{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1018/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1018","id":"gutenberg_1018","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1018","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Novels","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Chimney sweeps -- Juvenile fiction","Fairy tales -- England"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1889 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n\n\n\n\n                                   THE\n                               WATER BABIES\n\n\n                       A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                    BY\n                             CHARLES KINGSLEY\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                              _NEW EDITION_\n            WITH ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS BY LINLEY SAMBOURNE\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                  London\n                            MACMILLAN AND CO.\n                               AND NEW YORK\n                                   1889\n\n                          _All rights reserved_\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                 _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                    TO\n\n                             MY YOUNGEST SON\n\n                             GRENVILLE ARTHUR\n\n                                   AND\n\n                      TO ALL OTHER GOOD LITTLE BOYS\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n              COME READ ME MY RIDDLE, EACH GOOD LITTLE MAN;\n               IF YOU CANNOT READ IT, NO GROWN-UP FOLK CAN.\n\n           [Picture: Water babies and frogs playing leap-frog]\n\n    \u201cI heard a thousand blended notes,\n       While in a grove I sate reclined;\n    In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts\n       Being sad thoughts to the mind.\n\n    \u201cTo her fair works did Nature link\n       The human soul that through me ran;\n    And much it grieved my heart to think,\n       What man has made of man.\u201d\n\n                                                               WORDSWORTH.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\n    \u201cI heard a thousand blended notes,\n       While in a grove I sate reclined;\n    In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts\n       Bring sad thoughts to the mind.\n\n    \u201cTo her fair works did Nature link\n       The human soul that through me ran;\n    And much it grieved my heart to think,\n       What man has made of man.\u201d\n\n                                                               WORDSWORTH.\n\n                     [Picture: Little chimney-sweep]\n\nONCE upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, and his name was Tom.\nThat is a short name, and you have heard it before, so you will not have\nmuch trouble in remembering it.  He lived in a great town in the North\ncountry, where there were plenty of chimneys to sweep, and plenty of\nmoney for Tom to earn and his master to spend.  He could not read nor\nwrite, and did not care to do either; and he never washed himself, for\nthere was no water up the court where he lived.  He had never been taught\nto say his prayers.  He never had heard of God, or of Christ, except in\nwords which you never have heard, and which it would have been well if he\nhad never heard.  He cried half his time, and laughed the other half.  He\ncried when he had to climb the dark flues, rubbing his poor knees and\nelbows raw; and when the soot got into his eyes, which it did every day\nin the week; and when his master beat him, which he did every day in the\nweek; and when he had not enough to eat, which happened every day in the\nweek likewise.  And he laughed the other half of the day, when he was\ntossing halfpennies with the other boys, or playing leap-frog over the\nposts, or bowling stones at the horses\u2019 legs as they trotted by, which\nlast was excellent fun, when there was a wall at hand behind which to\nhide.  [Picture: Dogs]  As for chimney-sweeping, and being hungry, and\nbeing beaten, he took all that for the way of the world, like the rain\nand snow and thunder, and stood manfully with his back to it till it was\nover, as his old donkey did to a hail-storm; and then shook his ears and\nwas as jolly as ever; and thought of the fine times coming, when he would\nbe a man, and a master sweep, and sit in the public-house with a quart of\nbeer and a long pipe, and play cards for silver money, and wear\nvelveteens and ankle-jacks, and keep a white bull-dog with one gray ear,\nand carry her puppies in his pocket, just like a man.  And he would have\napprentices, one, two, three, if he could.  How he would bully them, and\nknock them about, just as his master did to him; and make them carry home\nthe soot sacks, while he rode before them on his donkey, with a pipe in\nhis mouth and a flower in his button-hole, like a king at the head of his\narmy.  Yes, there were good times coming; and, when his master let him\nhave a pull at the leavings of his beer, Tom was the jolliest boy in the\nwhole town.\n\n                      [Picture: Smart groom and Tom]\n\nOne day a smart little groom rode into the court where Tom lived.  Tom\nwas just hiding behind a wall, to heave half a brick at his horse\u2019s legs,\nas is the custom of that country when they welcome strangers; but the\ngroom saw him, and halloed to him to know where Mr. Grimes, the\nchimney-sweep, lived.  Now, Mr. Grimes was Tom\u2019s own master, and Tom was\na good man of business, and always civil to customers, so he put the\nhalf-brick down quietly behind the wall, and proceeded to take orders.\n\nMr. Grimes was to come up next morning to Sir John Harthover\u2019s, at the\nPlace, for his old chimney-sweep was gone to prison, and the chimneys\nwanted sweeping.  And so he rode away, not giving Tom time to ask what\nthe sweep had gone to prison for, which was a matter of interest to Tom,\nas he had been in prison once or twice himself.  Moreover, the groom\nlooked so very neat and clean, with his drab gaiters, drab breeches, drab\njacket, snow-white tie with a smart pin in it, and clean round ruddy\nface, that Tom was offended and disgusted at his appearance, and\nconsidered him a stuck-up fellow, who gave himself airs because he wore\nsmart clothes, and other people paid for them; and went behind the wall\nto fetch the half-brick after all; but did not, remembering that he had\ncome in the way of business, and was, as it were, under a flag of truce.\n\nHis master was so delighted at his new customer that he knocked Tom down\nout of hand, and drank more beer that night than he usually did in two,\nin order to be sure of getting up in time next morning; for the more a\nman\u2019s head aches when he wakes, the more glad he is to turn out, and have\na breath of fresh air.  And, when he did get up at four the next morning,\nhe knocked Tom down again, in order to teach him (as young gentlemen used\nto be taught at public schools) that he must be an extra good boy that\nday, as they were going to a very great house, and might make a very good\nthing of it, if they could but give satisfaction.\n\nAnd Tom thought so likewise, and, indeed, would have done and behaved his\nbest, even without being knocked down.  For, of all places upon earth,\nHarthover Place (which he had never seen) was the most wonderful, and, of\nall men on earth, Sir John (whom he had seen, having been sent to gaol by\nhim twice) was the most awful.\n\n                      [Picture: Sir John Harthover]\n\nHarthover Place was really a grand place, even for the rich North\ncountry; with a house so large that in the frame-breaking riots, which\nTom could just remember, the Duke of Wellington, and ten thousand\nsoldiers to match, were easily housed therein; at least, so Tom believed;\nwith a park full of deer, which Tom believed to be monsters who were in\nthe habit of eating children; with miles of game-preserves, in which Mr.\nGrimes and the collier lads poached at times, on which occasions Tom saw\npheasants, and wondered what they tasted like; with a noble salmon-river,\nin which Mr. Grimes and his friends would have liked to poach; but then\nthey must have got into cold water, and that they did not like at all.\nIn short, Harthover was a grand place, and Sir John a grand old man, whom\neven Mr. Grimes respected; for not only could he send Mr. Grimes to\nprison when he deserved it, as he did once or twice a week; not only did\nhe own all the land about for miles; not only was he a jolly, honest,\nsensible squire, as ever kept a pack of hounds, who would do what he\nthought right by his neighbours, as well as get what he thought right for\nhimself; but, what was more, he weighed full fifteen stone, was nobody\nknew how many inches round the chest, and could have thrashed Mr. Grimes\nhimself in fair fight, which very few folk round there could do, and\nwhich, my dear little boy, would not have been right for him to do, as a\ngreat many things are not which one both can do, and would like very much\nto do.  So Mr. Grimes touched his hat to him when he rode through the\ntown, and called him a \u201cbuirdly awd chap,\u201d and his young ladies \u201cgradely\nlasses,\u201d which are two high compliments in the North country; and thought\nthat that made up for his poaching Sir John\u2019s pheasants; whereby you may\nperceive that Mr. Grimes had not been to a properly-inspected Government\nNational School.\n\nNow, I dare say, you never got up at three o\u2019clock on a midsummer\nmorning.  Some people get up then because they want to catch salmon; and\nsome because they want to climb Alps; and a great many more because they\nmust, like Tom.  But, I assure you, that three o\u2019clock on a midsummer\nmorning is the pleasantest time of all the twenty-four hours, and all the\nthree hundred and sixty-five days; and why every one does not get up\nthen, I never could tell, save that they are all determined to spoil\ntheir nerves and their complexions by doing all night what they might\njust as well do all day.  But Tom, instead of going out to dinner at\nhalf-past eight at night, and to a ball at ten, and finishing off\nsomewhere between twelve and four, went to bed at seven, when his master\nwent to the public-house, and slept like a dead pig; for which reason he\nwas as piert as a game-cock (who always gets up early to wake the maids),\nand just ready to get up when the fine gentlemen and ladies were just\nready to go to bed.\n\n[Picture: Grimes and Tom] So he and his master set out; Grimes rode the\ndonkey in front, and Tom and the brushes walked behind; out of the court,\nand up the street, past the closed window-shutters, and the winking weary\npolicemen, and the roofs all shining gray in the gray dawn.\n\nThey passed through the pitmen\u2019s village, all shut up and silent now, and\nthrough the turnpike; and then the were out in the real country, and\nplodding along the black dusty road, between black slag walls, with no\nsound but the groaning and thumping of the pit-engine in the next field.\nBut soon the road grew white, and the walls likewise; and at the wall\u2019s\nfoot grew long grass and gay flowers, all drenched with dew; and instead\nof the groaning of the pit-engine, they heard the skylark saying his\nmatins high up in the air, and the pit-bird warbling in the sedges, as he\nhad warbled all night long.\n\nAll else was silent.  For old Mrs. Earth was still fast asleep; and, like\nmany pretty people, she looked still prettier asleep than awake.  The\ngreat elm-trees in the gold-green meadows were fast asleep above, and the\ncows fast asleep beneath them; nay, the few clouds which were about were\nfast asleep likewise, and so tired that they had lain down on the earth\nto rest, in long white flakes and bars, among the stems of the elm-trees,\nand along the tops of the alders by the stream, waiting for the sun to\nbid them rise and go about their day\u2019s business in the clear blue\noverhead.\n\nOn they went; and Tom looked, and looked, for he never had been so far\ninto the country before; and longed to get over a gate, and pick\nbuttercups, and look for birds\u2019 nests in the hedge; but Mr. Grimes was a\nman of business, and would not have heard of that.\n\nSoon they came up with a poor Irishwoman, trudging along with a bundle at\nher back.  She had a gray shawl over her head, and a crimson madder\npetticoat; so you may be sure she came from Galway.  She had neither\nshoes nor stockings, and limped along as if she were tired and footsore;\nbut she was a very tall handsome woman, with bright gray eyes, and heavy\nblack hair hanging about her cheeks.  And she took Mr. Grimes\u2019 fancy so\nmuch, that when he came alongside he called out to her:\n\n[Picture: The poor Irishwomen] \u201cThis is a hard road for a gradely foot\nlike that.  Will ye up, lass, and ride behind me?\u201d\n\nBut, perhaps, she did not admire Mr. Grimes\u2019 look and voice; for she\nanswered quietly:\n\n\u201cNo, thank you: I\u2019d sooner walk with your little lad here.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou may please yourself,\u201d growled Grimes, and went on smoking.\n\nSo she walked beside Tom, and talked to him, and asked him where he\nlived, and what he knew, and all about himself, till Tom thought he had\nnever met such a pleasant-spoken woman.  And she asked him, at last,\nwhether he said his prayers! and seemed sad when he told her that he knew\nno prayers to say.\n\nThen he asked her where she lived, and she said far away by the sea.  And\nTom asked her about the sea; and she told him how it rolled and roared\nover the rocks in winter nights, and lay still in the bright summer days,\nfor the children to bathe and play in it; and many a story more, till Tom\nlonged to go and see the sea, and bathe in it likewise.\n\nAt last, at the bottom of a hill, they came to a spring; not such a\nspring as you see here, which soaks up out of a white gravel in the bog,\namong red fly-catchers, and pink bottle-heath, and sweet white orchis;\nnor such a one as you may see, too, here, which bubbles up under the warm\nsandbank in the hollow lane by the great tuft of lady ferns, and makes\nthe sand dance reels at the bottom, day and night, all the year round;\nnot such a spring as either of those; but a real North country limestone\nfountain, like one of those in Sicily or Greece, where the old heathen\nfancied the nymphs sat cooling themselves the hot summer\u2019s day, while the\nshepherds peeped at them from behind the bushes.  Out of a low cave of\nrock, at the foot of a limestone crag, the great fountain rose, quelling,\nand bubbling, and gurgling, so clear that you could not tell where the\nwater ended and the air began; and ran away under the road, a stream\nlarge enough to turn a mill; among blue geranium, and golden\nglobe-flower, and wild raspberry, and the bird-cherry with its tassels of\nsnow.\n\nAnd there Grimes stopped, and looked; and Tom looked too.  Tom was\nwondering whether anything lived in that dark cave, and came out at night\nto fly in the meadows.  But Grimes was not wondering at all.  Without a\nword, he got off his donkey, and clambered over the low road wall, and\nknelt down, and began dipping his ugly head into the spring\u2014and very\ndirty he made it.\n\nTom was picking the flowers as fast as he could.  The Irishwoman helped\nhim, and showed him how to tie them up; and a very pretty nosegay they\nhad made between them.  But when he saw Grimes actually wash, he stopped,\nquite astonished; and when Grimes had finished, and began shaking his\nears to dry them, he said:\n\n\u201cWhy, master, I never saw you do that before.\u201d\n\n\u201cNor will again, most likely.  \u2019Twasn\u2019t for cleanliness I did it, but for\ncoolness.  I\u2019d be ashamed to want washing every week or so, like any\nsmutty collier lad.\u201d\n\n\u201cI wish I might go and dip my head in,\u201d said poor little Tom.  \u201cIt must\nbe as good as putting it under the town-pump; and there is no beadle here\nto drive a chap away.\u201d\n\n\u201cThou come along,\u201d said Grimes; \u201cwhat dost want with washing thyself?\nThou did not drink half a gallon of beer last night, like me.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t care for you,\u201d said naughty Tom, and ran down to the stream, and\nbegan washing his face.\n\nGrimes was very sulky, because the woman preferred Tom\u2019s company to his;\nso he dashed at him with horrid words, and tore him up from his knees,\nand began beating him.  But Tom was accustomed to that, and got his head\nsafe between Mr. Grimes\u2019 legs, and kicked his shins with all his might.\n\n\u201cAre you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes?\u201d cried the Irishwoman\nover the wall.\n\nGrimes looked up, startled at her knowing his name; but all he answered\nwas, \u201cNo, nor never was yet;\u201d and went on beating Tom.\n\n\u201cTrue for you.  If you ever had been ashamed of yourself, you would have\ngone over into Vendale long ago.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you know about Vendale?\u201d shouted Grimes; but he left off beating\nTom.\n\n\u201cI know about Vendale, and about you, too.  I know, for instance, what\nhappened in Aldermire Copse, by night, two years ago come Martinmas.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou do?\u201d shouted Grimes; and leaving Tom, he climbed up over the wall,\nand faced the woman.  Tom thought he was going to strike her; but she\nlooked him too full and fierce in the face for that.\n\n\u201cYes; I was there,\u201d said the Irishwoman quietly.\n\n\u201cYou are no Irishwoman, by your speech,\u201d said Grimes, after many bad\nwords.\n\n\u201cNever mind who I am.  I saw what I saw; and if you strike that boy\nagain, I can tell what I know.\u201d\n\nGrimes seemed quite cowed, and got on his donkey without another word.\n\n\u201cStop!\u201d said the Irishwoman.  \u201cI have one more word for you both; for you\nwill both see me again before all is over.  Those that wish to be clean,\nclean they will be; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be.\nRemember.\u201d\n\n          [Picture: Griffin status with shield saying \u201cSalvtem\u201d]\n\nAnd she turned away, and through a gate into the meadow.  Grimes stood\nstill a moment, like a man who had been stunned.  Then he rushed after\nher, shouting, \u201cYou come back.\u201d  But when he got into the meadow, the\nwoman was not there.\n\nHad she hidden away?  There was no place to hide in.  But Grimes looked\nabout, and Tom also, for he was as puzzled as Grimes himself at her\ndisappearing so suddenly; but look where they would, she was not there.\n\nGrimes came back again, as silent as a post, for he was a little\nfrightened; and, getting on his donkey, filled a fresh pipe, and smoked\naway, leaving Tom in peace.\n\n          [Picture: Griffin status with shield saying \u201cAmicis\u201d]\n\nAnd now they had gone three miles and more, and came to Sir John\u2019s\nlodge-gates.\n\nVery grand lodges they were, with very grand iron gates and stone\ngate-posts, and on the top of each a most dreadful bogy, all teeth,\nhorns, and tail, which was the crest which Sir John\u2019s ancestors wore in\nthe Wars of the Roses; and very prudent men they were to wear it, for all\ntheir enemies must have run for their lives at the very first sight of\nthem.\n\nGrimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper on the spot, and opened.\n\n\u201cI was told to expect thee,\u201d he said.  \u201cNow thou\u2019lt be so good as to keep\nto the main avenue, and not let me find a hare or a rabbit on thee when\nthou comest back.  I shall look sharp for one, I tell thee.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot if it\u2019s in the bottom of the soot-bag,\u201d quoth Grimes, and at that he\nlaughed; and the keeper laughed and said:\n\n\u201cIf that\u2019s thy sort, I may as well walk up with thee to the hall.\u201d\n\n\u201cI think thou best had.  It\u2019s thy business to see after thy game, man,\nand not mine.\u201d\n\nSo the keeper went with them; and, to Tom\u2019s surprise, he and Grimes\nchatted together all the way quite pleasantly.  He did not know that a\nkeeper is only a poacher turned outside in, and a poacher a keeper turned\ninside out.\n\nThey walked up a great lime avenue, a full mile long, and between their\nstems Tom peeped trembling at the horns of the sleeping deer, which stood\nup among the ferns.  Tom had never seen such enormous trees, and as he\nlooked up he fancied that the blue sky rested on their heads.  But he was\npuzzled very much by a strange murmuring noise, which followed them all\nthe way.  So much puzzled, that at last he took courage to ask the keeper\nwhat it was.\n\n                     [Picture: The keeper and Grimes]\n\nHe spoke very civilly, and called him Sir, for he was horribly afraid of\nhim, which pleased the keeper, and he told him that they were the bees\nabout the lime flowers.\n\n\u201cWhat are bees?\u201d asked Tom.\n\n\u201cWhat make honey.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is honey?\u201d asked Tom.\n\n\u201cThou hold thy noise,\u201d said Grimes.\n\n\u201cLet the boy be,\u201d said the keeper.  \u201cHe\u2019s a civil young chap now, and\nthat\u2019s more than he\u2019ll be long if he bides with thee.\u201d\n\nGrimes laughed, for he took that for a compliment.\n\n\u201cI wish I were a keeper,\u201d said Tom, \u201cto live in such a beautiful place,\nand wear green velveteens, and have a real dog-whistle at my button, like\nyou.\u201d\n\nThe keeper laughed; he was a kind-hearted fellow enough.\n\n\u201cLet well alone, lad, and ill too at times.  Thy life\u2019s safer than mine\nat all events, eh, Mr. Grimes?\u201d\n\nAnd Grimes laughed again, and then the two men began talking, quite low.\nTom could hear, though, that it was about some poaching fight; and at\nlast Grimes said surlily, \u201cHast thou anything against me?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot now.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen don\u2019t ask me any questions till thou hast, for I am a man of\nhonour.\u201d\n\nAnd at that they both laughed again, and thought it a very good joke.\n\nAnd by this time they were come up to the great iron gates in front of\nthe house; and Tom stared through them at the rhododendrons and azaleas,\nwhich were all in flower; and then at the house itself, and wondered how\nmany chimneys there were in it, and how long ago it was built, and what\nwas the man\u2019s name that built it, and whether he got much money for his\njob?\n\nThese last were very difficult questions to answer.  