The Water-Babies

Transcribed from the 1889 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email

ccx074@.org

THE

WATER BABIES

A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby

* * * * *

BY

CHARLES KINGSLEY

* * * * *

_NEW EDITION_

WITH ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS BY LINLEY SAMBOURNE

* * * * *

London

MACMILLAN AND CO.

AND NEW YORK

1889

_All rights reserved_

* * * * *

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_

* * * * *

TO

MY YOUNGEST SON

GRENVILLE ARTHUR

AND

TO ALL OTHER GOOD LITTLE BOYS

* * * * *

COME READ ME MY RIDDLE, EACH GOOD LITTLE MAN;

IF YOU CANNOT READ IT, NO GROWN-UP FOLK CAN.

[Picture: Water babies and frogs playing leap-frog]

“I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined;

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Being 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.

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.

[Picture: Little chimney-sweep]

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. [Picture: Dogs] 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 hail-storm; 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.

[Picture: Smart groom and Tom]

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 half-brick 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.

[Picture: Sir John Harthover]

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.

[Picture: Grimes and Tom] 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 pit-engine 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:

[Picture: The poor Irishwomen] “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.”

[Picture: Griffin status with shield saying “Salvtem”]

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.

[Picture: Griffin status with shield saying “Amicis”]

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.

[Picture: The keeper and Grimes]

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 Bœotian_, _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.

[Picture: The housekeeper] 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.

[Picture: Grimes paying complements]

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 washing-stand,

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.

[Picture: The girl asleep]

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.

[Picture: The under gardener]

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. [Picture: The diarymaid] 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.

[Picture: The old steward]

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.

[Picture: Grimes]

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.

[Picture: Man on horse]

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 cigar-end, 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.

[Picture: Man chasing]

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.

[Picture: Man on knees]

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.

[Picture: Man looking out of window]

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 hue-and-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.

[Picture: Fox with cubs]

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—kick-kick-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.

[Picture: The grouse]

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.

[Picture: Youth reclining near stream]

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.

[Picture: Girl and woman walking on beech]

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.

[Picture: Tom at the old dame’s house] 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 gritstone, 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.

[Picture: The Queen of them all]

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 à la ronde_:”

[Picture: Fairy cherub with arrow] 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 grouse-moors, and

lost himself; and he lies very heavily on my conscience, poor little lad.

But I know what I will do.”

[Picture: Sir John]

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.

[Picture: Water baby]

“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.

[Picture: Examining a water baby in a jar]

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_, _water-scorpions_,

_water-tigers and water-hogs_, _water-cats and water-dogs_, _sea-lions

and sea-bears_, _sea-horses and sea-elephants_, _sea-mice and

sea-urchins_, _sea-razors and sea-pens_, _sea-combs and sea-fans_; _and

of plants_, _are there not water-grass_, _and water-crowfoot_,

_water-milfoil_, _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 jelly-fish, 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.

[Picture: Collage of events]

But good Sir John did not understand all this, not being a fellow of the

Linnæan 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_.

[Picture: Time and the old man]

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.

[Picture: Water baby and sums]

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.

[Picture: Mermaid] 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_.”

[Picture: Woman teacher]

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.

[Picture: Tom in the stream]

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.

[Picture: Insect] And what did he live on? Water-cresses, perhaps; or

perhaps water-gruel, 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 sand-pipes 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.

[Picture: Lady in 1862 bonnet] 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 water-squirrels

(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 house-wall, 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 water-things

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_?”

[Picture: Tom and a fish]

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.

[Picture: Tom and the dragon-fly]

“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 water-crowfoot, 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.

[Picture: Acrobat] 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 water-lily

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.

[Picture: The otter]

“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.”

[Picture: Tom and the otter]

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!”

[Picture: Tom with the eels]

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 water-lilies 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.”

[Picture: Dennis with pigs]

“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.

[Picture: Scotsman]

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.

