had been only left to grow up like human beings, and then handed
over to me; but their foolish fathers and mothers, instead of
letting them pick flowers, and make dirt-pies, and get birds'
nests, and dance round the gooseberry bush, as little children
should, kept them always at lessons, working, working, working,
learning week-day lessons all week-days, and Sunday lessons all
Sunday, and weekly examinations every Saturday, and monthly
examinations every month, and yearly examinations every year,
everything seven times over, as if once was not enough, and enough
as good as a feast - till their brains grew big, and their bodies
grew small, and they were all changed into turnips, with little but
water inside; and still their foolish parents actually pick the
leaves off them as fast as they grow, lest they should have
anything green about them."
"Ah!" said Tom, "if dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby knew of it she
would send them a lot of tops, and balls, and marbles, and
ninepins, and make them all as jolly as sand-boys."
"It would be no use," said the stick. "They can't play now, if
they tried. Don't you see how their legs have turned to roots and
grown into the ground, by never taking any exercise, but sapping
and moping always in the same place? But here comes the Examinerof-
all-Examiners. So you had better get away, I warn you, or he
will examine you and your dog into the bargain, and set him to
examine all the other dogs, and you to examine all the other waterbabies.
There is no escaping out of his hands, for his nose is
nine thousand miles long, and can go down chimneys, and through
keyholes, upstairs, downstairs, in my lady's chamber, examining all
little boys, and the little boys' tutors likewise. But when he is
thrashed - so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has promised me - I shall have
the thrashing of him: and if I don't lay it on with a will it's a
pity."
Tom went off: but rather slowly and surlily; for he was somewhat
minded to face this same Examiner-of-all-Examiners, who came
striding among the poor turnips, binding heavy burdens and grievous
to be borne, and laying them on little children's shoulders, like
the Scribes and Pharisees of old, and not touching the same with
one of his fingers; for he had plenty of money, and a fine house to
live in, and so forth; which was more than the poor little turnips
had.
But when he got near, he looked so big and burly and dictatorial,
and shouted so loud to Tom, to come and be examined, that Tom ran
for his life, and the dog too. And really it was time; for the
poor turnips, in their hurry and fright, crammed themselves so fast
to be ready for the Examiner, that they burst and popped by dozens
all round him, till the place sounded like Aldershot on a fieldday,
and Tom thought he should be blown into the air, dog and all.
As he went down to the shore he passed the poor turnip's new tomb.
But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid had taken away the epitaph about talents
and precocity and development, and put up one of her own instead
which Tom thought much more sensible:-
"Instruction sore long time I bore,
And cramming was in vain;
Till heaven did please my woes to ease
With water on the brain."
So Tom jumped into the sea, and swam on his way, singing:-
"Farewell, Tomtoddies all; I thank my stars
That nought I know save those three royal r's:
Reading and riting sure, with rithmetick,
Will help a lad of sense through thin and thick."
Whereby you may see that Tom was no poet: but no more was John
Bunyan, though he was as wise a man as you will meet in a month of
Sundays.
And next he came to Oldwivesfabledom, where the folks were all
heathens, and worshipped a howling ape. And there he found a
little boy sitting in the middle of the road, and crying bitterly.
"What are you crying for?" said Tom.
"Because I am not as frightened as I could wish to be."
"Not frightened? You are a queer little chap: but, if you want to
be frightened, here goes - Boo!"
"Ah," said the little boy, "that is very kind of you; but I don't
feel that it has made any impression."
Tom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on him, fettle him over
the head with a brick, or anything else whatsoever which would give
him the slightest comfort.
But he only thanked Tom very civilly, in fine long words which he
had heard other folk use, and which therefore, he thought were fit
and proper to use himself; and cried on till his papa and mamma
came, and sent off for the Powwow man immediately. And a very
good-natured gentleman and lady they were, though they were
heathens; and talked quite pleasantly to Tom about his travels,
till the Powwow man arrived, with his thunderbox under his arm.