For Harthover had\nbeen built at ninety different times, and in nineteen different styles,\nand looked as if somebody had built a whole street of houses of every\nimaginable shape, and then stirred them together with a spoon.\n\n    _For the attics were Anglo-Saxon_.\n\n    _The third door Norman_.\n\n    _The second Cinque-cento_.\n\n    _The first-floor Elizabethan_.\n\n    _The right wing Pure Doric_.\n\n    _The centre Early English_, _with a huge portico copied from the\n    Parthenon_.\n\n    _The left wing pure B\u0153otian_, _which the country folk admired most of\n    all_, _became it was just like the new barracks in the town_, _only\n    three times as big_.\n\n    _The grand staircase was copied from the Catacombs at Rome_.\n\n    _The back staircase from the Tajmahal at Agra_.  _This was built by\n    Sir John\u2019s great-great-great-uncle_, _who won_, _in Lord Clive\u2019s\n    Indian Wars_, _plenty of money_, _plenty of wounds_, _and no more\n    taste than his betters_.\n\n    _The cellars were copied from the caves of Elephanta_.\n\n    _The offices from the Pavilion at Brighton_.\n\nAnd the rest from nothing in heaven, or earth, or under the earth.\n\nSo that Harthover House was a great puzzle to antiquarians, and a\nthorough Naboth\u2019s vineyard to critics, and architects, and all persons\nwho like meddling with other men\u2019s business, and spending other men\u2019s\nmoney.  So they were all setting upon poor Sir John, year after year, and\ntrying to talk him into spending a hundred thousand pounds or so, in\nbuilding, to please them and not himself.  But he always put them off,\nlike a canny North-countryman as he was.  One wanted him to build a\nGothic house, but he said he was no Goth; and another to build an\nElizabethan, but he said he lived under good Queen Victoria, and not good\nQueen Bess; and another was bold enough to tell him that his house was\nugly, but he said he lived inside it, and not outside; and another, that\nthere was no unity in it, but he said that that was just why he liked the\nold place.  For he liked to see how each Sir John, and Sir Hugh, and Sir\nRalph, and Sir Randal, had left his mark upon the place, each after his\nown taste; and he had no more notion of disturbing his ancestors\u2019 work\nthan of disturbing their graves.  For now the house looked like a real\nlive house, that had a history, and had grown and grown as the world\ngrew; and that it was only an upstart fellow who did not know who his own\ngrandfather was, who would change it for some spick and span new Gothic\nor Elizabethan thing, which looked as if it bad been all spawned in a\nnight, as mushrooms are.  From which you may collect (if you have wit\nenough) that Sir John was a very sound-headed, sound-hearted squire, and\njust the man to keep the country side in order, and show good sport with\nhis hounds.\n\n[Picture: The housekeeper] But Tom and his master did not go in through\nthe great iron gates, as if they had been Dukes or Bishops, but round the\nback way, and a very long way round it was; and into a little back-door,\nwhere the ash-boy let them in, yawning horribly; and then in a passage\nthe housekeeper met them, in such a flowered chintz dressing-gown, that\nTom mistook her for My Lady herself, and she gave Grimes solemn orders\nabout \u201cYou will take care of this, and take care of that,\u201d as if he was\ngoing up the chimneys, and not Tom.  And Grimes listened, and said every\nnow and then, under his voice, \u201cYou\u2019ll mind that, you little beggar?\u201d and\nTom did mind, all at least that he could.  And then the housekeeper\nturned them into a grand room, all covered up in sheets of brown paper,\nand bade them begin, in a lofty and tremendous voice; and so after a\nwhimper or two, and a kick from his master, into the grate Tom went, and\nup the chimney, while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the\nfurniture; to whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous\ncompliments, but met with very slight encouragement in return.\n\n                   [Picture: Grimes paying complements]\n\nHow many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say; but he swept so many that he\ngot quite tired, and puzzled too, for they were not like the town flues\nto which he was accustomed, but such as you would find\u2014if you would only\nget up them and look, which perhaps you would not like to do\u2014in old\ncountry-houses, large and crooked chimneys, which had been altered again\nand again, till they ran one into another, anastomosing (as Professor\nOwen would say) considerably.  So Tom fairly lost his way in them; not\nthat he cared much for that, though he was in pitchy darkness, for he was\nas much at home in a chimney as a mole is underground; but at last,\ncoming down as he thought the right chimney, he came down the wrong one,\nand found himself standing on the hearthrug in a room the like of which\nhe had never seen before.\n\nTom had never seen the like.  He had never been in gentlefolks\u2019 rooms but\nwhen the carpets were all up, and the curtains down, and the furniture\nhuddled together under a cloth, and the pictures covered with aprons and\ndusters; and he had often enough wondered what the rooms were like when\nthey were all ready for the quality to sit in.  And now he saw, and he\nthought the sight very pretty.\n\nThe room was all dressed in white,\u2014white window-curtains, white\nbed-curtains, white furniture, and white walls, with just a few lines of\npink here and there.  The carpet was all over gay little flowers; and the\nwalls were hung with pictures in gilt frames, which amused Tom very much.\nThere were pictures of ladies and gentlemen, and pictures of horses and\ndogs.  The horses he liked; but the dogs he did not care for much, for\nthere were no bull-dogs among them, not even a terrier.  But the two\npictures which took his fancy most were, one a man in long garments, with\nlittle children and their mothers round him, who was laying his hand upon\nthe children\u2019s heads.  That was a very pretty picture, Tom thought, to\nhang in a lady\u2019s room.  For he could see that it was a lady\u2019s room by the\ndresses which lay about.\n\nThe other picture was that of a man nailed to a cross, which surprised\nTom much.  He fancied that he had seen something like it in a\nshop-window.  But why was it there?  \u201cPoor man,\u201d thought Tom, \u201cand he\nlooks so kind and quiet.  But why should the lady have such a sad picture\nas that in her room?  Perhaps it was some kinsman of hers, who had been\nmurdered by the savages in foreign parts, and she kept it there for a\nremembrance.\u201d  And Tom felt sad, and awed, and turned to look at\nsomething else.\n\nThe next thing he saw, and that too puzzled him, was a washing-stand,\nwith ewers and basins, and soap and brushes, and towels, and a large bath\nfull of clean water\u2014what a heap of things all for washing!  \u201cShe must be\na very dirty lady,\u201d thought Tom, \u201cby my master\u2019s rule, to want as much\nscrubbing as all that.  But she must be very cunning to put the dirt out\nof the way so well afterwards, for I don\u2019t see a speck about the room,\nnot even on the very towels.\u201d\n\nAnd then, looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty lady, and held his\nbreath with astonishment.\n\nUnder the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white pillow, lay the most\nbeautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen.  Her cheeks were almost as\nwhite as the pillow, and her hair was like threads of gold spread all\nabout over the bed.  She might have been as old as Tom, or maybe a year\nor two older; but Tom did not think of that.  He thought only of her\ndelicate skin and golden hair, and wondered whether she was a real live\nperson, or one of the wax dolls he had seen in the shops.  But when he\nsaw her breathe, he made up his mind that she was alive, and stood\nstaring at her, as if she had been an angel out of heaven.\n\n                        [Picture: The girl asleep]\n\nNo.  She cannot be dirty.  She never could have been dirty, thought Tom\nto himself.  And then he thought, \u201cAnd are all people like that when they\nare washed?\u201d  And he looked at his own wrist, and tried to rub the soot\noff, and wondered whether it ever would come off.  \u201cCertainly I should\nlook much prettier then, if I grew at all like her.\u201d\n\nAnd looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close to him, a little ugly,\nblack, ragged figure, with bleared eyes and grinning white teeth.  He\nturned on it angrily.  What did such a little black ape want in that\nsweet young lady\u2019s room?  And behold, it was himself, reflected in a\ngreat mirror, the like of which Tom had never seen before.\n\nAnd Tom, for the first time in his life, found out that he was dirty; and\nburst into tears with shame and anger; and turned to sneak up the chimney\nagain and hide; and upset the fender and threw the fire-irons down, with\na noise as of ten thousand tin kettles tied to ten thousand mad dogs\u2019\ntails.\n\nUp jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, seeing Tom, screamed as\nshrill as any peacock.  In rushed a stout old nurse from the next room,\nand seeing Tom likewise, made up her mind that he had come to rob,\nplunder, destroy, and burn; and dashed at him, as he lay over the fender,\nso fast that she caught him by the jacket.\n\nBut she did not hold him.  Tom had been in a policeman\u2019s hands many a\ntime, and out of them too, what is more; and he would have been ashamed\nto face his friends for ever if he had been stupid enough to be caught by\nan old woman; so he doubled under the good lady\u2019s arm, across the room,\nand out of the window in a moment.\n\nHe did not need to drop out, though he would have done so bravely enough.\nNor even to let himself down a spout, which would have been an old game\nto him; for once he got up by a spout to the church roof, he said to take\njackdaws\u2019 eggs, but the policeman said to steal lead; and, when he was\nseen on high, sat there till the sun got too hot, and came down by\nanother spout, leaving the policemen to go back to the stationhouse and\neat their dinners.\n\nBut all under the window spread a tree, with great leaves and sweet white\nflowers, almost as big as his head.  It was magnolia, I suppose; but Tom\nknew nothing about that, and cared less; for down the tree he went, like\na cat, and across the garden lawn, and over the iron railings and up the\npark towards the wood, leaving the old nurse to scream murder and fire at\nthe window.\n\n                      [Picture: The under gardener]\n\nThe under gardener, mowing, saw Tom, and threw down his scythe; caught\nhis leg in it, and cut his shin open, whereby he kept his bed for a week;\nbut in his hurry he never knew it, and gave chase to poor Tom.  The\ndairymaid heard the noise, got the churn between her knees, and tumbled\nover it, spilling all the cream; and yet she jumped up, and gave chase to\nTom.  [Picture: The diarymaid]  A groom cleaning Sir John\u2019s hack at the\nstables let him go loose, whereby he kicked himself lame in five minutes;\nbut he ran out and gave chase to Tom.  Grimes upset the soot-sack in the\nnew-gravelled yard, and spoilt it all utterly; but he ran out and gave\nchase to Tom.  The old steward opened the park-gate in such a hurry, that\nhe hung up his pony\u2019s chin upon the spikes, and, for aught I know, it\nhangs there still; but he jumped off, and gave chase to Tom.  The\nploughman left his horses at the headland, and one jumped over the fence,\nand pulled the other into the ditch, plough and all; but he ran on, and\ngave chase to Tom.  The keeper, who was taking a stoat out of a trap, let\nthe stoat go, and caught his own finger; but he jumped up, and ran after\nTom; and considering what he said, and how he looked, I should have been\nsorry for Tom if he had caught him.  Sir John looked out of his study\nwindow (for he was an early old gentleman) and up at the nurse, and a\nmarten dropped mud in his eye, so that he had at last to send for the\ndoctor; and yet he ran out, and gave chase to Tom.  The Irishwoman, too,\nwas walking up to the house to beg,\u2014she must have got round by some\nbyway\u2014but she threw away her bundle, and gave chase to Tom likewise.\nOnly my Lady did not give chase; for when she had put her head out of the\nwindow, her night-wig fell into the garden, and she had to ring up her\nlady\u2019s-maid, and send her down for it privately, which quite put her out\nof the running, so that she came in nowhere, and is consequently not\nplaced.\n\n                        [Picture: The old steward]\n\nIn a word, never was there heard at Hall Place\u2014not even when the fox was\nkilled in the conservatory, among acres of broken glass, and tons of\nsmashed flower-pots\u2014such a noise, row, hubbub, babel, shindy, hullabaloo,\nstramash, charivari, and total contempt of dignity, repose, and order, as\nthat day, when Grimes, gardener, the groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the\nsteward, the ploughman, the keeper, and the Irishwoman, all ran up the\npark, shouting, \u201cStop thief,\u201d in the belief that Tom had at least a\nthousand pounds\u2019 worth of jewels in his empty pockets; and the very\nmagpies and jays followed Tom up, screaking and screaming, as if he were\na hunted fox, beginning to droop his brush.\n\n                            [Picture: Grimes]\n\nAnd all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with his little bare feet,\nlike a small black gorilla fleeing to the forest.  Alas for him! there\nwas no big father gorilla therein to take his part\u2014to scratch out the\ngardener\u2019s inside with one paw, toss the dairymaid into a tree with\nanother, and wrench off Sir John\u2019s head with a third, while he cracked\nthe keeper\u2019s skull with his teeth as easily as if it had been a cocoa-nut\nor a paving-stone.\n\n                         [Picture: Man on horse]\n\nHowever, Tom did not remember ever having had a father; so he did not\nlook for one, and expected to have to take care of himself; while as for\nrunning, he could keep up for a couple of miles with any stage-coach, if\nthere was the chance of a copper or a cigar-end, and turn coach-wheels on\nhis hands and feet ten times following, which is more than you can do.\nWherefore his pursuers found it very difficult to catch him; and we will\nhope that they did not catch him at all.\n\n                          [Picture: Man chasing]\n\nTom, of course, made for the woods.  He had never been in a wood in his\nlife; but he was sharp enough to know that he might hide in a bush, or\nswarm up a tree, and, altogether, had more chance there than in the open.\nIf he had not known that, he would have been foolisher than a mouse or a\nminnow.\n\n                         [Picture: Man on knees]\n\nBut when he got into the wood, he found it a very different sort of place\nfrom what he had fancied.  He pushed into a thick cover of rhododendrons,\nand found himself at once caught in a trap.  The boughs laid hold of his\nlegs and arms, poked him in his face and his stomach, made him shut his\neyes tight (though that was no great loss, for he could not see at best a\nyard before his nose); and when he got through the rhododendrons, the\nhassock-grass and sedges tumbled him over, and cut his poor little\nfingers afterwards most spitefully; the birches birched him as soundly as\nif he had been a nobleman at Eton, and over the face too (which is not\nfair swishing as all brave boys will agree); and the lawyers tripped him\nup, and tore his shins as if they had sharks\u2019 teeth\u2014which lawyers are\nlikely enough to have.\n\n\u201cI must get out of this,\u201d thought Tom, \u201cor I shall stay here till\nsomebody comes to help me\u2014which is just what I don\u2019t want.\u201d\n\nBut how to get out was the difficult matter.  And indeed I don\u2019t think he\nwould ever have got out at all, but have stayed there till the\ncock-robins covered him with leaves, if he had not suddenly run his head\nagainst a wall.\n\n                   [Picture: Man looking out of window]\n\nNow running your head against a wall is not pleasant, especially if it is\na loose wall, with the stones all set on edge, and a sharp cornered one\nhits you between the eyes and makes you see all manner of beautiful\nstars.  The stars are very beautiful, certainly; but unfortunately they\ngo in the twenty-thousandth part of a split second, and the pain which\ncomes after them does not.  And so Tom hurt his head; but he was a brave\nboy, and did not mind that a penny.  He guessed that over the wall the\ncover would end; and up it he went, and over like a squirrel.\n\nAnd there he was, out on the great grouse-moors, which the country folk\ncalled Harthover Fell\u2014heather and bog and rock, stretching away and up,\nup to the very sky.\n\nNow, Tom was a cunning little fellow\u2014as cunning as an old Exmoor stag.\nWhy not?  Though he was but ten years old, he had lived longer than most\nstags, and had more wits to start with into the bargain.\n\nHe knew as well as a stag, that if he backed he might throw the hounds\nout.  So the first thing he did when he was over the wall was to make the\nneatest double sharp to his right, and run along under the wall for\nnearly half a mile.\n\nWhereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the steward, and the gardener, and\nthe ploughman, and the dairymaid, and all the hue-and-cry together, went\non ahead half a mile in the very opposite direction, and inside the wall,\nleaving him a mile off on the outside; while Tom heard their shouts die\naway in the woods and chuckled to himself merrily.\n\nAt last he came to a dip in the land, and went to the bottom of it, and\nthen he turned bravely away from the wall and up the moor; for he knew\nthat he had put a hill between him and his enemies, and could go on\nwithout their seeing him.\n\nBut the Irishwoman, alone of them all, had seen which way Tom went.  She\nhad kept ahead of every one the whole time; and yet she neither walked\nnor ran.  She went along quite smoothly and gracefully, while her feet\ntwinkled past each other so fast that you could not see which was\nforemost; till every one asked the other who the strange woman was; and\nall agreed, for want of anything better to say, that she must be in\nleague with Tom.\n\nBut when she came to the plantation, they lost sight of her; and they\ncould do no less.  For she went quietly over the wall after Tom, and\nfollowed him wherever he went.  Sir John and the rest saw no more of her;\nand out of sight was out of mind.\n\nAnd now Tom was right away into the heather, over just such a moor as\nthose in which you have been bred, except that there were rocks and\nstones lying about everywhere, and that, instead of the moor growing flat\nas he went upwards, it grew more and more broken and hilly, but not so\nrough but that little Tom could jog along well enough, and find time,\ntoo, to stare about at the strange place, which was like a new world to\nhim.\n\nHe saw great spiders there, with crowns and crosses marked on their\nbacks, who sat in the middle of their webs, and when they saw Tom coming,\nshook them so fast that they became invisible.  Then he saw lizards,\nbrown and gray and green, and thought they were snakes, and would sting\nhim; but they were as much frightened as he, and shot away into the\nheath.  And then, under a rock, he saw a pretty sight\u2014a great brown,\nsharp-nosed creature, with a white tag to her brush, and round her four\nor five smutty little cubs, the funniest fellows Tom ever saw.  She lay\non her back, rolling about, and stretching out her legs and head and tail\nin the bright sunshine; and the cubs jumped over her, and ran round her,\nand nibbled her paws, and lugged her about by the tail; and she seemed to\nenjoy it mightily.  But one selfish little fellow stole away from the\nrest to a dead crow close by, and dragged it off to hide it, though it\nwas nearly as big as he was.  Whereat all his little brothers set off\nafter him in full cry, and saw Tom; and then all ran back, and up jumped\nMrs. Vixen, and caught one up in her mouth, and the rest toddled after\nher, and into a dark crack in the rocks; and there was an end of the\nshow.\n\n                         [Picture: Fox with cubs]\n\nAnd next he had a fright; for, as he scrambled up a sandy\nbrow\u2014whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock-kick\u2014something went off in his face, with\na most horrid noise.  He thought the ground had blown up, and the end of\nthe world come.\n\nAnd when he opened his eyes (for he shut them very tight) it was only an\nold cock-grouse, who had been washing himself in sand, like an Arab, for\nwant of water; and who, when Tom had all but trodden on him, jumped up\nwith a noise like the express train, leaving his wife and children to\nshift for themselves, like an old coward, and went off, screaming\n\u201cCur-ru-u-uck, cur-ru-u-uck\u2014murder, thieves, fire\u2014cur-u-uck-cock-kick\u2014the\nend of the world is come\u2014kick-kick-cock-kick.\u201d  He was always fancying\nthat the end of the world was come, when anything happened which was\nfarther off than the end of his own nose.  But the end of the world was\nnot come, any more than the twelfth of August was; though the old\ngrouse-cock was quite certain of it.\n\n                          [Picture: The grouse]\n\nSo the old grouse came back to his wife and family an hour afterwards,\nand said solemnly, \u201cCock-cock-kick; my dears, the end of the world is not\nquite come; but I assure you it is coming the day after to-morrow\u2014cock.\u201d\nBut his wife had heard that so often that she knew all about it, and a\nlittle more.  And, besides, she was the mother of a family, and had seven\nlittle poults to wash and feed every day; and that made her very\npractical, and a little sharp-tempered; so all she answered was:\n\u201cKick-kick-kick\u2014go and catch spiders, go and catch spiders\u2014kick.\u201d\n\nSo Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why; but he liked the great wide\nstrange place, and the cool fresh bracing air.  But he went more and more\nslowly as he got higher up the hill; for now the ground grew very bad\nindeed.  Instead of soft turf and springy heather, he met great patches\nof flat limestone rock, just like ill-made pavements, with deep cracks\nbetween the stones and ledges, filled with ferns; so he had to hop from\nstone to stone, and now and then he slipped in between, and hurt his\nlittle bare toes, though they were tolerably tough ones; but still he\nwould go on and up, he could not tell why.\n\nWhat would Tom have said if he had seen, walking over the moor behind\nhim, the very same Irishwoman who had taken his part upon the road?  