[Picture: Tom and the salmon]

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.”

[Picture: Trout and salmon]

“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.

[Picture: Tom on rock] 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-and-down 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.

[Picture: Seal]

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.

[Picture: The old bouy] 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.

[Picture: Tom and a flat-fish]

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 water-babies?”

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.”

[Picture: Sunfish] 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.

[Picture: Tom and the lobster]

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.

[Picture: Sir John with horse and groom]

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 Curaçao (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

_Necrobioneopalæonthydrochthonanthropopithekology_ 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.

[Picture: The Professor]

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.”

[Picture: Ellie]

“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-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-

greater-greatest-grandmother from having been an ape too. No, my dear

little man; always remember that the one true, certain, final, and

all-important 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 half-rational 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.

[Picture: Ellie, the professor and Tom]

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 water-baby. 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_, _fire-drakes_, _manticoras_,

_basilisks_, _amphisbænas_, _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 phœnomena 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 Æta_.

_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_,

_Aretæus_,

_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

mediæval 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 soirées_.

_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_.

_Homœopathy_.

_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 Abbéville_—_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 Midsummer-day 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° 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.

[Picture: Man in rain]

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 flood-water 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.

[Picture: Bat with man’s face]

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_.

[Picture: Dog and cat] BUT 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.

[Picture: Tom, the lobster and otter]

“What, have you been naughty, and have they put you in the lock-up?”

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.

[Picture: Tom and the lobster]

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 spring-tide; 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.

[Picture: The Mayor of Plymouth] 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

golden-combs, 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 water-babies 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 cedar-shades, 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 Linnæan 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, sea-bullseyes, sea-toffee;

and to the very best of all she gave sea-ices, 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 sea-grapes 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’

land-mark. 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.

[Picture: Tom] 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 sea-anemones’

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 lobster-pot; 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.

[Picture: The doll]

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_.

[Picture: The broken doll]

_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!

[Picture: Little both with mother]

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.

[Picture: The Officer and a crying child] HERE 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.

[Picture: Prickly Tom] 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.

[Picture: Tom and the little girl]

“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 water-babies 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.

[Picture: Tom crying] “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.

[Picture: Woman surrounded by fairies]

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 skye-terriers, 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.

[Picture: Ape]

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.”

[Picture: Newt]

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.

[Picture: Tom about to dive] “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.

[Picture: The lady]

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.”

[Picture: The King of the Herrings]

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.

[Picture: The Gairfowl]

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.

[Picture: Crows]

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 feather-beds

for stuffy people to lie on.

[Picture: The Scotchman]

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?

[Picture: The 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.”

[Picture: Mother Carey’s chickens]

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 sea-unicorns 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.

[Picture: Mother Carey]

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 sea-moths 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 salpæ 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 Cæsar.

“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.

[Picture: Mother Carey]

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-of-Nowhere.

“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 archæological 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.

[Picture: Old Mother Shipton]

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 by-no-mortal-man-imagined things, which it is my

duty to relate to you in the next chapter.

[Picture: Tom and dog]

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.

[Picture: Two young girls]

“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.

[Picture: Tom and dog] HERE begins the never-to-be-too-much-studied

account of the nine-hundred-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 mountain-loaves 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 star-fish 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 Pump-lighter, 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° south, and longitude 108.56° 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 Æsthetics (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 water-baby, 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 pocket-magnifier, and cried—

“An entirely new Oniscus, and three obscure Podurellæ! 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 Podurellæ. 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 α Lyræ and β

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 Scævola’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.

[Picture: 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 Examiner-of-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 water-babies. 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 field-day, 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 thunderbox, 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 killing-tackle 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 steam-threads, 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 steam-loom; 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.

[Picture: Truncheon] 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

naviculæ 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 land-world,

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.

[Picture: The blunderbuss]

“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.

[Picture: Tom and Grimes]

“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!”

[Picture: Ellie]

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_.

[Picture: Water baby riding fish]