And a well-fed, ill-favoured gentleman he was, as ever served Her
Majesty at Portland. Tom was a little frightened at first; for he
thought it was Grimes. But he soon saw his mistake: for Grimes
always looked a man in the face; and this fellow never did. And
when he spoke, it was fire and smoke; and when he sneezed, it was
squibs and crackers; and when he cried (which he did whenever it
paid him), it was boiling pitch; and some of it was sure to stick.
"Here we are again!" cried he, like the clown in a pantomime. "So
you can't feel frightened, my little dear - eh? I'll do that for
you. I'll make an impression on you! Yah! Boo! Whirroo!
Hullabaloo!"
And he rattled, thumped, brandished his thunder-box, yelled,
shouted, raved, roared, stamped, and danced corrobory like any
black fellow; and then he touched a spring in the thunderbox, and
out popped turnip-ghosts and magic-lanthorns and pasteboard bogies
and spring-heeled Jacks, and sallaballas, with such a horrid din,
clatter, clank, roll, rattle, and roar, that the little boy turned
up the whites of his eyes, and fainted right away.
And at that his poor heathen papa and mamma were as much delighted
as if they had found a gold mine; and fell down upon their knees
before the Powwow man, and gave him a palanquin with a pole of
solid silver and curtains of cloth of gold; and carried him about
in it on their own backs: but as soon as they had taken him up,
the pole stuck to their shoulders, and they could not set him down
any more, but carried him on willynilly, as Sinbad carried the old
man of the sea: which was a pitiable sight to see; for the father
was a very brave officer, and wore two swords and a blue button;
and the mother was as pretty a lady as ever had pinched feet like a
Chinese. But you see, they had chosen to do a foolish thing just
once too often; so, by the laws of Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, they had
to go on doing it whether they chose or not, till the coming of the
Cocqcigrues.
Ah! don't you wish that some one would go and convert those poor
heathens, and teach them not to frighten their little children into
fits?
"Now, then," said the Powwow man to Tom, "wouldn't you like to be
frightened, my little dear? For I can see plainly that you are a
very wicked, naughty, graceless, reprobate boy."
"You're another," quoth Tom, very sturdily. And when the man ran
at him, and cried "Boo!" Tom ran at him in return, and cried
"Boo!" likewise, right in his face, and set the little dog upon
him; and at his legs the dog went.
At which, if you will believe it, the fellow turned tail,
thunderbox and all, with a "Woof!" like an old sow on the common;
and ran for his life, screaming, "Help! thieves! murder! fire! He
is going to kill me! I am a ruined man! He will murder me; and
break, burn, and destroy my precious and invaluable thunderbox; and
then you will have no more thunder-showers in the land. Help!
help! help!"
At which the papa and mamma and all the people of Oldwivesfabledom
flew at Tom, shouting, "Oh, the wicked, impudent, hard-hearted,
graceless boy! Beat him, kick him, shoot him, drown him, hang him,
burn him!" and so forth: but luckily they had nothing to shoot,
hang, or burn him with, for the fairies had hid all the killingtackle
out of the way a little while before; so they could only
pelt him with stones; and some of the stones went clean through
him, and came out the other side. But he did not mind that a bit;
for the holes closed up again as fast as they were made, because he
was a water-baby. However, he was very glad when he was safe out
of the country, for the noise there made him all but deaf.
Then he came to a very quiet place, called Leaveheavenalone. And
there the sun was drawing water out of the sea to make steamthreads,
and the wind was twisting them up to make cloud-patterns,
till they had worked between them the loveliest wedding veil of
Chantilly lace, and hung it up in their own Crystal Palace for any
one to buy who could afford it; while the good old sea never
grudged, for she knew they would pay her back honestly. So the sun
span, and the wind wove, and all went well with the great steamloom;
as is likely, considering - and considering - and considering
-
And at last, after innumerable adventures, each more wonderful than
the last, he saw before him a huge building, much bigger, and -
what is most surprising - a little uglier than a certain new
lunatic asylum, but not built quite of the same materials. None of
it, at least - or, indeed, for aught that I ever saw, any part of
any other building whatsoever - is cased with nine-inch brick
inside and out, and filled up with rubble between the walls, in
order that any gentleman who has been confined during Her Majesty's
pleasure may be unconfined during his own pleasure, and take a walk
in the neighbouring park to improve his spirits, after an hour's
light and wholesome labour with his dinner-fork or one of the legs
of his iron bedstead. No. The walls of this building were built
on an entirely different principle, which need not be described, as
it has not yet been discovered.