But\nwhether it was that he looked too little behind him, or whether it was\nthat she kept out of sight behind the rocks and knolls, he never saw her,\nthough she saw him.\n\nAnd now he began to get a little hungry, and very thirsty; for he had run\na long way, and the sun had risen high in heaven, and the rock was as hot\nas an oven, and the air danced reels over it, as it does over a limekiln,\ntill everything round seemed quivering and melting in the glare.\n\nBut he could see nothing to eat anywhere, and still less to drink.\n\nThe heath was full of bilberries and whimberries; but they were only in\nflower yet, for it was June.  And as for water; who can find that on the\ntop of a limestone rock?  Now and then he passed by a deep dark\nswallow-hole, going down into the earth, as if it was the chimney of some\ndwarfs house underground; and more than once, as he passed, he could hear\nwater falling, trickling, tinkling, many many feet below.  How he longed\nto get down to it, and cool his poor baked lips!  But, brave little\nchimney-sweep as he was, he dared not climb down such chimneys as those.\n\nSo he went on and on, till his head spun round with the heat, and he\nthought he heard church-bells ringing a long way off.\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d he thought, \u201cwhere there is a church there will be houses and\npeople; and, perhaps, some one will give me a bit and a sup.\u201d  So he set\noff again, to look for the church; for he was sure that he heard the\nbells quite plain.\n\nAnd in a minute more, when he looked round, he stopped again, and said,\n\u201cWhy, what a big place the world is!\u201d\n\nAnd so it was; for, from the top of the mountain he could see\u2014what could\nhe not see?\n\nBehind him, far below, was Harthover, and the dark woods, and the shining\nsalmon river; and on his left, far below, was the town, and the smoking\nchimneys of the collieries; and far, far away, the river widened to the\nshining sea; and little white specks, which were ships, lay on its bosom.\nBefore him lay, spread out like a map, great plains, and farms, and\nvillages, amid dark knots of trees.  They all seemed at his very feet;\nbut he had sense to see that they were long miles away.\n\nAnd to his right rose moor after moor, hill after hill, till they faded\naway, blue into blue sky.  But between him and those moors, and really at\nhis very feet, lay something, to which, as soon as Tom saw it, he\ndetermined to go, for that was the place for him.\n\nA deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow, and filled with wood;\nbut through the wood, hundreds of feet below him, he could see a clear\nstream glance.  Oh, if he could but get down to that stream!  Then, by\nthe stream, he saw the roof of a little cottage, and a little garden set\nout in squares and beds.  And there was a tiny little red thing moving in\nthe garden, no bigger than a fly.  As Tom looked down, he saw that it was\na woman in a red petticoat.  Ah! perhaps she would give him something to\neat.  And there were the church-bells ringing again.  Surely there must\nbe a village down there.  Well, nobody would know him, or what had\nhappened at the Place.  The news could not have got there yet, even if\nSir John had set all the policemen in the county after him; and he could\nget down there in five minutes.\n\nTom was quite right about the hue-and-cry not having got thither; for he\nhad come without knowing it, the best part of ten miles from Harthover;\nbut he was wrong about getting down in five minutes, for the cottage was\nmore than a mile off, and a good thousand feet below.\n\n                  [Picture: Youth reclining near stream]\n\nHowever, down he went; like a brave little man as he was, though he was\nvery footsore, and tired, and hungry, and thirsty; while the church-bells\nrang so loud, he began to think that they must be inside his own head,\nand the river chimed and tinkled far below; and this was the song which\nit sang:\u2014\n\n          _Clear and cool_, _clear and cool_,\n       _By laughing shallow_, _and dreaming pool_;\n          _Cool and clear_, _cool and clear_,\n       _By shining shingle_, _and foaming wear_;\n    _Under the crag where the ouzel sings_,\n    _And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings_,\n                _Undefiled_, _for the undefiled_;\n             _Play by me_, _bathe in me_, _mother and child_.\n\n          _Dank and foul_, _dank and foul_,\n       _By the smoky town in its murky cowl_;\n          _Foul and dank_, _foul and dank_,\n       _By wharf and sewer and slimy bank_;\n    _Darker and darker the farther I go_,\n    _Baser and baser the richer I grow_;\n                _Who dares sport with the sin-defiled_?\n             _Shrink from me_, _turn from me_, _mother and child_.\n\n          _Strong and free_, _strong and free_,\n       _The floodgates are open_, _away to the sea_,\n          _Free and strong_, _free and strong_,\n       _Cleansing my streams as I hurry along_,\n    _To the golden sands_, _and the leaping bar_,\n    _And the taintless tide that awaits me afar_.\n    _As I lose myself in the infinite main_,\n    _Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again_.\n             _Undefiled_, _for the undefiled_;\n          _Play by me_, _bathe in me_, _mother and child_.\n\nSo Tom went down; and all the while he never saw the Irishwoman going\ndown behind him.\n\n                [Picture: Girl and woman walking on beech]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\n    \u201cAnd is there care in heaven? and is there love\n    In heavenly spirits to these creatures base\n    That may compassion of their evils move?\n    There is:\u2014else much more wretched were the case\n    Of men than beasts: But oh! the exceeding grace\n    Of Highest God that loves His creatures so,\n    And all His works with mercy doth embrace,\n    That blessed Angels He sends to and fro,\n    To serve to wicked man, to serve His wicked foe!\u201d\n\n                                                                  SPENSER.\n\n[Picture: Tom at the old dame\u2019s house] A MILE off, and a thousand feet\ndown.\n\nSo Tom found it; though it seemed as if he could have chucked a pebble on\nto the back of the woman in the red petticoat who was weeding in the\ngarden, or even across the dale to the rocks beyond.  For the bottom of\nthe valley was just one field broad, and on the other side ran the\nstream; and above it, gray crag, gray down, gray stair, gray moor walled\nup to heaven.\n\nA quiet, silent, rich, happy place; a narrow crack cut deep into the\nearth; so deep, and so out of the way, that the bad bogies can hardly\nfind it out.  The name of the place is Vendale; and if you want to see it\nfor yourself, you must go up into the High Craven, and search from\nBolland Forest north by Ingleborough, to the Nine Standards and Cross\nFell; and if you have not found it, you must turn south, and search the\nLake Mountains, down to Scaw Fell and the sea; and then, if you have not\nfound it, you must go northward again by merry Carlisle, and search the\nCheviots all across, from Annan Water to Berwick Law; and then, whether\nyou have found Vendale or not, you will have found such a country, and\nsuch a people, as ought to make you proud of being a British boy.\n\nSo Tom went to go down; and first he went down three hundred feet of\nsteep heather, mixed up with loose brown gritstone, as rough as a file;\nwhich was not pleasant to his poor little heels, as he came bump, stump,\njump, down the steep.  And still he thought he could throw a stone into\nthe garden.\n\nThen he went down three hundred feet of lime-stone terraces, one below\nthe other, as straight as if a carpenter had ruled them with his ruler\nand then cut them out with his chisel.  There was no heath there, but\u2014\n\nFirst, a little grass slope, covered with the prettiest flowers, rockrose\nand saxifrage, and thyme and basil, and all sorts of sweet herbs.\n\nThen bump down a two-foot step of limestone.\n\nThen another bit of grass and flowers.\n\nThen bump down a one-foot step.\n\nThen another bit of grass and flowers for fifty yards, as steep as the\nhouse-roof, where he had to slide down on his dear little tail.\n\nThen another step of stone, ten feet high; and there he had to stop\nhimself, and crawl along the edge to find a crack; for if he had rolled\nover, he would have rolled right into the old woman\u2019s garden, and\nfrightened her out of her wits.\n\nThen, when he had found a dark narrow crack, full of green-stalked fern,\nsuch as hangs in the basket in the drawing-room, and had crawled down\nthrough it, with knees and elbows, as he would down a chimney, there was\nanother grass slope, and another step, and so on, till\u2014oh, dear me!  I\nwish it was all over; and so did he.  And yet he thought he could throw a\nstone into the old woman\u2019s garden.\n\nAt last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs; white-beam with its great\nsilver-backed leaves, and mountain-ash, and oak; and below them cliff and\ncrag, cliff and crag, with great beds of crown-ferns and wood-sedge;\nwhile through the shrubs he could see the stream sparkling, and hear it\nmurmur on the white pebbles.  He did not know that it was three hundred\nfeet below.\n\nYou would have been giddy, perhaps, at looking down: but Tom was not.  He\nwas a brave little chimney-sweep; and when he found himself on the top of\na high cliff, instead of sitting down and crying for his baba (though he\nnever had had any baba to cry for), he said, \u201cAh, this will just suit\nme!\u201d though he was very tired; and down he went, by stock and stone,\nsedge and ledge, bush and rush, as if he had been born a jolly little\nblack ape, with four hands instead of two.\n\nAnd all the while he never saw the Irishwoman coming down behind him.\n\nBut he was getting terribly tired now.  The burning sun on the fells had\nsucked him up; but the damp heat of the woody crag sucked him up still\nmore; and the perspiration ran out of the ends of his fingers and toes,\nand washed him cleaner than he had been for a whole year.  But, of\ncourse, he dirtied everything, terribly as he went.  There has been a\ngreat black smudge all down the crag ever since.  And there have been\nmore black beetles in Vendale since than ever were known before; all, of\ncourse, owing to Tom\u2019s having blacked the original papa of them all, just\nas he was setting off to be married, with a sky-blue coat and scarlet\nleggins, as smart as a gardener\u2019s dog with a polyanthus in his mouth.\n\nAt last he got to the bottom.  But, behold, it was not the bottom\u2014as\npeople usually find when they are coming down a mountain.  For at the\nfoot of the crag were heaps and heaps of fallen limestone of every size\nfrom that of your head to that of a stage-waggon, with holes between them\nfull of sweet heath-fern; and before Tom got through them, he was out in\nthe bright sunshine again; and then he felt, once for all and suddenly,\nas people generally do, that he was b-e-a-t, beat.\n\nYou must expect to be beat a few times in your life, little man, if you\nlive such a life as a man ought to live, let you be as strong and healthy\nas you may: and when you are, you will find it a very ugly feeling.  I\nhope that that day you may have a stout staunch friend by you who is not\nbeat; for, if you have not, you had best lie where you are, and wait for\nbetter times, as poor Tom did.\n\nHe could not get on.  The sun was burning, and yet he felt chill all\nover.  He was quite empty, and yet he felt quite sick.  There was but two\nhundred yards of smooth pasture between him and the cottage, and yet he\ncould not walk down it.  He could hear the stream murmuring only one\nfield beyond it, and yet it seemed to him as if it was a hundred miles\noff.\n\nHe lay down on the grass till the beetles ran over him, and the flies\nsettled on his nose.  I don\u2019t know when he would have got up again, if\nthe gnats and the midges had not taken compassion on him.  But the gnats\nblew their trumpets so loud in his ear, and the midges nibbled so at his\nhands and face wherever they could find a place free from soot, that at\nlast he woke up, and stumbled away, down over a low wall, and into a\nnarrow road, and up to the cottage-door.\n\nAnd a neat pretty cottage it was, with clipped yew hedges all round the\ngarden, and yews inside too, cut into peacocks and trumpets and teapots\nand all kinds of queer shapes.  And out of the open door came a noise\nlike that of the frogs on the Great-A, when they know that it is going to\nbe scorching hot to-morrow\u2014and how they know that I don\u2019t know, and you\ndon\u2019t know, and nobody knows.\n\nHe came slowly up to the open door, which was all hung round with\nclematis and roses; and then peeped in, half afraid.\n\nAnd there sat by the empty fireplace, which was filled with a pot of\nsweet herbs, the nicest old woman that ever was seen, in her red\npetticoat, and short dimity bedgown, and clean white cap, with a black\nsilk handkerchief over it, tied under her chin.  At her feet sat the\ngrandfather of all the cats; and opposite her sat, on two benches, twelve\nor fourteen neat, rosy, chubby little children, learning their\nChris-cross-row; and gabble enough they made about it.\n\nSuch a pleasant cottage it was, with a shiny clean stone floor, and\ncurious old prints on the walls, and an old black oak sideboard full of\nbright pewter and brass dishes, and a cuckoo clock in the corner, which\nbegan shouting as soon as Tom appeared: not that it was frightened at\nTom, but that it was just eleven o\u2019clock.\n\nAll the children started at Tom\u2019s dirty black figure,\u2014the girls began to\ncry, and the boys began to laugh, and all pointed at him rudely enough;\nbut Tom was too tired to care for that.\n\n\u201cWhat art thou, and what dost want?\u201d cried the old dame.  \u201cA\nchimney-sweep!  Away with thee!  I\u2019ll have no sweeps here.\u201d\n\n\u201cWater,\u201d said poor little Tom, quite faint.\n\n\u201cWater?  There\u2019s plenty i\u2019 the beck,\u201d she said, quite sharply.\n\n\u201cBut I can\u2019t get there; I\u2019m most clemmed with hunger and drought.\u201d  And\nTom sank down upon the door-step, and laid his head against the post.\n\nAnd the old dame looked at him through her spectacles one minute, and\ntwo, and three; and then she said, \u201cHe\u2019s sick; and a bairn\u2019s a bairn,\nsweep or none.\u201d\n\n\u201cWater,\u201d said Tom.\n\n\u201cGod forgive me!\u201d and she put by her spectacles, and rose, and came to\nTom.  \u201cWater\u2019s bad for thee; I\u2019ll give thee milk.\u201d  And she toddled off\ninto the next room, and brought a cup of milk and a bit of bread.\n\nTom drank the milk off at one draught, and then looked up, revived.\n\n\u201cWhere didst come from?\u201d said the dame.\n\n\u201cOver Fell, there,\u201d said Tom, and pointed up into the sky.\n\n\u201cOver Harthover? and down Lewthwaite Crag?  Art sure thou art not lying?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy should I?\u201d said Tom, and leant his head against the post.\n\n\u201cAnd how got ye up there?\u201d\n\n\u201cI came over from the Place;\u201d and Tom was so tired and desperate he had\nno heart or time to think of a story, so he told all the truth in a few\nwords.\n\n\u201cBless thy little heart!  And thou hast not been stealing, then?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cBless thy little heart! and I\u2019ll warrant not.  Why, God\u2019s guided the\nbairn, because he was innocent!  Away from the Place, and over Harthover\nFell, and down Lewthwaite Crag!  Who ever heard the like, if God hadn\u2019t\nled him?  Why dost not eat thy bread?\u201d\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s good enough, for I made it myself.\u201d\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t,\u201d said Tom, and he laid his head on his knees, and then asked\u2014\n\n\u201cIs it Sunday?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, then; why should it be?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause I hear the church-bells ringing so.\u201d\n\n\u201cBless thy pretty heart!  The bairn\u2019s sick.  Come wi\u2019 me, and I\u2019ll hap\nthee up somewhere.  If thou wert a bit cleaner I\u2019d put thee in my own\nbed, for the Lord\u2019s sake.  But come along here.\u201d\n\nBut when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired and giddy that she had to\nhelp him and lead him.\n\nShe put him in an outhouse upon soft sweet hay and an old rug, and bade\nhim sleep off his walk, and she would come to him when school was over,\nin an hour\u2019s time.\n\nAnd so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall fast asleep at once.\n\nBut Tom did not fall asleep.\n\nInstead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about in the strangest way,\nand felt so hot all over that he longed to get into the river and cool\nhimself; and then he fell half asleep, and dreamt that he heard the\nlittle white lady crying to him, \u201cOh, you\u2019re so dirty; go and be washed;\u201d\nand then that he heard the Irishwoman saying, \u201cThose that wish to be\nclean, clean they will be.\u201d  And then he heard the church-bells ring so\nloud, close to him too, that he was sure it must be Sunday, in spite of\nwhat the old dame had said; and he would go to church, and see what a\nchurch was like inside, for he had never been in one, poor little fellow,\nin all his life.  But the people would never let him come in, all over\nsoot and dirt like that.  He must go to the river and wash first.  And he\nsaid out loud again and again, though being half asleep he did not know\nit, \u201cI must be clean, I must be clean.\u201d\n\nAnd all of a sudden he found himself, not in the outhouse on the hay, but\nin the middle of a meadow, over the road, with the stream just before\nhim, saying continually, \u201cI must be clean, I must be clean.\u201d  He had got\nthere on his own legs, between sleep and awake, as children will often\nget out of bed, and go about the room, when they are not quite well.  But\nhe was not a bit surprised, and went on to the bank of the brook, and lay\ndown on the grass, and looked into the clear, clear limestone water, with\nevery pebble at the bottom bright and clean, while the little silver\ntrout dashed about in fright at the sight of his black face; and he\ndipped his hand in and found it so cool, cool, cool; and he said, \u201cI will\nbe a fish; I will swim in the water; I must be clean, I must be clean.\u201d\n\nSo he pulled off all his clothes in such haste that he tore some of them,\nwhich was easy enough with such ragged old things.  And he put his poor\nhot sore feet into the water; and then his legs; and the farther he went\nin, the more the church-bells rang in his head.\n\n\u201cAh,\u201d said Tom, \u201cI must be quick and wash myself; the bells are ringing\nquite loud now; and they will stop soon, and then the door will be shut,\nand I shall never be able to get in at all.\u201d\n\nTom was mistaken: for in England the church doors are left open all\nservice time, for everybody who likes to come in, Churchman or Dissenter;\nay, even if he were a Turk or a Heathen; and if any man dared to turn him\nout, as long as he behaved quietly, the good old English law would punish\nthat man, as he deserved, for ordering any peaceable person out of God\u2019s\nhouse, which belongs to all alike.  But Tom did not know that, any more\nthan he knew a great deal more which people ought to know.\n\nAnd all the while he never saw the Irishwoman, not behind him this time,\nbut before.\n\n                     [Picture: The Queen of them all]\n\nFor just before he came to the river side, she had stept down into the\ncool clear water; and her shawl and her petticoat floated off her, and\nthe green water-weeds floated round her sides, and the white water-lilies\nfloated round her head, and the fairies of the stream came up from the\nbottom and bore her away and down upon their arms; for she was the Queen\nof them all; and perhaps of more besides.\n\n\u201cWhere have you been?\u201d they asked her.\n\n\u201cI have been smoothing sick folks\u2019 pillows, and whispering sweet dreams\ninto their ears; opening cottage casements, to let out the stifling air;\ncoaxing little children away from gutters, and foul pools where fever\nbreeds; turning women from the gin-shop door, and staying men\u2019s hands as\nthey were going to strike their wives; doing all I can to help those who\nwill not help themselves: and little enough that is, and weary work for\nme.  But I have brought you a new little brother, and watched him safe\nall the way here.\u201d\n\nThen all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought that they had a\nlittle brother coming.\n\n\u201cBut mind, maidens, he must not see you, or know that you are here.  He\nis but a savage now, and like the beasts which perish; and from the\nbeasts which perish he must learn.  So you must not play with him, or\nspeak to him, or let him see you: but only keep him from being harmed.\u201d\n\nThen the fairies were sad, because they could not play with their new\nbrother, but they always did what they were told.\n\nAnd their Queen floated away down the river; and whither she went,\nthither she came.  But all this Tom, of course, never saw or heard: and\nperhaps if he had it would have made little difference in the story; for\nwas so hot and thirsty, and longed so to be clean for once, that he\ntumbled himself as quick as he could into the clear cool stream.\n\nAnd he had not been in it two minutes before he fell fast asleep, into\nthe quietest, sunniest, cosiest sleep that ever he had in his life; and\nhe dreamt about the green meadows by which he had walked that morning,\nand the tall elm-trees, and the sleeping cows; and after that he dreamt\nof nothing at all.\n\nThe reason of his falling into such a delightful sleep is very simple;\nand yet hardly any one has found it out.  It was merely that the fairies\ntook him.\n\nSome people think that there are no fairies.  Cousin Cramchild tells\nlittle folks so in his Conversations.  Well, perhaps there are none\u2014in\nBoston, U.S., where he was raised.  There are only a clumsy lot of\nspirits there, who can\u2019t make people hear without thumping on the table:\nbut they get their living thereby, and I suppose that is all they want.\nAnd Aunt Agitate, in her Arguments on political economy, says there are\nnone.  Well, perhaps there are none\u2014in her political economy.  But it is\na wide world, my little man\u2014and thank Heaven for it, for else, between\ncrinolines and theories, some of us would get squashed\u2014and plenty of room\nin it for fairies, without people seeing them; unless, of course, they\nlook in the right place.  