Tom walked towards this great building, wondering what it was, and
having a strange fancy that he might find Mr. Grimes inside it,
till he saw running toward him, and shouting "Stop!" three or four
people, who, when they came nearer, were nothing else than
policemen's truncheons, running along without legs or arms.
Tom was not astonished. He was long past that. Besides, he had
seen the naviculae in the water move nobody knows how, a hundred
times, without arms, or legs, or anything to stand in their stead.
Neither was he frightened for he had been doing no harm.
So he stopped; and, when the foremost truncheon came up and asked
his business, he showed Mother Carey's pass; and the truncheon
looked at it in the oddest fashion; for he had one eye in the
middle of his upper end, so that when he looked at anything, being
quite stiff, he had to slope himself, and poke himself, till it was
a wonder why he did not tumble over; but, being quite full of the
spirit of justice (as all policemen, and their truncheons, ought to
be), he was always in a position of stable equilibrium, whichever
way he put himself.
"All right - pass on," said he at last. And then he added: "I had
better go with you, young man." And Tom had no objection, for such
company was both respectable and safe; so the truncheon coiled its
thong neatly round its handle, to prevent tripping itself up - for
the thong had got loose in running - and marched on by Tom's side.
"Why have you no policeman to carry you?" asked Tom, after a while.
"Because we are not like those clumsy-made truncheons in the landworld,
which cannot go without having a whole man to carry them
about. We do our own work for ourselves; and do it very well,
though I say it who should not."
"Then why have you a thong to your handle?" asked Tom.
"To hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are off duty."
Tom had got his answer, and had no more to say, till they came up
to the great iron door of the prison. And there the truncheon
knocked twice, with its own head.
A wicket in the door opened, and out looked a tremendous old brass
blunderbuss charged up to the muzzle with slugs, who was the
porter; and Tom started back a little at the sight of him.
"What case is this?" he asked in a deep voice, out of his broad
bell mouth.
"If you please, sir, it is no case; only a young gentleman from her
ladyship, who wants to see Grimes, the master-sweep."
"Grimes?" said the blunderbuss. And he pulled in his muzzle,
perhaps to look over his prison-lists.
"Grimes is up chimney No. 345," he said from inside. "So the young
gentleman had better go on to the roof."
Tom looked up at the enormous wall, which seemed at least ninety
miles high, and wondered how he should ever get up: but, when he
hinted that to the truncheon, it settled the matter in a moment.
For it whisked round, and gave him such a shove behind as sent him
up to the roof in no time, with his little dog under his arm.
And there he walked along the leads, till he met another truncheon,
and told him his errand.
"Very good," it said. "Come along: but it will be of no use. He
is the most unremorseful, hard-hearted, foul-mouthed fellow I have
in charge; and thinks about nothing but beer and pipes, which are
not allowed here, of course."
So they walked along over the leads, and very sooty they were, and
Tom thought the chimneys must want sweeping very much. But he was
surprised to see that the soot did not stick to his feet, or dirty
them in the least. Neither did the live coals, which were lying
about in plenty, burn him; for, being a water-baby, his radical
humours were of a moist and cold nature, as you may read at large
in Lemnius, Cardan, Van Helmont, and other gentlemen, who knew as
much as they could, and no man can know more.
And at last they came to chimney No. 345. Out of the top of it,
his head and shoulders just showing, stuck poor Mr. Grimes, so
sooty, and bleared, and ugly, that Tom could hardly bear to look at
him. And in his mouth was a pipe; but it was not a-light; though
he was pulling at it with all his might.