The most wonderful and the strongest things in\nthe world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.  There is\nlife in you; and it is the life in you which makes you grow, and move,\nand think: and yet you can\u2019t see it.  And there is steam in a\nsteam-engine; and that is what makes it move: and yet you can\u2019t see it;\nand so there may be fairies in the world, and they may be just what makes\nthe world go round to the old tune of\n\n    \u201c_C\u2019est l\u2019amour_, _l\u2019amour_, _l\u2019amour_\n    _Qui fait la monde \u00e0 la ronde_:\u201d\n\n[Picture: Fairy cherub with arrow] and yet no one may be able to see them\nexcept those whose hearts are going round to that same tune.  At all\nevents, we will make believe that there are fairies in the world.  It\nwill not be the last time by many a one that we shall have to make\nbelieve.  And yet, after all, there is no need for that.  There must be\nfairies; for this is a fairy tale: and how can one have a fairy tale if\nthere are no fairies?\n\nYou don\u2019t see the logic of that?  Perhaps not.  Then please not to see\nthe logic of a great many arguments exactly like it, which you will hear\nbefore your beard is gray.\n\nThe kind old dame came back at twelve, when school was over, to look at\nTom: but there was no Tom there.  She looked about for his footprints;\nbut the ground was so hard that there was no slot, as they say in dear\nold North Devon.  And if you grow up to be a brave healthy man, you may\nknow some day what no slot means, and know too, I hope, what a slot does\nmean\u2014a broad slot, with blunt claws, which makes a man put out his cigar,\nand set his teeth, and tighten his girths, when he sees it; and what his\nrights mean, if he has them, brow, bay, tray, and points; and see\nsomething worth seeing between Haddon Wood and Countisbury Cliff, with\ngood Mr. Palk Collyns to show you the way, and mend your bones as fast as\nyou smash them.  Only when that jolly day comes, please don\u2019t break your\nneck; stogged in a mire you never will be, I trust; for you are a\nheath-cropper bred and born.\n\nSo the old dame went in again quite sulky, thinking that little Tom had\ntricked her with a false story, and shammed ill, and then run away again.\n\nBut she altered her mind the next day.  For, when Sir John and the rest\nof them had run themselves out of breath, and lost Tom, they went back\nagain, looking very foolish.\n\nAnd they looked more foolish still when Sir John heard more of the story\nfrom the nurse; and more foolish still, again, when they heard the whole\nstory from Miss Ellie, the little lady in white.  All she had seen was a\npoor little black chimney-sweep, crying and sobbing, and going to get up\nthe chimney again.  Of course, she was very much frightened: and no\nwonder.  But that was all.  The boy had taken nothing in the room; by the\nmark of his little sooty feet, they could see that he had never been off\nthe hearthrug till the nurse caught hold of him.  It was all a mistake.\n\nSo Sir John told Grimes to go home, and promised him five shillings if he\nwould bring the boy quietly up to him, without beating him, that he might\nbe sure of the truth.  For he took for granted, and Grimes too, that Tom\nhad made his way home.\n\nBut no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that evening; and he went to the\npolice-office, to tell them to look out for the boy.  But no Tom was\nheard of.  As for his having gone over those great fells to Vendale, they\nno more dreamed of that than of his having gone to the moon.\n\nSo Mr. Grimes came up to Harthover next day with a very sour face; but\nwhen he got there, Sir John was over the hills and far away; and Mr.\nGrimes had to sit in the outer servants\u2019 hall all day, and drink strong\nale to wash away his sorrows; and they were washed away long before Sir\nJohn came back.\n\nFor good Sir John had slept very badly that night; and he said to his\nlady, \u201cMy dear, the boy must have got over into the grouse-moors, and\nlost himself; and he lies very heavily on my conscience, poor little lad.\nBut I know what I will do.\u201d\n\n                           [Picture: Sir John]\n\nSo, at five the next morning up he got, and into his bath, and into his\nshooting-jacket and gaiters, and into the stableyard, like a fine old\nEnglish gentleman, with a face as red as a rose, and a hand as hard as a\ntable, and a back as broad as a bullock\u2019s; and bade them bring his\nshooting pony, and the keeper to come on his pony, and the huntsman, and\nthe first whip, and the second whip, and the under-keeper with the\nbloodhound in a leash\u2014a great dog as tall as a calf, of the colour of a\ngravel-walk, with mahogany ears and nose, and a throat like a\nchurch-bell.  They took him up to the place where Tom had gone into the\nwood; and there the hound lifted up his mighty voice, and told them all\nhe knew.\n\nThen he took them to the place where Tom had climbed the wall; and they\nshoved it down, and all got through.\n\nAnd then the wise dog took them over the moor, and over the fells, step\nby step, very slowly; for the scent was a day old, you know, and very\nlight from the heat and drought.  But that was why cunning old Sir John\nstarted at five in the morning.\n\nAnd at last he came to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and there he bayed,\nand looked up in their faces, as much as to say, \u201cI tell you he is gone\ndown here!\u201d\n\nThey could hardly believe that Tom would have gone so far; and when they\nlooked at that awful cliff, they could never believe that he would have\ndared to face it.  But if the dog said so, it must be true.\n\n\u201cHeaven forgive us!\u201d said Sir John.  \u201cIf we find him at all, we shall\nfind him lying at the bottom.\u201d  And he slapped his great hand upon his\ngreat thigh, and said\u2014\n\n\u201cWho will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, and see if that boy is alive?  Oh\nthat I were twenty years younger, and I would go down myself!\u201d  And so he\nwould have done, as well as any sweep in the county.  Then he said\u2014\n\n\u201cTwenty pounds to the man who brings me that boy alive!\u201d and as was his\nway, what he said he meant.\n\nNow among the lot was a little groom-boy, a very little groom indeed; and\nhe was the same who had ridden up the court, and told Tom to come to the\nHall; and he said\u2014\n\n\u201cTwenty pounds or none, I will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, if it\u2019s only\nfor the poor boy\u2019s sake.  For he was as civil a spoken little chap as\never climbed a flue.\u201d\n\nSo down over Lewthwaite Crag he went: a very smart groom he was at the\ntop, and a very shabby one at the bottom; for he tore his gaiters, and he\ntore his breeches, and he tore his jacket, and he burst his braces, and\nhe burst his boots, and he lost his hat, and what was worst of all, he\nlost his shirt pin, which he prized very much, for it was gold, and he\nhad won it in a raffle at Malton, and there was a figure at the top of\nit, of t\u2019ould mare, noble old Beeswing herself, as natural as life; so it\nwas a really severe loss: but he never saw anything of Tom.\n\nAnd all the while Sir John and the rest were riding round, full three\nmiles to the right, and back again, to get into Vendale, and to the foot\nof the crag.\n\nWhen they came to the old dame\u2019s school, all the children came out to\nsee.  And the old dame came out too; and when she saw Sir John, she\ncurtsied very low, for she was a tenant of his.\n\n\u201cWell, dame, and how are you?\u201d said Sir John.\n\n\u201cBlessings on you as broad as your back, Harthover,\u201d says she\u2014she didn\u2019t\ncall him Sir John, but only Harthover, for that is the fashion in the\nNorth country\u2014\u201cand welcome into Vendale: but you\u2019re no hunting the fox\nthis time of the year?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am hunting, and strange game too,\u201d said he.\n\n\u201cBlessings on your heart, and what makes you look so sad the morn?\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019m looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep, that is run away.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, Harthover, Harthover,\u201d says she, \u201cye were always a just man and a\nmerciful; and ye\u2019ll no harm the poor little lad if I give you tidings of\nhim?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot I, not I, dame.  I\u2019m afraid we hunted him out of the house all on a\nmiserable mistake, and the hound has brought him to the top of Lewthwaite\nCrag, and\u2014\u201d\n\nWhereat the old dame broke out crying, without letting him finish his\nstory.\n\n\u201cSo he told me the truth after all, poor little dear!  Ah, first thoughts\nare best, and a body\u2019s heart\u2019ll guide them right, if they will but\nhearken to it.\u201d  And then she told Sir John all.\n\n\u201cBring the dog here, and lay him on,\u201d said Sir John, without another\nword, and he set his teeth very hard.\n\nAnd the dog opened at once; and went away at the back of the cottage,\nover the road, and over the meadow, and through a bit of alder copse; and\nthere, upon an alder stump, they saw Tom\u2019s clothes lying.  And then they\nknew as much about it all as there was any need to know.\n\nAnd Tom?\n\nAh, now comes the most wonderful part of this wonderful story.  Tom, when\nhe woke, for of course he woke\u2014children always wake after they have slept\nexactly as long as is good for them\u2014found himself swimming about in the\nstream, being about four inches, or\u2014that I may be accurate\u20143.87902 inches\nlong and having round the parotid region of his fauces a set of external\ngills (I hope you understand all the big words) just like those of a\nsucking eft, which he mistook for a lace frill, till he pulled at them,\nfound he hurt himself, and made up his mind that they were part of\nhimself, and best left alone.\n\nIn fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.\n\nA water-baby?  You never heard of a water-baby.  Perhaps not.  That is\nthe very reason why this story was written.  There are a great many\nthings in the world which you never heard of; and a great many more which\nnobody ever heard of; and a great many things, too, which nobody will\never hear of, at least until the coming of the Cocqcigrues, when man\nshall be the measure of all things.\n\n\u201cBut there are no such things as water-babies.\u201d\n\nHow do you know that?  Have you been there to see?  And if you had been\nthere to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that there were\nnone.  If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley Wood\u2014as folks\nsometimes fear he never will\u2014that does not prove that there are no such\nthings as foxes.  And as is Eversley Wood to all the woods in England, so\nare the waters we know to all the waters in the world.  And no one has a\nright to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen no\nwater-babies existing; which is quite a different thing, mind, from not\nseeing water-babies; and a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps ever\nwill do.\n\n                          [Picture: Water baby]\n\n\u201cBut surely if there were water-babies, somebody would have caught one at\nleast?\u201d\n\nWell.  How do you know that somebody has not?\n\n\u201cBut they would have put it into spirits, or into the _Illustrated News_,\nor perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing, and sent one\nto Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see what they would\neach say about it.\u201d\n\nAh, my dear little man! that does not follow at all, as you will see\nbefore the end of the story.\n\n\u201cBut a water-baby is contrary to nature.\u201d\n\nWell, but, my dear little man, you must learn to talk about such things,\nwhen you grow older, in a very different way from that.  You must not\ntalk about \u201cain\u2019t\u201d and \u201ccan\u2019t\u201d when you speak of this great wonderful\nworld round you, of which the wisest man knows only the very smallest\ncorner, and is, as the great Sir Isaac Newton said, only a child picking\nup pebbles on the shore of a boundless ocean.\n\n                [Picture: Examining a water baby in a jar]\n\nYou must not say that this cannot be, or that that is contrary to nature.\nYou do not know what Nature is, or what she can do; and nobody knows; not\neven Sir Roderick Murchison, or Professor Owen, or Professor Sedgwick, or\nProfessor Huxley, or Mr. Darwin, or Professor Faraday, or Mr. Grove, or\nany other of the great men whom good boys are taught to respect.  They\nare very wise men; and you must listen respectfully to all they say: but\neven if they should say, which I am sure they never would, \u201cThat cannot\nexist.  That is contrary to nature,\u201d you must wait a little, and see; for\nperhaps even they may be wrong.  It is only children who read Aunt\nAgitate\u2019s Arguments, or Cousin Cramchild\u2019s Conversations; or lads who go\nto popular lectures, and see a man pointing at a few big ugly pictures on\nthe wall, or making nasty smells with bottles and squirts, for an hour or\ntwo, and calling that anatomy or chemistry\u2014who talk about \u201ccannot exist,\u201d\nand \u201ccontrary to nature.\u201d  Wise men are afraid to say that there is\nanything contrary to nature, except what is contrary to mathematical\ntruth; for two and two cannot make five, and two straight lines cannot\njoin twice, and a part cannot be as great as the whole, and so on (at\nleast, so it seems at present): but the wiser men are, the less they talk\nabout \u201ccannot.\u201d  That is a very rash, dangerous word, that \u201ccannot\u201d; and\nif people use it too often, the Queen of all the Fairies, who makes the\nclouds thunder and the fleas bite, and takes just as much trouble about\none as about the other, is apt to astonish them suddenly by showing them,\nthat though they say she cannot, yet she can, and what is more, will,\nwhether they approve or not.\n\nAnd therefore it is, that there are dozens and hundreds of things in the\nworld which we should certainly have said were contrary to nature, if we\ndid not see them going on under our eyes all day long.  If people had\nnever seen little seeds grow into great plants and trees, of quite\ndifferent shape from themselves, and these trees again produce fresh\nseeds, to grow into fresh trees, they would have said, \u201cThe thing cannot\nbe; it is contrary to nature.\u201d  And they would have been quite as right\nin saying so, as in saying that most other things cannot be.\n\nOr suppose again, that you had come, like M. Du Chaillu, a traveller from\nunknown parts; and that no human being had ever seen or heard of an\nelephant.  And suppose that you described him to people, and said, \u201cThis\nis the shape, and plan, and anatomy of the beast, and of his feet, and of\nhis trunk, and of his grinders, and of his tusks, though they are not\ntusks at all, but two fore teeth run mad; and this is the section of his\nskull, more like a mushroom than a reasonable skull of a reasonable or\nunreasonable beast; and so forth, and so forth; and though the beast\n(which I assure you I have seen and shot) is first cousin to the little\nhairy coney of Scripture, second cousin to a pig, and (I suspect)\nthirteenth or fourteenth cousin to a rabbit, yet he is the wisest of all\nbeasts, and can do everything save read, write, and cast accounts.\u201d\nPeople would surely have said, \u201cNonsense; your elephant is contrary to\nnature;\u201d and have thought you were telling stories\u2014as the French thought\nof Le Vaillant when he came back to Paris and said that he had shot a\ngiraffe; and as the king of the Cannibal Islands thought of the English\nsailor, when he said that in his country water turned to marble, and rain\nfell as feathers.  They would tell you, the more they knew of science,\n\u201cYour elephant is an impossible monster, contrary to the laws of\ncomparative anatomy, as far as yet known.\u201d  To which you would answer the\nless, the more you thought.\n\nDid not learned men, too, hold, till within the last twenty-five years,\nthat a flying dragon was an impossible monster?  And do we not now know\nthat there are hundreds of them found fossil up and down the world?\nPeople call them Pterodactyles: but that is only because they are ashamed\nto call them flying dragons, after denying so long that flying dragons\ncould exist.\n\nThe truth is, that folks\u2019 fancy that such and such things cannot be,\nsimply because they have not seen them, is worth no more than a savage\u2019s\nfancy that there cannot be such a thing as a locomotive, because he never\nsaw one running wild in the forest.  Wise men know that their business is\nto examine what is, and not to settle what is not.  They know that there\nare elephants; they know that there have been flying dragons; and the\nwiser they are, the less inclined they will be to say positively that\nthere are no water-babies.\n\nNo water-babies, indeed?  Why, wise men of old said that everything on\nearth had its double in the water; and you may see that that is, if not\nquite true, still quite as true as most other theories which you are\nlikely to hear for many a day.  There are land-babies\u2014then why not\nwater-babies?  _Are there not water-rats_, _water-flies_,\n_water-crickets_, _water-crabs_, _water-tortoises_, _water-scorpions_,\n_water-tigers and water-hogs_, _water-cats and water-dogs_, _sea-lions\nand sea-bears_, _sea-horses and sea-elephants_, _sea-mice and\nsea-urchins_, _sea-razors and sea-pens_, _sea-combs and sea-fans_; _and\nof plants_, _are there not water-grass_, _and water-crowfoot_,\n_water-milfoil_, _and so on_, _without end_?\n\n\u201cBut all these things are only nicknames; the water things are not really\nakin to the land things.\u201d\n\nThat\u2019s not always true.  They are, in millions of cases, not only of the\nsame family, but actually the same individual creatures.  Do not even you\nknow that a green drake, and an alder-fly, and a dragon-fly, live under\nwater till they change their skins, just as Tom changed his?  And if a\nwater animal can continually change into a land animal, why should not a\nland animal sometimes change into a water animal?  Don\u2019t be put down by\nany of Cousin Cramchild\u2019s arguments, but stand up to him like a man, and\nanswer him (quite respectfully, of course) thus:\u2014\n\nIf Cousin Cramchild says, that if there are water-babies, they must grow\ninto water-men, ask him how he knows that they do not? and then, how he\nknows that they must, any more than the Proteus of the Adelsberg caverns\ngrows into a perfect newt.\n\nIf he says that it is too strange a transformation for a land-baby to\nturn into a water-baby, ask him if he ever heard of the transformation of\nSyllis, or the Distomas, or the common jelly-fish, of which M.\nQuatrefages says excellently well\u2014\u201cWho would not exclaim that a miracle\nhad come to pass, if he saw a reptile come out of the egg dropped by the\nhen in his poultry-yard, and the reptile give birth at once to an\nindefinite number of fishes and birds?  Yet the history of the jelly-fish\nis quite as wonderful as that would be.\u201d  Ask him if he knows about all\nthis; and if he does not, tell him to go and look for himself; and advise\nhim (very respectfully, of course) to settle no more what strange things\ncannot happen, till he has seen what strange things do happen every day.\n\nIf he says that things cannot degrade, that is, change downwards into\nlower forms, ask him, who told him that water-babies were lower than\nland-babies?  But even if they were, does he know about the strange\ndegradation of the common goose-barnacles, which one finds sticking on\nships\u2019 bottoms; or the still stranger degradation of some cousins of\ntheirs, of which one hardly likes to talk, so shocking and ugly it is?\n\nAnd, lastly, if he says (as he most certainly will) that these\ntransformations only take place in the lower animals, and not in the\nhigher, say that that seems to little boys, and to some grown people, a\nvery strange fancy.  For if the changes of the lower animals are so\nwonderful, and so difficult to discover, why should not there be changes\nin the higher animals far more wonderful, and far more difficult to\ndiscover?  And may not man, the crown and flower of all things, undergo\nsome change as much more wonderful than all the rest, as the Great\nExhibition is more wonderful than a rabbit-burrow?  Let him answer that.\nAnd if he says (as he will) that not having seen such a change in his\nexperience, he is not bound to believe it, ask him respectfully, where\nhis microscope has been?  Does not each of us, in coming into this world,\ngo through a transformation just as wonderful as that of a sea-egg, or a\nbutterfly? and do not reason and analogy, as well as Scripture, tell us\nthat that transformation is not the last? and that, though what we shall\nbe, we know not, yet we are here but as the crawling caterpillar, and\nshall be hereafter as the perfect fly.  The old Greeks, heathens as they\nwere, saw as much as that two thousand years ago; and I care very little\nfor Cousin Cramchild, if he sees even less than they.  And so forth, and\nso forth, till he is quite cross.  And then tell him that if there are no\nwater-babies, at least there ought to be; and that, at least, he cannot\nanswer.\n\nAnd meanwhile, my dear little man, till you know a great deal more about\nnature than Professor Owen and Professor Huxley put together, don\u2019t tell\nme about what cannot be, or fancy that anything is too wonderful to be\ntrue.  \u201cWe are fearfully and wonderfully made,\u201d said old David; and so we\nare; and so is everything around us, down to the very deal table.  Yes;\nmuch more fearfully and wonderfully made, already, is the table, as it\nstands now, nothing but a piece of dead deal wood, than if, as foxes say,\nand geese believe, spirits could make it dance, or talk to you by rapping\non it.\n\nAm I in earnest?  Oh dear no!  Don\u2019t you know that this is a fairy tale,\nand all fun and pretence; and that you are not to believe one word of it,\neven if it is true?\n\nBut at all events, so it happened to Tom.  And, therefore, the keeper,\nand the groom, and Sir John made a great mistake, and were very unhappy\n(Sir John at least) without any reason, when they found a black thing in\nthe water, and said it was Tom\u2019s body, and that he had been drowned.\nThey were utterly mistaken.  Tom was quite alive; and cleaner, and\nmerrier, than he ever had been.  The fairies had washed him, you see, in\nthe swift river, so thoroughly, that not only his dirt, but his whole\nhusk and shell had been washed quite off him, and the pretty little real\nTom was washed out of the inside of it, and swam away, as a caddis does\nwhen its case of stones and silk is bored through, and away it goes on\nits back, paddling to the shore, there to split its skin, and fly away as\na caperer, on four fawn-coloured wings, with long legs and horns.  They\nare foolish fellows, the caperers, and fly into the candle at night, if\nyou leave the door open.  We will hope Tom will be wiser, now he has got\nsafe out of his sooty old shell.\n\n                       [Picture: Collage of events]\n\nBut good Sir John did not understand all this, not being a fellow of the\nLinn\u00e6an Society; and he took it into his head that Tom was drowned.  When\nthey looked into the empty pockets of his shell, and found no jewels\nthere, nor money\u2014nothing but three marbles, and a brass button with a\nstring to it\u2014then Sir John did something as like crying as ever he did in\nhis life, and blamed himself more bitterly than he need have done.  So he\ncried, and the groom-boy cried, and the huntsman cried, and the dame\ncried, and the little girl cried, and the dairymaid cried, and the old\nnurse cried (for it was somewhat her fault), and my lady cried, for\nthough people have wigs, that is no reason why they should not have\nhearts; but the keeper did not cry, though he had been so good-natured to\nTom the morning before; for he was so dried up with running after\npoachers, that you could no more get tears out of him than milk out of\nleather: and Grimes did not cry, for Sir John gave him ten pounds, and he\ndrank it all in a week.  Sir John sent, far and wide, to find Tom\u2019s\nfather and mother: but he might have looked till Doomsday for them, for\none was dead, and the other was in Botany Bay.  And the little girl would\nnot play with her dolls for a whole week, and never forgot poor little\nTom.  And soon my lady put a pretty little tombstone over Tom\u2019s shell in\nthe little churchyard in Vendale, where the old dalesmen all sleep side\nby side between the lime-stone crags.  And the dame decked it with\ngarlands every Sunday, till she grew so old that she could not stir\nabroad; then the little children decked it, for her.  And always she sang\nan old old song, as she sat spinning what she called her wedding-dress.\nThe children could not understand it, but they liked it none the less for\nthat; for it was very sweet, and very sad; and that was enough for them.\nAnd these are the words of it:\u2014\n\n    _When all the world is young_, _lad_,\n       _And all the trees are green_;\n    _And every goose a swan_, _lad_,\n       _And every lass a queen_;\n    _Then hey for boot and horse_, _lad_,\n       _And round the world away_;\n    _Young blood must have its course_, _lad_,\n       _And every dog his day_.\n\n    _When all the world is old_, _lad_,\n       _And all the trees are brown_;\n    _And all the sport is stale_, _lad_,\n       _And all the wheels run down_;\n    _Creep home_, _and take your place there_,\n       _The spent and maimed among_:\n    _God grant you find one face there_,\n       _You loved when all was young_.\n\n                     [Picture: Time and the old man]\n\nThose are the words: but they are only the body of it: the soul of the\nsong was the dear old woman\u2019s sweet face, and sweet voice, and the sweet\nold air to which she sang; and that, alas! one cannot put on paper.  And\nat last she grew so stiff and lame, that the angels were forced to carry\nher; and they helped her on with her wedding-dress, and carried her up\nover Harthover Fells, and a long way beyond that too; and there was a new\nschoolmistress in Vendale, and we will hope that she was not\ncertificated.\n\nAnd all the while Tom was swimming about in the river, with a pretty\nlittle lace-collar of gills about his neck, as lively as a grig, and as\nclean as a fresh-run salmon.\n\nNow if you don\u2019t like my story, then go to the schoolroom and learn your\nmultiplication-table, and see if you like that better.  Some people, no\ndoubt, would do so.  So much the better for us, if not for them.  It\ntakes all sorts, they say, to make a world.\n\n                      [Picture: Water baby and sums]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\n    \u201cHe prayeth well who loveth well\n    Both men and bird and beast;\n    He prayeth best who loveth best\n    All things both great and small:\n    For the dear God who loveth us,\n    He made and loveth all.\u201d\n\n                                                                COLERIDGE.\n\n[Picture: Mermaid] TOM was now quite amphibious.  You do not know what\nthat means?  You had better, then, ask the nearest Government\npupil-teacher, who may possibly answer you smartly enough, thus\u2014\n\n\u201cAmphibious.  Adjective, derived from two Greek words, _amphi_, a fish,\nand _bios_, a beast.  An animal supposed by our ignorant ancestors to be\ncompounded of a fish and a beast; which therefore, like the hippopotamus,\ncan\u2019t live on the land, and dies in the water.\u201d\n\nHowever that may be, Tom was amphibious: and what is better still, he was\nclean.  For the first time in his life, he felt how comfortable it was to\nhave nothing on him but himself.  But he only enjoyed it: he did not know\nit, or think about it; just as you enjoy life and health, and yet never\nthink about being alive and healthy; and may it be long before you have\nto think about it!\n\nHe did not remember having ever been dirty.  Indeed, he did not remember\nany of his old troubles, being tired, or hungry, or beaten, or sent up\ndark chimneys.  Since that sweet sleep, he had forgotten all about his\nmaster, and Harthover Place, and the little white girl, and in a word,\nall that had happened to him when he lived before; and what was best of\nall, he had forgotten all the bad words which he had learned from Grimes,\nand the rude boys with whom he used to play.\n\nThat is not strange: for you know, when you came into this world, and\nbecame a land-baby, you remembered nothing.  So why should he, when he\nbecame a water-baby?\n\nThen have you lived before?\n\nMy dear child, who can tell?  One can only tell that, by remembering\nsomething which happened where we lived before; and as we remember\nnothing, we know nothing about it; and no book, and no man, can ever tell\nus certainly.\n\nThere was a wise man once, a very wise man, and a very good man, who\nwrote a poem about the feelings which some children have about having\nlived before; and this is what he said\u2014\n\n    \u201c_Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting_;\n    _The soul that rises with us_, _our life\u2019s star_,\n                _Hath elsewhere had its setting_,\n                   _And cometh from afar_:\n             _Not in entire forgetfulness_,\n             _And not in utter nakedness_,\n    _But trailing clouds of glory_, _do we come_\n                _From God_, _who is our home_.\u201d\n\n                         [Picture: Woman teacher]\n\nThere, you can know no more than that.  But if I was you, I would believe\nthat.  For then the great fairy Science, who is likely to be queen of all\nthe fairies for many a year to come, can only do you good, and never do\nyou harm; and instead of fancying with some people, that your body makes\nyour soul, as if a steam-engine could make its own coke; or, with some\npeople, that your soul has nothing to do with your body, but is only\nstuck into it like a pin into a pincushion, to fall out with the first\nshake;\u2014you will believe the one true,\n\n_orthodox_,         _inductive_,\n_rational_,         _deductive_,\n_philosophical_,    _seductive_,\n_logical_,          _productive_,\n_irrefragable_,     _salutary_,\n_nominalistic_,     _comfortable_,\n_realistic_,\n_and\non-all-accounts-to-be-received_\n\ndoctrine of this wonderful fairy tale; which is, that your soul makes\nyour body, just as a snail makes his shell.  For the rest, it is enough\nfor us to be sure that whether or not we lived before, we shall live\nagain; though not, I hope, as poor little heathen Tom did.  For he went\ndownward into the water: but we, I hope, shall go upward to a very\ndifferent place.\n\n                       [Picture: Tom in the stream]\n\nBut Tom was very happy in the water.  He had been sadly overworked in the\nland-world; and so now, to make up for that, he had nothing but holidays\nin the water-world for a long, long time to come.  He had nothing to do\nnow but enjoy himself, and look at all the pretty things which are to be\nseen in the cool clear water-world, where the sun is never too hot, and\nthe frost is never too cold.\n\n[Picture: Insect] And what did he live on?  Water-cresses, perhaps; or\nperhaps water-gruel, and water-milk; too many land-babies do so likewise.\nBut we do not know what one-tenth of the water-things eat; so we are not\nanswerable for the water-babies.\n\nSometimes he went along the smooth gravel water-ways, looking at the\ncrickets which ran in and out among the stones, as rabbits do on land; or\nhe climbed over the ledges of rock, and saw the sand-pipes hanging in\nthousands, with every one of them a pretty little head and legs peeping\nout; or he went into a still corner, and watched the caddises eating dead\nsticks as greedily as you would eat plum-pudding, and building their\nhouses with silk and glue.  Very fanciful ladies they were; none of them\nwould keep to the same materials for a day.  One would begin with some\npebbles; then she would stick on a piece of green wood; then she found a\nshell, and stuck it on too; and the poor shell was alive, and did not\nlike at all being taken to build houses with: but the caddis did not let\nhim have any voice in the matter, being rude and selfish, as vain people\nare apt to be; then she stuck on a piece of rotten wood, then a very\nsmart pink stone, and so on, till she was patched all over like an\nIrishman\u2019s coat.  Then she found a long straw, five times as long as\nherself, and said, \u201cHurrah! my sister has a tail, and I\u2019ll have one too;\u201d\nand she stuck it on her back, and marched about with it quite proud,\nthough it was very inconvenient indeed.  And, at that, tails became all\nthe fashion among the caddis-baits in that pool, as they were at the end\nof the Long Pond last May, and they all toddled about with long straws\nsticking out behind, getting between each other\u2019s legs, and tumbling over\neach other, and looking so ridiculous, that Tom laughed at them till he\ncried, as we did.  But they were quite right, you know; for people must\nalways follow the fashion, even if it be spoon-bonnets.\n\n[Picture: Lady in 1862 bonnet] Then sometimes he came to a deep still\nreach; and there he saw the water-forests.  They would have looked to you\nonly little weeds: but Tom, you must remember, was so little that\neverything looked a hundred times as big to him as it does to you, just\nas things do to a minnow, who sees and catches the little water-creatures\nwhich you can only see in a microscope.\n\nAnd in the water-forest he saw the water-monkeys and water-squirrels\n(they had all six legs, though; everything almost has six legs in the\nwater, except efts and water-babies); and nimbly enough they ran among\nthe branches.  There were water-flowers there too, in thousands; and Tom\ntried to pick them: but as soon as he touched them, they drew themselves\nin and turned into knots of jelly; and then Tom saw that they were all\nalive\u2014bells, and stars, and wheels, and flowers, of all beautiful shapes\nand colours; and all alive and busy, just as Tom was.  So now he found\nthat there was a great deal more in the world than he had fancied at\nfirst sight.\n\nThere was one wonderful little fellow, too, who peeped out of the top of\na house built of round bricks.  He had two big wheels, and one little\none, all over teeth, spinning round and round like the wheels in a\nthrashing-machine; and Tom stood and stared at him, to see what he was\ngoing to make with his machinery.  And what do you think he was doing?\nBrick-making.  With his two big wheels he swept together all the mud\nwhich floated in the water: all that was nice in it he put into his\nstomach and ate; and all the mud he put into the little wheel on his\nbreast, which really was a round hole set with teeth; and there he spun\nit into a neat hard round brick; and then he took it and stuck it on the\ntop of his house-wall, and set to work to make another. Now was not he a\nclever little fellow?\n\nTom thought so: but when he wanted to talk to him the brick-maker was\nmuch too busy and proud of his work to take notice of him.\n\nNow you must know that all the things under the water talk; only not such\na language as ours; but such as horses, and dogs, and cows, and birds\ntalk to each other; and Tom soon learned to understand them and talk to\nthem; so that he might have had very pleasant company if he had only been\na good boy.  But I am sorry to say, he was too like some other little\nboys, very fond of hunting and tormenting creatures for mere sport.  Some\npeople say that boys cannot help it; that it is nature, and only a proof\nthat we are all originally descended from beasts of prey.  But whether it\nis nature or not, little boys can help it, and must help it.  For if they\nhave naughty, low, mischievous tricks in their nature, as monkeys have,\nthat is no reason why they should give way to those tricks like monkeys,\nwho know no better.  And therefore they must not torment dumb creatures;\nfor if they do, a certain old lady who is coming will surely give them\nexactly what they deserve.\n\nBut Tom did not know that; and he pecked and howked the poor water-things\nabout sadly, till they were all afraid of him, and got out of his way, or\ncrept into their shells; so he had no one to speak to or play with.\n\nThe water-fairies, of course, were very sorry to see him so unhappy, and\nlonged to take him, and tell him how naughty he was, and teach him to be\ngood, and to play and romp with him too: but they had been forbidden to\ndo that.  Tom had to learn his lesson for himself by sound and sharp\nexperience, as many another foolish person has to do, though there may be\nmany a kind heart yearning over them all the while, and longing to teach\nthem what they can only teach themselves.\n\nAt last one day he found a caddis, and wanted it to peep out of its\nhouse: but its house-door was shut.  He had never seen a caddis with a\nhouse-door before: so what must he do, the meddlesome little fellow, but\npull it open, to see what the poor lady was doing inside.  What a shame!\nHow should you like to have any one breaking your bedroom-door in, to see\nhow you looked when you where in bed?  So Tom broke to pieces the door,\nwhich was the prettiest little grating of silk, stuck all over with\nshining bits of crystal; and when he looked in, the caddis poked out her\nhead, and it had turned into just the shape of a bird\u2019s.  But when Tom\nspoke to her she could not answer; for her mouth and face were tight tied\nup in a new night-cap of neat pink skin.  However, if she didn\u2019t answer,\nall the other caddises did; for they held up their hands and shrieked\nlike the cats in Struwelpeter: \u201c_Oh_, _you nasty horrid boy_; _there you\nare at it again_!  _And she had just laid herself up for a fortnight\u2019s\nsleep_, _and then she would have come out with such beautiful wings_,\n_and flown about_, _and laid such lots of eggs_: _and now you have broken\nher door_, _and she can\u2019t mend it because her mouth is tied up for a\nfortnight_, _and she will die_.  _Who sent you here to worry us out of\nour lives_?\u201d\n\n                        [Picture: Tom and a fish]\n\nSo Tom swam away.  He was very much ashamed of himself, and felt all the\nnaughtier; as little boys do when they have done wrong and won\u2019t say so.\n\nThen he came to a pool full of little trout, and began tormenting them,\nand trying to catch them: but they slipped through his fingers, and\njumped clean out of water in their fright.  But as Tom chased them, he\ncame close to a great dark hover under an alder root, and out floushed a\nhuge old brown trout ten times as big as he was, and ran right against\nhim, and knocked all the breath out of his body; and I don\u2019t know which\nwas the more frightened of the two.\n\nThen he went on sulky and lonely, as he deserved to be; and under a bank\nhe saw a very ugly dirty creature sitting, about half as big as himself;\nwhich had six legs, and a big stomach, and a most ridiculous head with\ntwo great eyes and a face just like a donkey\u2019s.\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d said Tom, \u201cyou are an ugly fellow to be sure!\u201d and he began making\nfaces at him; and put his nose close to him, and halloed at him, like a\nvery rude boy.\n\nWhen, hey presto; all the thing\u2019s donkey-face came off in a moment, and\nout popped a long arm with a pair of pincers at the end of it, and caught\nTom by the nose.  It did not hurt him much; but it held him quite tight.\n\n\u201cYah, ah!  Oh, let me go!\u201d cried Tom.\n\n\u201cThen let me go,\u201d said the creature.  \u201cI want to be quiet.  I want to\nsplit.\u201d\n\nTom promised to let him alone, and he let go.\n\n\u201cWhy do you want to split?\u201d said Tom.\n\n\u201cBecause my brothers and sisters have all split, and turned into\nbeautiful creatures with wings; and I want to split too.  Don\u2019t speak to\nme.  I am sure I shall split.  I will split!\u201d\n\nTom stood still, and watched him.  And he swelled himself, and puffed,\nand stretched himself out stiff, and at last\u2014crack, puff, bang\u2014he opened\nall down his back, and then up to the top of his head.\n\nAnd out of his inside came the most slender, elegant, soft creature, as\nsoft and smooth as Tom: but very pale and weak, like a little child who\nhas been ill a long time in a dark room.  It moved its legs very feebly;\nand looked about it half ashamed, like a girl when she goes for the first\ntime into a ballroom; and then it began walking slowly up a grass stem to\nthe top of the water.\n\nTom was so astonished that he never said a word but he stared with all\nhis eyes.  And he went up to the top of the water too, and peeped out to\nsee what would happen.\n\nAnd as the creature sat in the warm bright sun, a wonderful change came\nover it.  It grew strong and firm; the most lovely colours began to show\non its body, blue and yellow and black, spots and bars and rings; out of\nits back rose four great wings of bright brown gauze; and its eyes grew\nso large that they filled all its head, and shone like ten thousand\ndiamonds.\n\n\u201cOh, you beautiful creature!\u201d said Tom; and he put out his hand to catch\nit.\n\nBut the thing whirred up into the air, and hung poised on its wings a\nmoment, and then settled down again by Tom quite fearless.\n\n                    [Picture: Tom and the dragon-fly]\n\n\u201cNo!\u201d it said, \u201cyou cannot catch me.  I am a dragon-fly now, the king of\nall the flies; and I shall dance in the sunshine, and hawk over the\nriver, and catch gnats, and have a beautiful wife like myself.  I know\nwhat I shall do.  Hurrah!\u201d  And he flew away into the air, and began\ncatching gnats.\n\n\u201cOh! come back, come back,\u201d cried Tom, \u201cyou beautiful creature.  I have\nno one to play with, and I am so lonely here.  If you will but come back\nI will never try to catch you.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t care whether you do or not,\u201d said the dragon-fly; \u201cfor you\ncan\u2019t.  But when I have had my dinner, and looked a little about this\npretty place, I will come back, and have a little chat about all I have\nseen in my travels.  Why, what a huge tree this is! and what huge leaves\non it!\u201d\n\nIt was only a big dock: but you know the dragon-fly had never seen any\nbut little water-trees; starwort, and milfoil, and water-crowfoot, and\nsuch like; so it did look very big to him.  Besides, he was very\nshort-sighted, as all dragon-flies are; and never could see a yard before\nhis nose; any more than a great many other folks, who are not half as\nhandsome as he.\n\nThe dragon-fly did come back, and chatted away with Tom.  He was a little\nconceited about his fine colours and his large wings; but you know, he\nhad been a poor dirty ugly creature all his life before; so there were\ngreat excuses for him.  He was very fond of talking about all the\nwonderful things he saw in the trees and the meadows; and Tom liked to\nlisten to him, for he had forgotten all about them.  So in a little while\nthey became great friends.\n\nAnd I am very glad to say, that Tom learned such a lesson that day, that\nhe did not torment creatures for a long time after.  And then the\ncaddises grew quite tame, and used to tell him strange stories about the\nway they built their houses, and changed their skins, and turned at last\ninto winged flies; till Tom began to long to change his skin, and have\nwings like them some day.\n\n[Picture: Acrobat] And the trout and he made it up (for trout very soon\nforget if they have been frightened and hurt).  So Tom used to play with\nthem at hare and hounds, and great fun they had; and he used to try to\nleap out of the water, head over heels, as they did before a shower came\non; but somehow he never could manage it.  He liked most, though, to see\nthem rising at the flies, as they sailed round and round under the shadow\nof the great oak, where the beetles fell flop into the water, and the\ngreen caterpillars let themselves down from the boughs by silk ropes for\nno reason at all; and then changed their foolish minds for no reason at\nall either; and hauled themselves up again into the tree, rolling up the\nrope in a ball between their paws; which is a very clever rope-dancer\u2019s\ntrick, and neither Blondin nor Leotard could do it: but why they should\ntake so much trouble about it no one can tell; for they cannot get their\nliving, as Blondin and Leotard do, by trying to break their necks on a\nstring.\n\nAnd very often Tom caught them just as they touched the water; and caught\nthe alder-flies, and the caperers, and the cock-tailed duns and spinners,\nyellow, and brown, and claret, and gray, and gave them to his friends the\ntrout.  Perhaps he was not quite kind to the flies; but one must do a\ngood turn to one\u2019s friends when one can.\n\nAnd at last he gave up catching even the flies; for he made acquaintance\nwith one by accident and found him a very merry little fellow.  And this\nwas the way it happened; and it is all quite true.\n\nHe was basking at the top of the water one hot day in July, catching duns\nand feeding the trout, when he saw a new sort, a dark gray little fellow\nwith a brown head.  He was a very little fellow indeed: but he made the\nmost of himself, as people ought to do.  