"Attention, Mr. Grimes," said the truncheon; "here is a gentleman
come to see you."
But Mr. Grimes only said bad words; and kept grumbling, "My pipe
won't draw. My pipe won't draw."
"Keep a civil tongue, and attend!" said the truncheon; and popped
up just like Punch, hitting Grimes such a crack over the head with
itself, that his brains rattled inside like a dried walnut in its
shell. He tried to get his hands out, and rub the place: but he
could not, for they were stuck fast in the chimney. Now he was
forced to attend.
"Hey!" he said, "why, it's Tom! I suppose you have come here to
laugh at me, you spiteful little atomy?"
Tom assured him he had not, but only wanted to help him.
"I don't want anything except beer, and that I can't get; and a
light to this bothering pipe, and that I can't get either."
"I'll get you one," said Tom; and he took up a live coal (there
were plenty lying about) and put it to Grimes' pipe: but it went
out instantly.
"It's no use," said the truncheon, leaning itself up against the
chimney and looking on. "I tell you, it is no use. His heart is
so cold that it freezes everything that comes near him. You will
see that presently, plain enough."
"Oh, of course, it's my fault. Everything's always my fault," said
Grimes. "Now don't go to hit me again" (for the truncheon started
upright, and looked very wicked); "you know, if my arms were only
free, you daren't hit me then."
The truncheon leant back against the chimney, and took no notice of
the personal insult, like a well-trained policeman as it was,
though he was ready enough to avenge any transgression against
morality or order.
"But can't I help you in any other way? Can't I help you to get
out of this chimney?" said Tom.
"No," interposed the truncheon; "he has come to the place where
everybody must help themselves; and he will find it out, I hope,
before he has done with me."
"Oh, yes," said Grimes, "of course it's me. Did I ask to be
brought here into the prison? Did I ask to be set to sweep your
foul chimneys? Did I ask to have lighted straw put under me to
make me go up? Did I ask to stick fast in the very first chimney
of all, because it was so shamefully clogged up with soot? Did I
ask to stay here - I don't know how long - a hundred years, I do
believe, and never get my pipe, nor my beer, nor nothing fit for a
beast, let alone a man?"
"No," answered a solemn voice behind. "No more did Tom, when you
behaved to him in the very same way."
It was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. And, when the truncheon saw her, it
started bolt upright - Attention! - and made such a low bow, that
if it had not been full of the spirit of justice, it must have
tumbled on its end, and probably hurt its one eye. And Tom made
his bow too.
"Oh, ma'am," he said, "don't think about me; that's all past and
gone, and good times and bad times and all times pass over. But
may not I help poor Mr. Grimes? Mayn't I try and get some of these
bricks away, that he may move his arms?"
"You may try, of course," she said.
So Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks: but he could not move one.
And then he tried to wipe Mr. Grimes' face: but the soot would not
come off.
"Oh, dear!" he said. "I have come all this way, through all these
terrible places, to help you, and now I am of no use at all."
"You had best leave me alone," said Grimes; "you are a good-natured
forgiving little chap, and that's truth; but you'd best be off.
The hail's coming on soon, and it will beat the eyes out of your
little head."
"What hail?"
"Why, hail that falls every evening here; and, till it comes close
to me, it's like so much warm rain: but then it turns to hail over
my head, and knocks me about like small shot."
"That hail will never come any more," said the strange lady. "I
have told you before what it was. It was your mother's tears,
those which she shed when she prayed for you by her bedside; but
your cold heart froze it into hail. But she is gone to heaven now,
and will weep no more for her graceless son."
Then Grimes was silent awhile; and then he looked very sad.
"So my old mother's gone, and I never there to speak to her! Ah! a
good woman she was, and might have been a happy one, in her little
school there in Vendale, if it hadn't been for me and my bad ways."
"Did she keep the school in Vendale?" asked Tom. And then he told
Grimes all the story of his going to her house, and how she could
not abide the sight of a chimney-sweep, and then how kind she was,
and how he turned into a water-baby.
"Ah!" said Grimes, "good reason she had to hate the sight of a
chimney-sweep. I ran away from her and took up with the sweeps,
and never let her know where I was, nor sent her a penny to help
her, and now it's too late - too late!" said Mr. Grimes.
And he began crying and blubbering like a great baby, till his pipe
dropped out of his mouth, and broke all to bits.
"Oh, dear, if I was but a little chap in Vendale again, to see the
clear beck, and the apple-orchard, and the yew-hedge, how different
I would go on! But it's too late now. So you go along, you kind
little chap, and don't stand to look at a man crying, that's old
enough to be your father, and never feared the face of man, nor of
worse neither. But I'm beat now, and beat I must be. I've made my
bed, and I must lie on it. Foul I would be, and foul I am, as an
Irishwoman said to me once; and little I heeded it. It's all my
own fault: but it's too late." And he cried so bitterly that Tom
began crying too.
"Never too late," said the fairy, in such a strange soft new voice
that Tom looked up at her; and she was so beautiful for the moment,
that Tom half fancied she was her sister.
No more was it too late. For, as poor Grimes cried and blubbered
on, his own tears did what his mother's could not do, and Tom's
could not do, and nobody's on earth could do for him; for they
washed the soot off his face and off his clothes; and then they
washed the mortar away from between the bricks; and the chimney
crumbled down; and Grimes began to get out of it.
Up jumped the truncheon, and was going to hit him on the crown a
tremendous thump, and drive him down again like a cork into a
bottle. But the strange lady put it aside.
"Will you obey me if I give you a chance?"
"As you please, ma'am. You're stronger than me - that I know too
well, and wiser than me, I know too well also. And, as for being
my own master, I've fared ill enough with that as yet. So whatever
your ladyship pleases to order me; for I'm beat, and that's the
truth."
"Be it so then - you may come out. But remember, disobey me again,
and into a worse place still you go."
"I beg pardon ma'am, but I never disobeyed you that I know of. I
never had the honour of setting eyes upon you till I came to these
ugly quarters."
"Never saw me? Who said to you, Those that will be foul, foul they
will be?"
Grimes looked up; and Tom looked up too; for the voice was that of
the Irishwoman who met them the day that they went out together to
Harthover. "I gave you your warning then: but you gave it
yourself a thousand times before and since. Every bad word that
you said - every cruel and mean thing that you did - every time
that you got tipsy - every day that you went dirty - you were
disobeying me, whether you knew it or not."
"If I'd only known, ma'am - "
"You knew well enough that you were disobeying something, though
you did not know it was me. But come out and take your chance.
Perhaps it may be your last."
So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, if it had not
been for the scars on his face, he looked as clean and respectable
as a master-sweep need look.
"Take him away," said she to the truncheon, "and give him his
ticket-of-leave."
"And what is he to do, ma'am?"
"Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will find some very
steady men working out their time there, who will teach him his
business: but mind, if that crater gets choked again, and there is
an earthquake in consequence, bring them all to me, and I shall
investigate the case very severely."
So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking as meek as a
drowned worm.
And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweeping the crater of
Etna to this very day.
"And now," said the fairy to Tom, "your work here is done. You may
as well go back again."
"I should be glad enough to go," said Tom, "but how am I to get up
that great hole again, now the steam has stopped blowing?"
"I will take you up the backstairs: but I must bandage your eyes
first; for I never allow anybody to see those backstairs of mine."
"I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, ma'am, if you bid
me not."