He cocked up his head, and he\ncocked up his wings, and he cocked up his tail, and he cocked up the two\nwhisks at his tail-end, and, in short, he looked the cockiest little man\nof all little men.  And so he proved to be; for instead of getting away,\nhe hopped upon Tom\u2019s finger, and sat there as bold as nine tailors; and\nhe cried out in the tiniest, shrillest, squeakiest little voice you ever\nheard,\n\n\u201cMuch obliged to you, indeed; but I don\u2019t want it yet.\u201d\n\n\u201cWant what?\u201d said Tom, quite taken aback by his impudence.\n\n\u201cYour leg, which you are kind enough to hold out for me to sit on.  I\nmust just go and see after my wife for a few minutes.  Dear me! what a\ntroublesome business a family is!\u201d (though the idle little rogue did\nnothing at all, but left his poor wife to lay all the eggs by herself).\n\u201cWhen I come back, I shall be glad of it, if you\u2019ll be so good as to keep\nit sticking out just so;\u201d and off he flew.\n\nTom thought him a very cool sort of personage; and still more so, when,\nin five minutes he came back, and said\u2014\u201cAh, you were tired waiting?\nWell, your other leg will do as well.\u201d\n\nAnd he popped himself down on Tom\u2019s knee, and began chatting away in his\nsqueaking voice.\n\n\u201cSo you live under the water?  It\u2019s a low place.  I lived there for some\ntime; and was very shabby and dirty.  But I didn\u2019t choose that that\nshould last.  So I turned respectable, and came up to the top, and put on\nthis gray suit.  It\u2019s a very business-like suit, you think, don\u2019t you?\u201d\n\n\u201cVery neat and quiet indeed,\u201d said Tom.\n\n\u201cYes, one must be quiet and neat and respectable, and all that sort of\nthing for a little, when one becomes a family man.  But I\u2019m tired of it,\nthat\u2019s the truth.  I\u2019ve done quite enough business, I consider, in the\nlast week, to last me my life.  So I shall put on a ball dress, and go\nout and be a smart man, and see the gay world, and have a dance or two.\nWhy shouldn\u2019t one be jolly if one can?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what will become of your wife?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! she is a very plain stupid creature, and that\u2019s the truth; and\nthinks about nothing but eggs.  If she chooses to come, why she may; and\nif not, why I go without her;\u2014and here I go.\u201d\n\nAnd, as he spoke, he turned quite pale, and then quite white.\n\n\u201cWhy, you\u2019re ill!\u201d said Tom.  But he did not answer.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re dead,\u201d said Tom, looking at him as he stood on his knee as white\nas a ghost.\n\n\u201cNo, I ain\u2019t!\u201d answered a little squeaking voice over his head.  \u201cThis is\nme up here, in my ball-dress; and that\u2019s my skin.  Ha, ha! you could not\ndo such a trick as that!\u201d\n\nAnd no more Tom could, nor Houdin, nor Robin, nor Frikell, nor all the\nconjurors in the world.  For the little rogue had jumped clean out of his\nown skin, and left it standing on Tom\u2019s knee, eyes, wings, legs, tail,\nexactly as if it had been alive.\n\n\u201cHa, ha!\u201d he said, and he jerked and skipped up and down, never stopping\nan instant, just as if he had St. Vitus\u2019s dance.  \u201cAin\u2019t I a pretty\nfellow now?\u201d\n\nAnd so he was; for his body was white, and his tail orange, and his eyes\nall the colours of a peacock\u2019s tail.  And what was the oddest of all, the\nwhisks at the end of his tail had grown five times as long as they were\nbefore.\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d said he, \u201cnow I will see the gay world.  My living, won\u2019t cost me\nmuch, for I have no mouth, you see, and no inside; so I can never be\nhungry nor have the stomach-ache neither.\u201d\n\nNo more he had.  He had grown as dry and hard and empty as a quill, as\nsuch silly shallow-hearted fellows deserve to grow.\n\nBut, instead of being ashamed of his emptiness, he was quite proud of it,\nas a good many fine gentlemen are, and began flirting and flipping up and\ndown, and singing\u2014\n\n    \u201c_My wife shall dance_, _and I shall sing_,\n       _So merrily pass the day_;\n    _For I hold it for quite the wisest thing_,\n       _To drive dull care away_.\u201d\n\nAnd he danced up and down for three days and three nights, till he grew\nso tired, that he tumbled into the water, and floated down.  But what\nbecame of him Tom never knew, and he himself never minded; for Tom heard\nhim singing to the last, as he floated down\u2014\n\n    \u201c_To drive dull care away-ay-ay_!\u201d\n\nAnd if he did not care, why nobody else cared either.\n\nBut one day Tom had a new adventure.  He was sitting on a water-lily\nleaf, he and his friend the dragon-fly, watching the gnats dance.  The\ndragon-fly had eaten as many as he wanted, and was sitting quite still\nand sleepy, for it was very hot and bright.  The gnats (who did not care\nthe least for their poor brothers\u2019 death) danced a foot over his head\nquite happily, and a large black fly settled within an inch of his nose,\nand began washing his own face and combing his hair with his paws: but\nthe dragon-fly never stirred, and kept on chatting to Tom about the times\nwhen he lived under the water.\n\nSuddenly, Tom heard the strangest noise up the stream; cooing, and\ngrunting, and whining, and squeaking, as if you had put into a bag two\nstock-doves, nine mice, three guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy, and left\nthem there to settle themselves and make music.\n\nHe looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as the noise;\na great ball rolling over and over down the stream, seeming one moment of\nsoft brown fur, and the next of shining glass: and yet it was not a ball;\nfor sometimes it broke up and streamed away in pieces, and then it joined\nagain; and all the while the noise came out of it louder and louder.\n\nTom asked the dragon-fly what it could be: but, of course, with his short\nsight, he could not even see it, though it was not ten yards away.  So he\ntook the neatest little header into the water, and started off to see for\nhimself; and, when he came near, the ball turned out to be four or five\nbeautiful creatures, many times larger than Tom, who were swimming about,\nand rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling, and cuddling, and\nkissing and biting, and scratching, in the most charming fashion that\never was seen.  And if you don\u2019t believe me, you may go to the Zoological\nGardens (for I am afraid that you won\u2019t see it nearer, unless, perhaps,\nyou get up at five in the morning, and go down to Cordery\u2019s Moor, and\nwatch by the great withy pollard which hangs over the backwater, where\nthe otters breed sometimes), and then say, if otters at play in the water\nare not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creatures you ever saw.\n\nBut, when the biggest of them saw Tom, she darted out from the rest, and\ncried in the water-language sharply enough, \u201cQuick, children, here is\nsomething to eat, indeed!\u201d and came at poor Tom, showing such a wicked\npair of eyes, and such a set of sharp teeth in a grinning mouth, that\nTom, who had thought her very handsome, said to himself, _Handsome is\nthat handsome does_, and slipped in between the water-lily roots as fast\nas he could, and then turned round and made faces at her.\n\n\u201cCome out,\u201d said the wicked old otter, \u201cor it will be worse for you.\u201d\n\nBut Tom looked at her from between two thick roots, and shook them with\nall his might, making horrible faces all the while, just as he used to\ngrin through the railings at the old women, when he lived before.  It was\nnot quite well bred, no doubt; but you know, Tom had not finished his\neducation yet.\n\n                           [Picture: The otter]\n\n\u201cCome, away, children,\u201d said the otter in disgust, \u201cit is not worth\neating, after all.  It is only a nasty eft, which nothing eats, not even\nthose vulgar pike in the pond.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am not an eft!\u201d said Tom; \u201cefts have tails.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are an eft,\u201d said the otter, very positively; \u201cI see your two hands\nquite plain, and I know you have a tail.\u201d\n\n\u201cI tell you I have not,\u201d said Tom.  \u201cLook here!\u201d and he turned his pretty\nlittle self quite round; and, sure enough, he had no more tail than you.\n\nThe otter might have got out of it by saying that Tom was a frog: but,\nlike a great many other people, when she had once said a thing, she stood\nto it, right or wrong; so she answered:\n\n\u201cI say you are an eft, and therefore you are, and not fit food for\ngentlefolk like me and my children.  You may stay there till the salmon\neat you (she knew the salmon would not, but she wanted to frighten poor\nTom).  Ha! ha! they will eat you, and we will eat them;\u201d and the otter\nlaughed such a wicked cruel laugh\u2014as you may hear them do sometimes; and\nthe first time that you hear it you will probably think it is bogies.\n\n\u201cWhat are salmon?\u201d asked Tom.\n\n\u201cFish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat.  They are the lords of the\nfish, and we are lords of the salmon;\u201d and she laughed again.  \u201cWe hunt\nthem up and down the pools, and drive them up into a corner, the silly\nthings; they are so proud, and bully the little trout, and the minnows,\ntill they see us coming, and then they are so meek all at once, and we\ncatch them, but we disdain to eat them all; we just bite out their soft\nthroats and suck their sweet juice\u2014Oh, so good!\u201d\u2014(and she licked her\nwicked lips)\u2014\u201cand then throw them away, and go and catch another.  They\nare coming soon, children, coming soon; I can smell the rain coming up\noff the sea, and then hurrah for a fresh, and salmon, and plenty of\neating all day long.\u201d\n\n                       [Picture: Tom and the otter]\n\nAnd the otter grew so proud that she turned head over heels twice, and\nthen stood upright half out of the water, grinning like a Cheshire cat.\n\n\u201cAnd where do they come from?\u201d asked Tom, who kept himself very close,\nfor he was considerably frightened.\n\n\u201cOut of the sea, eft, the great wide sea, where they might stay and be\nsafe if they liked.  But out of the sea the silly things come, into the\ngreat river down below, and we come up to watch for them; and when they\ngo down again we go down and follow them.  And there we fish for the bass\nand the pollock, and have jolly days along the shore, and toss and roll\nin the breakers, and sleep snug in the warm dry crags.  Ah, that is a\nmerry life too, children, if it were not for those horrid men.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat are men?\u201d asked Tom; but somehow he seemed to know before he asked.\n\n\u201cTwo-legged things, eft: and, now I come to look at you, they are\nactually something like you, if you had not a tail\u201d (she was determined\nthat Tom should have a tail), \u201conly a great deal bigger, worse luck for\nus; and they catch the fish with hooks and lines, which get into our feet\nsometimes, and set pots along the rocks to catch lobsters.  They speared\nmy poor dear husband as he went out to find something for me to eat.  I\nwas laid up among the crags then, and we were very low in the world, for\nthe sea was so rough that no fish would come in shore.  But they speared\nhim, poor fellow, and I saw them carrying him away upon a pole.  All, he\nlost his life for your sakes, my children, poor dear obedient creature\nthat he was.\u201d\n\nAnd the otter grew so sentimental (for otters can be very sentimental\nwhen they choose, like a good many people who are both cruel and greedy,\nand no good to anybody at all) that she sailed solemnly away down the\nburn, and Tom saw her no more for that time.  And lucky it was for her\nthat she did so; for no sooner was she gone, than down the bank came\nseven little rough terrier doors, snuffing and yapping, and grubbing and\nsplashing, in full cry after the otter.  Tom hid among the water-lilies\ntill they were gone; for he could not guess that they were the\nwater-fairies come to help him.\n\nBut he could not help thinking of what the otter had said about the great\nriver and the broad sea.  And, as he thought, he longed to go and see\nthem.  He could not tell why; but the more he thought, the more he grew\ndiscontented with the narrow little stream in which he lived, and all his\ncompanions there; and wanted to get out into the wide wide world, and\nenjoy all the wonderful sights of which he was sure it was full.\n\nAnd once he set off to go down the stream.  But the stream was very low;\nand when he came to the shallows he could not keep under water, for there\nwas no water left to keep under.  So the sun burned his back and made him\nsick; and he went back again and lay quiet in the pool for a whole week\nmore.\n\nAnd then, on the evening of a very hot day, he saw a sight.\n\nHe had been very stupid all day, and so had the trout; for they would not\nmove an inch to take a fly, though there were thousands on the water, but\nlay dozing at the bottom under the shade of the stones; and Tom lay\ndozing too, and was glad to cuddle their smooth cool sides, for the water\nwas quite warm and unpleasant.\n\nBut toward evening it grew suddenly dark, and Tom looked up and saw a\nblanket of black clouds lying right across the valley above his head,\nresting on the crags right and left.  He felt not quite frightened, but\nvery still; for everything was still.  There was not a whisper of wind,\nnor a chirp of a bird to be heard; and next a few great drops of rain\nfell plop into the water, and one hit Tom on the nose, and made him pop\nhis head down quickly enough.\n\nAnd then the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed, and leapt across\nVendale and back again, from cloud to cloud, and cliff to cliff, till the\nvery rocks in the stream seemed to shake: and Tom looked up at it through\nthe water, and thought it the finest thing he ever saw in his life.\n\nBut out of the water he dared not put his head; for the rain came down by\nbucketsful, and the hail hammered like shot on the stream, and churned it\ninto foam; and soon the stream rose, and rushed down, higher and higher,\nand fouler and fouler, full of beetles, and sticks; and straws, and\nworms, and addle-eggs, and wood-lice, and leeches, and odds and ends, and\nomnium-gatherums, and this, that, and the other, enough to fill nine\nmuseums.\n\nTom could hardly stand against the stream, and hid behind a rock.  But\nthe trout did not; for out they rushed from among the stones, and began\ngobbling the beetles and leeches in the most greedy and quarrelsome way,\nand swimming about with great worms hanging out of their mouths, tugging\nand kicking to get them away from each other.\n\nAnd now, by the flashes of the lightning, Tom saw a new sight\u2014all the\nbottom of the stream alive with great eels, turning and twisting along,\nall down stream and away.  They had been hiding for weeks past in the\ncracks of the rocks, and in burrows in the mud; and Tom had hardly ever\nseen them, except now and then at night: but now they were all out, and\nwent hurrying past him so fiercely and wildly that he was quite\nfrightened.  And as they hurried past he could hear them say to each\nother, \u201cWe must run, we must run.  What a jolly thunderstorm!  Down to\nthe sea, down to the sea!\u201d\n\nAnd then the otter came by with all her brood, twining and sweeping along\nas fast as the eels themselves; and she spied Tom as she came by, and\nsaid \u201cNow is your time, eft, if you want to see the world.  Come along,\nchildren, never mind those nasty eels: we shall breakfast on salmon\nto-morrow.  Down to the sea, down to the sea!\u201d\n\n                       [Picture: Tom with the eels]\n\nThen came a flash brighter than all the rest, and by the light of it\u2014in\nthe thousandth part of a second they were gone again\u2014but he had seen\nthem, he was certain of it\u2014Three beautiful little white girls, with their\narms twined round each other\u2019s necks, floating down the torrent, as they\nsang, \u201cDown to the sea, down to the sea!\u201d\n\n\u201cOh stay!  Wait for me!\u201d cried Tom; but they were gone: yet he could hear\ntheir voices clear and sweet through the roar of thunder and water and\nwind, singing as they died away, \u201cDown to the sea!\u201d\n\n\u201cDown to the sea?\u201d said Tom; \u201ceverything is going to the sea, and I will\ngo too.  Good-bye, trout.\u201d  But the trout were so busy gobbling worms\nthat they never turned to answer him; so that Tom was spared the pain of\nbidding them farewell.\n\nAnd now, down the rushing stream, guided by the bright flashes of the\nstorm; past tall birch-fringed rocks, which shone out one moment as clear\nas day, and the next were dark as night; past dark hovers under swirling\nbanks, from which great trout rushed out on Tom, thinking him to be good\nto eat, and turned back sulkily, for the fairies sent them home again\nwith a tremendous scolding, for daring to meddle with a water-baby; on\nthrough narrow strids and roaring cataracts, where Tom was deafened and\nblinded for a moment by the rushing waters; along deep reaches, where the\nwhite water-lilies tossed and flapped beneath the wind and hail; past\nsleeping villages; under dark bridge-arches, and away and away to the\nsea.  And Tom could not stop, and did not care to stop; he would see the\ngreat world below, and the salmon, and the breakers, and the wide wide\nsea.\n\nAnd when the daylight came, Tom found himself out in the salmon river.\n\nAnd what sort of a river was it?  Was it like an Irish stream, winding\nthrough the brown bogs, where the wild ducks squatter up from among the\nwhite water-lilies, and the curlews flit to and fro, crying\n\u201cTullie-wheep, mind your sheep;\u201d and Dennis tells you strange stories of\nthe Peishtamore, the great bogy-snake which lies in the black peat pools,\namong the old pine-stems, and puts his head out at night to snap at the\ncattle as they come down to drink?\u2014But you must not believe all that\nDennis tells you, mind; for if you ask him:\n\n\u201cIs there a salmon here, do you think, Dennis?\u201d\n\n\u201cIs it salmon, thin, your honour manes?  Salmon?  Cartloads it is of\nthim, thin, an\u2019 ridgmens, shouldthering ache out of water, av\u2019 ye\u2019d but\nthe luck to see thim.\u201d\n\nThen you fish the pool all over, and never get a rise.\n\n\u201cBut there can\u2019t be a salmon here, Dennis! and, if you\u2019ll but think, if\none had come up last tide, he\u2019d be gone to the higher pools by now.\u201d\n\n                       [Picture: Dennis with pigs]\n\n\u201cShure thin, and your honour\u2019s the thrue fisherman, and understands it\nall like a book.  Why, ye spake as if ye\u2019d known the wather a thousand\nyears!  As I said, how could there be a fish here at all, just now?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you said just now they were shouldering each other out of water?\u201d\n\nAnd then Dennis will look up at you with his handsome, sly, soft, sleepy,\ngood-natured, untrustable, Irish gray eye, and answer with the prettiest\nsmile:\n\n\u201cShure, and didn\u2019t I think your honour would like a pleasant answer?\u201d\n\nSo you must not trust Dennis, because he is in the habit of giving\npleasant answers: but, instead of being angry with him, you must remember\nthat he is a poor Paddy, and knows no better; so you must just burst out\nlaughing; and then he will burst out laughing too, and slave for you, and\ntrot about after you, and show you good sport if he can\u2014for he is an\naffectionate fellow, and as fond of sport as you are\u2014and if he can\u2019t,\ntell you fibs instead, a hundred an hour; and wonder all the while why\npoor ould Ireland does not prosper like England and Scotland, and some\nother places, where folk have taken up a ridiculous fancy that honesty is\nthe best policy.\n\nOr was it like a Welsh salmon river, which is remarkable chiefly (at\nleast, till this last year) for containing no salmon, as they have been\nall poached out by the enlightened peasantry, to prevent the _Cythrawl\nSassenach_ (which means you, my little dear, your kith and kin, and\nsignifies much the same as the Chinese _Fan Quei_) from coming bothering\ninto Wales, with good tackle, and ready money, and civilisation, and\ncommon honesty, and other like things of which the Cymry stand in no need\nwhatsoever?\n\nOr was it such a salmon stream as I trust you will see among the\nHampshire water-meadows before your hairs are gray, under the wise new\nfishing-laws?\u2014when Winchester apprentices shall covenant, as they did\nthree hundred years ago, not to be made to eat salmon more than three\ndays a week; and fresh-run fish shall be as plentiful under Salisbury\nspire as they are in Holly-hole at Christchurch; in the good time coming,\nwhen folks shall see that, of all Heaven\u2019s gifts of food, the one to be\nprotected most carefully is that worthy gentleman salmon, who is generous\nenough to go down to the sea weighing five ounces, and to come back next\nyear weighing five pounds, without having cost the soil or the state one\nfarthing?\n\nOr was it like a Scotch stream, such as Arthur Clough drew in his\n\u201cBothie\u201d:\u2014\n\n             \u201c_Where over a ledge of granite_\n    _Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended_. . . . .\n    _Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under_;\n    _Beautiful most of all_, _where beads of foam uprising_\n    _Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the\n    stillness_. . . .\n    _Cliff over cliff for its sides_, _with rowan and pendant birch\n    boughs_.\u201d . . .\n\nAh, my little man, when you are a big man, and fish such a stream as\nthat, you will hardly care, I think, whether she be roaring down in full\nspate, like coffee covered with scald cream, while the fish are swirling\nat your fly as an oar-blade swirls in a boat-race, or flashing up the\ncataract like silver arrows, out of the fiercest of the foam; or whether\nthe fall be dwindled to a single thread, and the shingle below be as\nwhite and dusty as a turnpike road, while the salmon huddle together in\none dark cloud in the clear amber pool, sleeping away their time till the\nrain creeps back again off the sea.  You will not care much, if you have\neyes and brains; for you will lay down your rod contentedly, and drink in\nat your eyes the beauty of that glorious place; and listen to the\nwater-ouzel piping on the stones, and watch the yellow roes come down to\ndrink and look up at you with their great soft trustful eyes, as much as\nto say, \u201cYou could not have the heart to shoot at us?