"Aha! So you think, my little man. But you would soon forget your
promise if you got back into the land-world. For, if people only
once found out that you had been up my backstairs, you would have
all the fine ladies kneeling to you, and the rich men emptying
their purses before you, and statesmen offering you place and
power; and young and old, rich and poor, crying to you, 'Only tell
us the great backstairs secret, and we will be your slaves; we will
make you lord, king, emperor, bishop, archbishop, pope, if you like
- only tell us the secret of the backstairs. For thousands of
years we have been paying, and petting, and obeying, and
worshipping quacks who told us they had the key of the backstairs,
and could smuggle us up them; and in spite of all our
disappointments, we will honour, and glorify, and adore, and
beatify, and translate, and apotheotise you likewise, on the chance
of your knowing something about the backstairs, that we may all go
on pilgrimage to it; and, even if we cannot get up it, lie at the
foot of it, and cry -
'Oh, backstairs,
precious backstairs,
invaluable backstairs,
requisite backstairs,
necessary backstairs,
good-natured backstairs,
cosmopolitan backstairs,
comprehensive backstairs,
accommodating backstairs,
well-bred backstairs,
commercial backstairs,
economical backstairs,
practical backstairs,
logical backstairs,
deductive backstairs,
comfortable backstairs,
humane backstairs,
reasonable backstairs,
long-sought backstairs,
coveted backstairs,
aristocratic backstairs,
respectable backstairs,
gentlenmanlike backstairs,
ladylike backstairs,
orthodox backstairs,
probable backstairs,
credible backstairs,
demonstrable backstairs,
irrefragable backstairs,
potent backstairs,
all-but-omnipotent backstairs,
&c.
Save us from the consequences of our own actions, and from the
cruel fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid!' Do not you think that you
would be a little tempted then to tell what you know, laddie?"
Tom thought so certainly. "But why do they want so to know about
the backstairs?" asked he, being a little frightened at the long
words, and not understanding them the least; as, indeed, he was not
meant to do, or you either.
"That I shall not tell you. I never put things into little folks'
heads which are but too likely to come there of themselves. So
come - now I must bandage your eyes." So she tied the bandage on
his eyes with one hand, and with the other she took it off.
"Now," she said, "you are safe up the stairs." Tom opened his eyes
very wide, and his mouth too; for he had not, as he thought, moved
a single step. But, when he looked round him, there could be no
doubt that he was safe up the backstairs, whatsoever they may be,
which no man is going to tell you, for the plain reason that no man
knows.
The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, high and sharp
against the rosy dawn; and St. Brandan's Isle reflected double in
the still broad silver sea. The wind sang softly in the cedars,
and the water sang among the eaves: the sea-birds sang as they
streamed out into the ocean, and the land-birds as they built among
the boughs; and the air was so full of song that it stirred St.
Brandan and his hermits, as they slumbered in the shade; and they
moved their good old lips, and sang their morning hymn amid their
dreams. But among all the songs one came across the water more
sweet and clear than all; for it was the song of a young girl's
voice.
And what was the song which she sang? Ah, my little man, I am too
old to sing that song, and you too young to understand it. But
have patience, and keep your eye single, and your hands clean, and
you will learn some day to sing it yourself, without needing any
man to teach you.
And as Tom neared the island, there sat upon a rock the most
graceful creature that ever was seen, looking down, with her chin
upon her hand, and paddling with her feet in the water. And when
they came to her she looked up, and behold it was Ellie.
"Oh, Miss Ellie," said he, "how you are grown!"
"Oh, Tom," said she, "how you are grown too!"
And no wonder; they were both quite grown up - he into a tall man,
and she into a beautiful woman.
"Perhaps I may be grown," she said. "I have had time enough; for I
have been sitting here waiting for you many a hundred years, till I
thought you were never coming."
"Many a hundred years?" thought Tom; but he had seen so much in his
travels that he had quite given up being astonished; and, indeed,
he could think of nothing but Ellie. So he stood and looked at
Ellie, and Ellie looked at him; and they liked the employment so
much that they stood and looked for seven years more, and neither
spoke nor stirred.
At last they heard the fairy say: "Attention, children. Are you
never going to look at me again?"
"We have been looking at you all this while," they said. And so
they thought they had been.
"Then look at me once more," said she.
They looked - and both of them cried out at once, "Oh, who are you,
after all?"
"You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby."