\u201d  And then, if you\nhave sense, you will turn and talk to the great giant of a gilly who lies\nbasking on the stone beside you.  He will tell you no fibs, my little\nman; for he is a Scotchman, and fears God, and not the priest; and, as\nyou talk with him, you will be surprised more and more at his knowledge,\nhis sense, his humour, his courtesy; and you will find out\u2014unless you\nhave found it out before\u2014that a man may learn from his Bible to be a more\nthorough gentleman than if he had been brought up in all the\ndrawing-rooms in London.\n\n                           [Picture: Scotsman]\n\nNo.  It was none of these, the salmon stream at Harthover.  It was such a\nstream as you see in dear old Bewick; Bewick, who was born and bred upon\nthem.  A full hundred yards broad it was, sliding on from broad pool to\nbroad shallow, and broad shallow to broad pool, over great fields of\nshingle, under oak and ash coverts, past low cliffs of sandstone, past\ngreen meadows, and fair parks, and a great house of gray stone, and brown\nmoors above, and here and there against the sky the smoking chimney of a\ncolliery.  You must look at Bewick to see just what it was like, for he\nhas drawn it a hundred times with the care and the love of a true north\ncountryman; and, even if you do not care about the salmon river, you\nought, like all good boys, to know your Bewick.\n\nAt least, so old Sir John used to say, and very sensibly he put it too,\nas he was wont to do:\n\n\u201cIf they want to describe a finished young gentleman in France, I hear,\nthey say of him, \u2018_Il sait son Rabelais_.\u2019  But if I want to describe one\nin England, I say, \u2018_He knows his Bewick_.\u2019  And I think that is the\nhigher compliment.\u201d\n\nBut Tom thought nothing about what the river was like.  All his fancy\nwas, to get down to the wide wide sea.\n\nAnd after a while he came to a place where the river spread out into\nbroad still shallow reaches, so wide that little Tom, as he put his head\nout of the water, could hardly see across.\n\nAnd there he stopped.  He got a little frightened.  \u201cThis must be the\nsea,\u201d he thought.  \u201cWhat a wide place it is!  If I go on into it I shall\nsurely lose my way, or some strange thing will bite me.  I will stop here\nand look out for the otter, or the eels, or some one to tell me where I\nshall go.\u201d\n\nSo he went back a little way, and crept into a crack of the rock, just\nwhere the river opened out into the wide shallows, and watched for some\none to tell him his way: but the otter and the eels were gone on miles\nand miles down the stream.\n\nThere he waited, and slept too, for he was quite tired with his night\u2019s\njourney; and, when he woke, the stream was clearing to a beautiful amber\nhue, though it was still very high.  And after a while he saw a sight\nwhich made him jump up; for he knew in a moment it was one of the things\nwhich he had come to look for.\n\nSuch a fish! ten times as big as the biggest trout, and a hundred times\nas big as Tom, sculling up the stream past him, as easily as Tom had\nsculled down.\n\nSuch a fish! shining silver from head to tail, and here and there a\ncrimson dot; with a grand hooked nose and grand curling lip, and a grand\nbright eye, looking round him as proudly as a king, and surveying the\nwater right and left as if all belonged to him.  Surely he must be the\nsalmon, the king of all the fish.\n\n                      [Picture: Tom and the salmon]\n\nTom was so frightened that he longed to creep into a hole; but he need\nnot have been; for salmon are all true gentlemen, and, like true\ngentlemen, they look noble and proud enough, and yet, like true\ngentlemen, they never harm or quarrel with any one, but go about their\nown business, and leave rude fellows to themselves.\n\nThe salmon looked at him full in the face, and then went on without\nminding him, with a swish or two of his tail which made the stream boil\nagain. And in a few minutes came another, and then four or five, and so\non; and all passed Tom, rushing and plunging up the cataract with strong\nstrokes of their silver tails, now and then leaping clean out of water\nand up over a rock, shining gloriously for a moment in the bright sun;\nwhile Tom was so delighted that he could have watched them all day long.\n\nAnd at last one came up bigger than all the rest; but he came slowly, and\nstopped, and looked back, and seemed very anxious and busy.  And Tom saw\nthat he was helping another salmon, an especially handsome one, who had\nnot a single spot upon it, but was clothed in pure silver from nose to\ntail.\n\n\u201cMy dear,\u201d said the great fish to his companion, \u201cyou really look\ndreadfully tired, and you must not over-exert yourself at first.  Do rest\nyourself behind this rock;\u201d and he shoved her gently with his nose, to\nthe rock where Tom sat.\n\nYou must know that this was the salmon\u2019s wife.  For salmon, like other\ntrue gentlemen, always choose their lady, and love her, and are true to\nher, and take care of her and work for her, and fight for her, as every\ntrue gentleman ought; and are not like vulgar chub and roach and pike,\nwho have no high feelings, and take no care of their wives.\n\nThen he saw Tom, and looked at him very fiercely one moment, as if he was\ngoing to bite him.\n\n\u201cWhat do you want here?\u201d he said, very fiercely.\n\n\u201cOh, don\u2019t hurt me!\u201d cried Tom.  \u201cI only want to look at you; you are so\nhandsome.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh?\u201d said the salmon, very stately but very civilly.  \u201cI really beg your\npardon; I see what you are, my little dear.  I have met one or two\ncreatures like you before, and found them very agreeable and\nwell-behaved.  Indeed, one of them showed me a great kindness lately,\nwhich I hope to be able to repay.  I hope we shall not be in your way\nhere.  As soon as this lady is rested, we shall proceed on our journey.\u201d\n\nWhat a well-bred old salmon he was!\n\n\u201cSo you have seen things like me before?\u201d asked Tom.\n\n\u201cSeveral times, my dear.  Indeed, it was only last night that one at the\nriver\u2019s mouth came and warned me and my wife of some new stake-nets which\nhad got into the stream, I cannot tell how, since last winter, and showed\nus the way round them, in the most charmingly obliging way.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo there are babies in the sea?\u201d cried Tom, and clapped his little\nhands.  \u201cThen I shall have some one to play with there?  How delightful!\u201d\n\n\u201cWere there no babies up this stream?\u201d asked the lady salmon.\n\n\u201cNo! and I grew so lonely.  I thought I saw three last night; but they\nwere gone in an instant, down to the sea.  So I went too; for I had\nnothing to play with but caddises and dragon-flies and trout.\u201d\n\n\u201cUgh!\u201d cried the lady, \u201cwhat low company!\u201d\n\n\u201cMy dear, if he has been in low company, he has certainly not learnt\ntheir low manners,\u201d said the salmon.\n\n\u201cNo, indeed, poor little dear: but how sad for him to live among such\npeople as caddises, who have actually six legs, the nasty things; and\ndragon-flies, too! why they are not even good to eat; for I tried them\nonce, and they are all hard and empty; and, as for trout, every one knows\nwhat they are.\u201d  Whereon she curled up her lip, and looked dreadfully\nscornful, while her husband curled up his too, till he looked as proud as\nAlcibiades.\n\n\u201cWhy do you dislike the trout so?\u201d asked Tom.\n\n\u201cMy dear, we do not even mention them, if we can help it; for I am sorry\nto say they are relations of ours who do us no credit.  A great many\nyears ago they were just like us: but they were so lazy, and cowardly,\nand greedy, that instead of going down to the sea every year to see the\nworld and grow strong and fat, they chose to stay and poke about in the\nlittle streams and eat worms and grubs; and they are very properly\npunished for it; for they have grown ugly and brown and spotted and\nsmall; and are actually so degraded in their tastes, that they will eat\nour children.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd then they pretend to scrape acquaintance with us again,\u201d said the\nlady.  \u201cWhy, I have actually known one of them propose to a lady salmon,\nthe little impudent little creature.\u201d\n\n                       [Picture: Trout and salmon]\n\n\u201cI should hope,\u201d said the gentleman, \u201cthat there are very few ladies of\nour race who would degrade themselves by listening to such a creature for\nan instant.  If I saw such a thing happen, I should consider it my duty\nto put them both to death upon the spot.\u201d  So the old salmon said, like\nan old blue-blooded hidalgo of Spain; and what is more, he would have\ndone it too.  For you must know, no enemies are so bitter against each\nother as those who are of the same race; and a salmon looks on a trout,\nas some great folks look on some little folks, as something just too much\nlike himself to be tolerated.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\n    \u201cSweet is the lore which Nature brings;\n    Our meddling intellect\n    Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things\n    We murder to dissect.\n\n    Enough of science and of art:\n    Close up these barren leaves;\n    Come forth, and bring with you a heart\n    That watches and receives.\u201d\n\n                                                               WORDSWORTH.\n\n[Picture: Tom on rock] SO the salmon went up, after Tom had warned them\nof the wicked old otter; and Tom went down, but slowly and cautiously,\ncoasting along shore.  He was many days about it, for it was many miles\ndown to the sea; and perhaps he would never have found his way, if the\nfairies had not guided him, without his seeing their fair faces, or\nfeeling their gentle hands.\n\nAnd, as he went, he had a very strange adventure.  It was a clear still\nSeptember night, and the moon shone so brightly down through the water,\nthat he could not sleep, though he shut his eyes as tight as possible.\nSo at last he came up to the top, and sat upon a little point of rock,\nand looked up at the broad yellow moon, and wondered what she was, and\nthought that she looked at him.  And he watched the moonlight on the\nrippling river, and the black heads of the firs, and the silver-frosted\nlawns, and listened to the owl\u2019s hoot, and the snipe\u2019s bleat, and the\nfox\u2019s bark, and the otter\u2019s laugh; and smelt the soft perfume of the\nbirches, and the wafts of heather honey off the grouse moor far above;\nand felt very happy, though he could not well tell why.  You, of course,\nwould have been very cold sitting there on a September night, without the\nleast bit of clothes on your wet back; but Tom was a water-baby, and\ntherefore felt cold no more than a fish.\n\nSuddenly, he saw a beautiful sight.  A bright red light moved along the\nriver-side, and threw down into the water a long tap-root of flame.  Tom,\ncurious little rogue that he was, must needs go and see what it was; so\nhe swam to the shore, and met the light as it stopped over a shallow run\nat the edge of a low rock.\n\nAnd there, underneath the light, lay five or six great salmon, looking up\nat the flame with their great goggle eyes, and wagging their tails, as if\nthey were very much pleased at it.\n\nTom came to the top, to look at this wonderful light nearer, and made a\nsplash.\n\nAnd he heard a voice say:\n\n\u201cThere was a fish rose.\u201d\n\nHe did not know what the words meant: but he seemed to know the sound of\nthem, and to know the voice which spoke them; and he saw on the bank\nthree great two-legged creatures, one of whom held the light, flaring and\nsputtering, and another a long pole.  And he knew that they were men, and\nwas frightened, and crept into a hole in the rock, from which he could\nsee what went on.\n\nThe man with the torch bent down over the water, and looked earnestly in;\nand then he said:\n\n\u201cTak\u2019 that muckle fellow, lad; he\u2019s ower fifteen punds; and haud your\nhand steady.\u201d\n\nTom felt that there was some danger coming, and longed to warn the\nfoolish salmon, who kept staring up at the light as if he was bewitched.\nBut before he could make up his mind, down came the pole through the\nwater; there was a fearful splash and struggle, and Tom saw that the poor\nsalmon was speared right through, and was lifted out of the water.\n\nAnd then, from behind, there sprang on these three men three other men;\nand there were shouts, and blows, and words which Tom recollected to have\nheard before; and he shuddered and turned sick at them now, for he felt\nsomehow that they were strange, and ugly, and wrong, and horrible.  And\nit all began to come back to him.  They were men; and they were fighting;\nsavage, desperate, up-and-down fighting, such as Tom had seen too many\ntimes before.\n\nAnd he stopped his little ears, and longed to swim away; and was very\nglad that he was a water-baby, and had nothing to do any more with horrid\ndirty men, with foul clothes on their backs, and foul words on their\nlips; but he dared not stir out of his hole: while the rock shook over\nhis head with the trampling and struggling of the keepers and the\npoachers.\n\nAll of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, and a frightful flash, and\na hissing, and all was still.\n\nFor into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the men; he who held the\nlight in his hand.  Into the swift river he sank, and rolled over and\nover in the current.  Tom heard the men above run along seemingly looking\nfor him; but he drifted down into the deep hole below, and there lay\nquite still, and they could not find him.\n\nTom waited a long time, till all was quiet; and then he peeped out, and\nsaw the man lying.  At last he screwed up his courage and swam down to\nhim.  \u201cPerhaps,\u201d he thought, \u201cthe water has made him fall asleep, as it\ndid me.\u201d\n\nThen he went nearer.  He grew more and more curious, he could not tell\nwhy.  He must go and look at him.  He would go very quietly, of course;\nso he swam round and round him, closer and closer; and, as he did not\nstir, at last he came quite close and looked him in the face.\n\nThe moon shone so bright that Tom could see every feature; and, as he\nsaw, he recollected, bit by bit, it was his old master, Grimes.\n\nTom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he could.\n\n\u201cOh dear me!\u201d he thought, \u201cnow he will turn into a water-baby.  What a\nnasty troublesome one he will be!  And perhaps he will find me out, and\nbeat me again.\u201d\n\nSo he went up the river again a little way, and lay there the rest of the\nnight under an alder root; but, when morning came, he longed to go down\nagain to the big pool, and see whether Mr. Grimes had turned into a\nwater-baby yet.\n\nSo he went very carefully, peeping round all the rocks, and hiding under\nall the roots.  Mr. Grimes lay there still; he had not turned into a\nwater-baby.  In the afternoon Tom went back again.  He could not rest\ntill he had found out what had become of Mr. Grimes.  But this time Mr.\nGrimes was gone; and Tom made up his mind that he was turned into a\nwater-baby.\n\nHe might have made himself easy, poor little man; Mr. Grimes did not turn\ninto a water-baby, or anything like one at all.  But he did not make\nhimself easy; and a long time he was fearful lest he should meet Grimes\nsuddenly in some deep pool.  He could not know that the fairies had\ncarried him away, and put him, where they put everything which falls into\nthe water, exactly where it ought to be.  But, do you know, what had\nhappened to Mr. Grimes had such an effect on him that he never poached\nsalmon any more.  And it is quite certain that, when a man becomes a\nconfirmed poacher, the only way to cure him is to put him under water for\ntwenty-four hours, like Grimes.  So when you grow to be a big man, do you\nbehave as all honest fellows should; and never touch a fish or a head of\ngame which belongs to another man without his express leave; and then\npeople will call you a gentleman, and treat you like one; and perhaps\ngive you good sport: instead of hitting you into the river, or calling\nyou a poaching snob.\n\nThen Tom went on down, for he was afraid of staying near Grimes: and as\nhe went, all the vale looked sad.  The red and yellow leaves showered\ndown into the river; the flies and beetles were all dead and gone; the\nchill autumn fog lay low upon the hills, and sometimes spread itself so\nthickly on the river that he could not see his way.  But he felt his way\ninstead, following the flow of the stream, day after day, past great\nbridges, past boats and barges, past the great town, with its wharfs, and\nmills, and tall smoking chimneys, and ships which rode at anchor in the\nstream; and now and then he ran against their hawsers, and wondered what\nthey were, and peeped out, and saw the sailors lounging on board smoking\ntheir pipes; and ducked under again, for he was terribly afraid of being\ncaught by man and turned into a chimney-sweep once more.  He did not know\nthat the fairies were close to him always, shutting the sailors\u2019 eyes\nlest they should see him, and turning him aside from millraces, and\nsewer-mouths, and all foul and dangerous things.  Poor little fellow, it\nwas a dreary journey for him; and more than once he longed to be back in\nVendale, playing with the trout in the bright summer sun.  But it could\nnot be.  What has been once can never come over again.  And people can be\nlittle babies, even water-babies, only once in their lives.\n\nBesides, people who make up their minds to go and see the world, as Tom\ndid, must needs find it a weary journey.  Lucky for them if they do not\nlose heart and stop half-way, instead of going on bravely to the end as\nTom did.  For then they will remain neither boys nor men, neither fish,\nflesh, nor good red-herring: having learnt a great deal too much, and yet\nnot enough; and sown their wild oats, without having the advantage of\nreaping them.\n\nBut Tom was always a brave, determined, little English bull-dog, who\nnever knew when he was beaten; and on and on he held, till he saw a long\nway off the red buoy through the fog.  And then he found to his surprise,\nthe stream turned round, and running up inland.\n\nIt was the tide, of course: but Tom knew nothing of the tide.  He only\nknew that in a minute more the water, which had been fresh, turned salt\nall round him.  And then there came a change over him.  He felt as\nstrong, and light, and fresh, as if his veins had run champagne; and\ngave, he did not know why, three skips out of the water, a yard high, and\nhead over heels, just as the salmon do when they first touch the noble\nrich salt water, which, as some wise men tell us, is the mother of all\nliving things.\n\n                             [Picture: Seal]\n\nHe did not care now for the tide being against him.  The red buoy was in\nsight, dancing in the open sea; and to the buoy he would go, and to it he\nwent.  He passed great shoals of bass and mullet, leaping and rushing in\nafter the shrimps, but he never heeded them, or they him; and once he\npassed a great black shining seal, who was coming in after the mullet.\nThe seal put his head and shoulders out of water, and stared at him,\nlooking exactly like a fat old greasy negro with a gray pate.  And Tom,\ninstead of being frightened, said, \u201cHow d\u2019ye do, sir; what a beautiful\nplace the sea is!\u201d  And the old seal, instead of trying to bite him,\nlooked at him with his soft sleepy winking eyes, and said, \u201cGood tide to\nyou, my little man; are you looking for your brothers and sisters?  I\npassed them all at play outside.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, then,\u201d said Tom, \u201cI shall have playfellows at last,\u201d and he swam on\nto the buoy, and got upon it (for he was quite out of breath) and sat\nthere, and looked round for water-babies: but there were none to be seen.\n\n[Picture: The old bouy] The sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and\nblew the fog away; and the little waves danced for joy around the buoy,\nand the old buoy danced with them.  The shadows of the clouds ran races\nover the bright blue bay, and yet never caught each other up; and the\nbreakers plunged merrily upon the wide white sands, and jumped up over\nthe rocks, to see what the green fields inside were like, and tumbled\ndown and broke themselves all to pieces, and never minded it a bit, but\nmended themselves and jumped up again.  And the terns hovered over Tom\nlike huge white dragon-flies with black heads, and the gulls laughed like\ngirls at play, and the sea-pies, with their red bills and legs, flew to\nand fro from shore to shore, and whistled sweet and wild.  And Tom looked\nand looked, and listened; and he would have been very happy, if he could\nonly have seen the water-babies.  Then when the tide turned, he left the\nbuoy, and swam round and round in search of them: but in vain.  Sometimes\nhe thought he heard them laughing: but it was only the laughter of the\nripples.  And sometimes he thought he saw them at the bottom: but it was\nonly white and pink shells.  And once he was sure he had found one, for\nhe saw two bright eyes peeping out of the sand.  So he dived down, and\nbegan scraping the sand away, and cried, \u201cDon\u2019t hide; I do want some one\nto play with so much!\u201d  And out jumped a great turbot with his ugly eyes\nand mouth all awry, and flopped away along the bottom, knocking poor Tom\nover.  And he sat down at the bottom of the sea, and cried salt tears\nfrom sheer disappointment.\n\nTo have come all this way, and faced so many dangers, and yet to find no\nwater-babies!  How hard!  Well, it did seem hard: but people, even little\nbabies, cannot have all they want without waiting for it, and working for\nit too, my little man, as you will find out some day.\n\nAnd Tom sat upon the buoy long days, long weeks, looking out to sea, and\nwondering when the water-babies would come back; and yet they never came.\n\n                      [Picture: Tom and a flat-fish]\n\nThen he began to ask all the strange things which came in out of the sea\nif they had seen any; and some said \u201cYes,\u201d and some said nothing at all.\n\nHe asked the bass and the pollock; but they were so greedy after the\nshrimps that they did not care to answer him a word.\n\nThen there came in a whole fleet of purple sea-snails, floating along,\neach on a sponge full of foam, and Tom said, \u201cWhere do you come from, you\npretty creatures? and have you seen the water-babies?