"No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid; but you are grown quite
beautiful now!"
"To you," said the fairy. "But look again."
"You are Mother Carey," said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice; for
he had found out something which made him very happy, and yet
frightened him more than all that he had ever seen.
"But you are grown quite young again."
"To you," said the fairy. "Look again."
"You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to Harthover!"
And when they looked she was neither of them, and yet all of them
at once.
"My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there."
And they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, and they changed
again and again into every hue, as the light changes in a diamond.
"Now read my name," said she, at last.
And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, blazing light:
but the children could not read her name; for they were dazzled,
and hid their faces in their hands.
"Not yet, young things, not yet," said she, smiling; and then she
turned to Ellie.
"You may take him home with you now on Sundays, Ellie. He has won
his spurs in the great battle, and become fit to go with you and be
a man; because he has done the thing he did not like."
So Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and sometimes on week-days,
too; and he is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads,
and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so
forth; and knows everything about everything, except why a hen's
egg don't turn into a crocodile, and two or three other little
things which no one will know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.
And all this from what he learnt when he was a water-baby,
underneath the sea.
"And of course Tom married Ellie?"
My dear child, what a silly notion! Don't you know that no one
ever marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a prince or a
princess?
"And Tom's dog?"
Oh, you may see him any clear night in July; for the old dog-star
was so worn out by the last three hot summers that there have been
no dog-days since; so that they had to take him down and put Tom's
dog up in his place. Therefore, as new brooms sweep clean, we may
hope for some warm weather this year. And that is the end of my
story.
MORAL.
And now, my dear little man, what should we learn from this
parable?
We should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things, I am not
exactly sure which: but one thing, at least, we may learn, and
that is this - when we see efts in the pond, never to throw stones
at them, or catch them with crooked pins, or put them into
vivariums with sticklebacks, that the sticklebacks may prick them
in their poor little stomachs, and make them jump out of the glass
into somebody's work-box, and so come to a bad end. For these efts
are nothing else but the water-babies who are stupid and dirty, and
will not learn their lessons and keep themselves clean; and,
therefore (as comparative anatomists will tell you fifty years
hence, though they are not learned enough to tell you now), their
skulls grow flat, their jaws grow out, and their brains grow small,
and their tails grow long, and they lose all their ribs (which I am
sure you would not like to do), and their skins grow dirty and
spotted, and they never get into the clear rivers, much less into
the great wide sea, but hang about in dirty ponds, and live in the
mud, and eat worms, as they deserve to do.
But that is no reason why you should ill-use them: but only why
you should pity them, and be kind to them, and hope that some day
they will wake up, and be ashamed of their nasty, dirty, lazy,
stupid life, and try to amend, and become something better once
more. For, perhaps, if they do so, then after 379,423 years, nine
months, thirteen days, two hours, and twenty-one minutes (for aught
that appears to the contrary), if they work very hard and wash very
hard all that time, their brains may grow bigger, and their jaws
grow smaller, and their ribs come back, and their tails wither off,
and they will turn into water-babies again, and perhaps after that
into land-babies; and after that perhaps into grown men.
You know they won't? Very well, I daresay you know best. But you
see, some folks have a great liking for those poor little efts.
They never did anybody any harm, or could if they tried; and their
only fault is, that they do no good - any more than some thousands
of their betters. But what with ducks, and what with pike, and
what with sticklebacks, and what with water-beetles, and what with
naughty boys, they are "sae sair hadden doun," as the Scotsmen say,
that it is a wonder how they live; and some folks can't help
hoping, with good Bishop Butler, that they may have another chance,
to make things fair and even, somewhere, somewhen, somehow.
Meanwhile, do you learn your lessons, and thank God that you have
plenty of cold water to wash in; and wash in it too, like a true
Englishman. And then, if my story is not true, something better
is; and if I am not quite right, still you will be, as long as you
stick to hard work and cold water.
But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all a
fairy tale, and only fun and pretence: and, therefore, you are not
to believe a word of it, even if it is true.