\u201d\n\nAnd the sea-snails answered, \u201cWhence we come we know not; and whither we\nare going, who can tell?  We float out our life in the mid-ocean, with\nthe warm sunshine above our heads, and the warm gulf-stream below; and\nthat is enough for us.  Yes; perhaps we have seen the water-babies.  We\nhave seen many strange things as we sailed along.\u201d  And they floated\naway, the happy stupid things, and all went ashore upon the sands.\n\nThen there came in a great lazy sunfish, as big as a fat pig cut in half;\nand he seemed to have been cut in half too, and squeezed in a\nclothes-press till he was flat; but to all his big body and big fins he\nhad only a little rabbit\u2019s mouth, no bigger than Tom\u2019s; and, when Tom\nquestioned him, he answered in a little squeaky feeble voice:\n\n\u201cI\u2019m sure I don\u2019t know; I\u2019ve lost my way.  I meant to go to the\nChesapeake, and I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ve got wrong somehow.  Dear me! it was all\nby following that pleasant warm water.  I\u2019m sure I\u2019ve lost my way.\u201d\n\n[Picture: Sunfish] And, when Tom asked him again, he could only answer,\n\u201cI\u2019ve lost my way.  Don\u2019t talk to me; I want to think.\u201d\n\nBut, like a good many other people, the more he tried to think the less\nhe could think; and Tom saw him blundering about all day, till the\ncoast-guardsmen saw his big fin above the water, and rowed out, and\nstruck a boat-hook into him, and took him away.  They took him up to the\ntown and showed him for a penny a head, and made a good day\u2019s work of it.\nBut of course Tom did not know that.\n\nThen there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling as they went\u2014papas, and\nmammas, and little children\u2014and all quite smooth and shiny, because the\nfairies French-polish them every morning; and they sighed so softly as\nthey came by, that Tom took courage to speak to them: but all they\nanswered was, \u201cHush, hush, hush;\u201d for that was all they had learnt to\nsay.\n\nAnd then there came a shoal of basking sharks\u2019 some of them as long as a\nboat, and Tom was frightened at them.  But they were very lazy\ngood-natured fellows, not greedy tyrants, like white sharks and blue\nsharks and ground sharks and hammer-heads, who eat men, or saw-fish and\nthreshers and ice-sharks, who hunt the poor old whales.  They came and\nrubbed their great sides against the buoy, and lay basking in the sun\nwith their backfins out of water; and winked at Tom: but he never could\nget them to speak.  They had eaten so many herrings that they were quite\nstupid; and Tom was glad when a collier brig came by and frightened them\nall away; for they did smell most horribly, certainly, and he had to hold\nhis nose tight as long as they were there.\n\nAnd then there came by a beautiful creature, like a ribbon of pure silver\nwith a sharp head and very long teeth; but it seemed very sick and sad.\nSometimes it rolled helpless on its side; and then it dashed away\nglittering like white fire; and then it lay sick again and motionless.\n\n\u201cWhere do you come from?\u201d asked Tom.  \u201cAnd why are _you_ so sick and\nsad?\u201d\n\n\u201cI come from the warm Carolinas, and the sandbanks fringed with pines;\nwhere the great owl-rays leap and flap, like giant bats, upon the tide.\nBut I wandered north and north, upon the treacherous warm gulf-stream,\ntill I met with the cold icebergs, afloat in the mid ocean.  So I got\ntangled among the icebergs, and chilled with their frozen breath.  But\nthe water-babies helped me from among them, and set me free again.  And\nnow I am mending every day; but I am very sick and sad; and perhaps I\nshall never get home again to play with the owl-rays any more.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d cried Tom.  \u201cAnd you have seen water-babies?  Have you seen any\nnear here?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes; they helped me again last night, or I should have been eaten by a\ngreat black porpoise.\u201d\n\nHow vexatious!  The water-babies close to him, and yet he could not find\none.\n\nAnd then he left the buoy, and used to go along the sands and round the\nrocks, and come out in the night\u2014like the forsaken Merman in Mr. Arnold\u2019s\nbeautiful, beautiful poem, which you must learn by heart some day\u2014and sit\nupon a point of rock, among the shining sea-weeds, in the low October\ntides, and cry and call for the water-babies; but he never heard a voice\ncall in return.  And at last, with his fretting and crying, he grew quite\nlean and thin.\n\nBut one day among the rocks he found a playfellow.  It was not a\nwater-baby, alas! but it was a lobster; and a very distinguished lobster\nhe was; for he had live barnacles on his claws, which is a great mark of\ndistinction in lobsterdom, and no more to be bought for money than a good\nconscience or the Victoria Cross.\n\n                      [Picture: Tom and the lobster]\n\nTom had never seen a lobster before; and he was mightily taken with this\none; for he thought him the most curious, odd, ridiculous creature he had\never seen; and there he was not far wrong; for all the ingenious men, and\nall the scientific men, and all the fanciful men, in the world, with all\nthe old German bogy-painters into the bargain, could never invent, if all\ntheir wits were boiled into one, anything so curious, and so ridiculous,\nas a lobster.\n\nHe had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and Tom delighted in\nwatching him hold on to the seaweed with his knobbed claw, while he cut\nup salads with his jagged one, and then put them into his mouth, after\nsmelling at them, like a monkey.  And always the little barnacles threw\nout their casting-nets and swept the water, and came in for their share\nof whatever there was for dinner.\n\nBut Tom was most astonished to see how he fired himself off\u2014snap! like\nthe leap-frogs which you make out of a goose\u2019s breast-bone.  Certainly he\ntook the most wonderful shots, and backwards, too.  For, if he wanted to\ngo into a narrow crack ten yards off, what do you think he did?  If he\nhad gone in head foremost, of course he could not have turned round.  So\nhe used to turn his tail to it, and lay his long horns, which carry his\nsixth sense in their tips (and nobody knows what that sixth sense is),\nstraight down his back to guide him, and twist his eyes back till they\nalmost came out of their sockets, and then made ready, present, fire,\nsnap!\u2014and away he went, pop into the hole; and peeped out and twiddled\nhis whiskers, as much as to say, \u201cYou couldn\u2019t do that.\u201d\n\nTom asked him about water-babies.  \u201cYes,\u201d he said.  He had seen them\noften.  But he did not think much of them.  They were meddlesome little\ncreatures, that went about helping fish and shells which got into\nscrapes.  Well, for his part, he should be ashamed to be helped by little\nsoft creatures that had not even a shell on their backs.  He had lived\nquite long enough in the world to take care of himself.\n\nHe was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not very civil to Tom;\nand you will hear how he had to alter his mind before he was done, as\nconceited people generally have.  But he was so funny, and Tom so lonely,\nthat he could not quarrel with him; and they used to sit in holes in the\nrocks, and chat for hours.\n\nAnd about this time there happened to Tom a very strange and important\nadventure\u2014so important, indeed, that he was very near never finding the\nwater-babies at all; and I am sure you would have been sorry for that.\n\nI hope that you have not forgotten the little white lady all this while.\nAt least, here she comes, looking like a clean white good little darling,\nas she always was, and always will be.  For it befell in the pleasant\nshort December days, when the wind always blows from the south-west, till\nOld Father Christmas comes and spreads the great white table-cloth, ready\nfor little boys and girls to give the birds their Christmas dinner of\ncrumbs\u2014it befell (to go on) in the pleasant December days, that Sir John\nwas so busy hunting that nobody at home could get a word out of him.\nFour days a week he hunted, and very good sport he had; and the other two\nhe went to the bench and the board of guardians, and very good justice he\ndid; and, when he got home in time, he dined at five; for he hated this\nabsurd new fashion of dining at eight in the hunting season, which forces\na man to make interest with the footman for cold beef and beer as soon as\nhe comes in, and so spoil his appetite, and then sleep in an arm-chair in\nhis bedroom, all stiff and tired, for two or three hours before he can\nget his dinner like a gentleman.  And do you be like Sir John, my dear\nlittle man, when you are your own master; and, if you want either to read\nhard or ride hard, stick to the good old Cambridge hours of breakfast at\neight and dinner at five; by which you may get two days\u2019 work out of one.\nBut, of course, if you find a fox at three in the afternoon and run him\ntill dark, and leave off twenty miles from home, why you must wait for\nyour dinner till you can get it, as better men than you have done.  Only\nsee that, if you go hungry, your horse does not; but give him his warm\ngruel and beer, and take him gently home, remembering that good horses\ndon\u2019t grow on the hedge like blackberries.\n\nIt befell (to go on a second time) that Sir John, hunting all day, and\ndining at five, fell asleep every evening, and snored so terribly that\nall the windows in Harthover shook, and the soot fell down the chimneys.\nWhereon My Lady, being no more able to get conversation out of him than a\nsong out of a dead nightingale, determined to go off and leave him, and\nthe doctor, and Captain Swinger the agent, to snore in concert every\nevening to their hearts\u2019 content.  So she started for the seaside with\nall the children, in order to put herself and them into condition by mild\napplications of iodine.  She might as well have stayed at home and used\nParry\u2019s liquid horse-blister, for there was plenty of it in the stables;\nand then she would have saved her money, and saved the chance, also, of\nmaking all the children ill instead of well (as hundreds are made), by\ntaking them to some nasty smelling undrained lodging, and then wondering\nhow they caught scarlatina and diphtheria: but people won\u2019t be wise\nenough to understand that till they are dead of bad smells, and then it\nwill be too late; besides you see, Sir John did certainly snore very\nloud.\n\n                 [Picture: Sir John with horse and groom]\n\nBut where she went to nobody must know, for fear young ladies should\nbegin to fancy that there are water-babies there! and so hunt and howk\nafter them (besides raising the price of lodgings), and keep them in\naquariums, as the ladies at Pompeii (as you may see by the paintings)\nused to keep Cupids in cages.  But nobody ever heard that they starved\nthe Cupids, or let them die of dirt and neglect, as English young ladies\ndo by the poor sea-beasts.  So nobody must know where My Lady went.\nLetting water-babies die is as bad as taking singing birds\u2019 eggs; for,\nthough there are thousands, ay, millions, of both of them in the world,\nyet there is not one too many.\n\nNow it befell that, on the very shore, and over the very rocks, where Tom\nwas sitting with his friend the lobster, there walked one day the little\nwhite lady, Ellie herself, and with her a very wise man indeed\u2014Professor\nPtthmllnsprts.\n\nHis mother was a Dutchwoman, and therefore he was born at Cura\u00e7ao (of\ncourse you have learnt your geography, and therefore know why); and his\nfather a Pole, and therefore he was brought up at Petropaulowski (of\ncourse you have learnt your modern politics, and therefore know why): but\nfor all that he was as thorough an Englishman as ever coveted his\nneighbour\u2019s goods.  And his name, as I said, was Professor Ptthmllnsprts,\nwhich is a very ancient and noble Polish name.\n\nHe was, as I said, a very great naturalist, and chief professor of\n_Necrobioneopal\u00e6onthydrochthonanthropopithekology_ in the new university\nwhich the king of the Cannibal Islands had founded; and, being a member\nof the Acclimatisation Society, he had come here to collect all the nasty\nthings which he could find on the coast of England, and turn them loose\nround the Cannibal Islands, because they had not nasty things enough\nthere to eat what they left.\n\n[Picture: The Professor]\n\nBut he was a very worthy kind good-natured little old gentleman; and very\nfond of children (for he was not the least a cannibal himself); and very\ngood to all the world as long as it was good to him.  Only one fault he\nhad, which cock-robins have likewise, as you may see if you look out of\nthe nursery window\u2014that, when any one else found a curious worm, he would\nhop round them, and peck them, and set up his tail, and bristle up his\nfeathers, just as a cock-robin would; and declare that he found the worm\nfirst; and that it was his worm; and, if not, that then it was not a worm\nat all.\n\nHe had met Sir John at Scarborough, or Fleetwood, or somewhere or other\n(if you don\u2019t care where, nobody else does), and had made acquaintance\nwith him, and become very fond of his children.  Now, Sir John knew\nnothing about sea-cockyolybirds, and cared less, provided the fishmonger\nsent him good fish for dinner; and My Lady knew as little: but she\nthought it proper that the children should know something.  For in the\nstupid old times, you must understand, children were taught to know one\nthing, and to know it well; but in these enlightened new times they are\ntaught to know a little about everything, and to know it all ill; which\nis a great deal pleasanter and easier, and therefore quite right.\n\nSo Ellie and he were walking on the rocks, and he was showing her about\none in ten thousand of all the beautiful and curious things which are to\nbe seen there.  But little Ellie was not satisfied with them at all.  She\nliked much better to play with live children, or even with dolls, which\nshe could pretend were alive; and at last she said honestly, \u201cI don\u2019t\ncare about all these things, because they can\u2019t play with me, or talk to\nme.  If there were little children now in the water, as there used to be,\nand I could see them, I should like that.\u201d\n\n                             [Picture: Ellie]\n\n\u201cChildren in the water, you strange little duck?\u201d said the professor.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said Ellie.  \u201cI know there used to be children in the water, and\nmermaids too, and mermen.  I saw them all in a picture at home, of a\nbeautiful lady sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and babies flying\nround her, and one sitting in her lap; and the mermaids swimming and\nplaying, and the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells; and it is called \u2018The\nTriumph of Galatea;\u2019 and there is a burning mountain in the picture\nbehind.  It hangs on the great staircase, and I have looked at it ever\nsince I was a baby, and dreamt about it a hundred times; and it is so\nbeautiful, that it must be true.\u201d\n\nBut the professor had not the least notion of allowing that things were\ntrue, merely because people thought them beautiful.  For at that rate, he\nsaid, the Baltas would be quite right in thinking it a fine thing to eat\ntheir grandpapas, because they thought it an ugly thing to put them\nunderground.  The professor, indeed, went further, and held that no man\nwas forced to believe anything to be true, but what he could see, hear,\ntaste, or handle.\n\nHe held very strange theories about a good many things.  He had even got\nup once at the British Association, and declared that apes had\nhippopotamus majors in their brains just as men have.  Which was a\nshocking thing to say; for, if it were so, what would become of the\nfaith, hope, and charity of immortal millions?  You may think that there\nare other more important differences between you and an ape, such as\nbeing able to speak, and make machines, and know right from wrong, and\nsay your prayers, and other little matters of that kind; but that is a\nchild\u2019s fancy, my dear.  Nothing is to be depended on but the great\nhippopotamus test.  If you have a hippopotamus major in your brain, you\nare no ape, though you had four hands, no feet, and were more apish than\nthe apes of all aperies.  But if a hippopotamus major is ever discovered\nin one single ape\u2019s brain, nothing will save your\ngreat-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-\ngreater-greatest-grandmother from having been an ape too.  No, my dear\nlittle man; always remember that the one true, certain, final, and\nall-important difference between you and an ape is, that you have a\nhippopotamus major in your brain, and it has none; and that, therefore,\nto discover one in its brain will be a very wrong and dangerous thing, at\nwhich every one will be very much shocked, as we may suppose they were at\nthe professor.\u2014Though really, after all, it don\u2019t much matter; because\u2014as\nLord Dundreary and others would put it\u2014nobody but men have hippopotamuses\nin their brains; so, if a hippopotamus was discovered in an ape\u2019s brain,\nwhy it would not be one, you know, but something else.\n\nBut the professor had gone, I am sorry to say, even further than that;\nfor he had read at the British Association at Melbourne, Australia, in\nthe year 1999, a paper which assured every one who found himself the\nbetter or wiser for the news, that there were not, never had been, and\ncould not be, any rational or half-rational beings except men, anywhere,\nanywhen, or anyhow; that _nymphs_, _satyrs_, _fauns_, _inui_, _dwarfs_,\n_trolls_, _elves_, _gnomes_, _fairies_, _brownies_, _nixes_, _wills_,\n_kobolds_, _leprechaunes_, _cluricaunes_, _banshees_,\n_will-o\u2019-the-wisps_, _follets_, _lutins_, _magots_, _goblins_, _afrits_,\n_marids_, _jinns_, _ghouls_, _peris_, _deevs_, _angels_, _archangels_,\n_imps_, _bogies_, or worse, were nothing at all, and pure bosh and wind.\nAnd he had to get up very early in the morning to prove that, and to eat\nhis breakfast overnight; but he did it, at least to his own satisfaction.\nWhereon a certain great divine, and a very clever divine was he, called\nhim a regular Sadducee; and probably he was quite right.  Whereon the\nprofessor, in return, called him a regular Pharisee; and probably he was\nquite right too.  But they did not quarrel in the least; for, when men\nare men of the world, hard words run off them like water off a duck\u2019s\nback.  So the professor and the divine met at dinner that evening, and\nsat together on the sofa afterwards for an hour, and talked over the\nstate of female labour on the antarctic continent (for nobody talks shop\nafter his claret), and each vowed that the other was the best company he\never met in his life.  What an advantage it is to be men of the world!\n\nFrom all which you may guess that the professor was not the least of\nlittle Ellie\u2019s opinion.  So he gave her a succinct compendium of his\nfamous paper at the British Association, in a form suited for the\nyouthful mind.  But, as we have gone over his arguments against\nwater-babies once already, which is once too often, we will not repeat\nthem here.\n\nNow little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; for, instead of\nbeing convinced by Professor Ptthmllnsprts\u2019 arguments, she only asked the\nsame question over again.\n\n\u201cBut why are there not water-babies?\u201d\n\nI trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at that moment on\nthe edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt one of his corns sadly, that he\nanswered quite sharply, forgetting that he was a scientific man, and\ntherefore ought to have known that he couldn\u2019t know; and that he was a\nlogician, and therefore ought to have known that he could not prove a\nuniversal negative\u2014I say, I trust and hope it was because the mussel hurt\nhis corn, that the professor answered quite sharply:\n\n\u201cBecause there ain\u2019t.\u201d\n\nWhich was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as you must\nknow from Aunt Agitate\u2019s Arguments, the professor ought to have said, if\nhe was so angry as to say anything of the kind\u2014Because there are not: or\nare none: or are none of them; or (if he had been reading Aunt Agitate\ntoo) because they do not exist.\n\nAnd he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, that, as it\nbefell, he caught poor little Tom.\n\nHe felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly, with Tom all\nentangled in the meshes.\n\n\u201cDear me!\u201d he cried.  \u201cWhat a large pink Holothurian; with hands, too!\nIt must be connected with Synapta.\u201d\n\nAnd he took him out.\n\n\u201cIt has actually eyes!\u201d he cried.  \u201cWhy, it must be a Cephalopod!  This\nis most extraordinary!\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I ain\u2019t!\u201d cried Tom, as loud as he could; for he did not like to be\ncalled bad names.\n\n\u201cIt is a water-baby!\u201d cried Ellie; and of course it was.\n\n\u201cWater-fiddlesticks, my dear!\u201d said the professor; and he turned away\nsharply.\n\nThere was no denying it.  It was a water-baby: and he had said a moment\nago that there were none.  What was he to do?\n\nHe would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom home in a bucket.  He\nwould not have put him in spirits.  Of course not.  He would have kept\nhim alive, and petted him (for he was a very kind old gentleman), and\nwritten a book about him, and given him two long names, of which the\nfirst would have said a little about Tom, and the second all about\nhimself; for of course he would have called him Hydrotecnon\nPtthmllnsprtsianum, or some other long name like that; for they are\nforced to call everything by long names now, because they have used up\nall the short ones, ever since they took to making nine species out of\none.  But\u2014what would all the learned men say to him after his speech at\nthe British Association?  And what would Ellie say, after what he had\njust told her?\n\nThere was a wise old heathen once, who said, \u201cMaxima debetur pueris\nreverentia\u201d\u2014The greatest reverence is due to children; that is, that\ngrown people should never say or do anything wrong before children, lest\nthey should set them a bad example.\u2014Cousin Cramchild says it means, \u201cThe\ngreatest respectfulness is expected from little boys.\u201d  But he was raised\nin a country where little boys are not expected to be respectful, because\nall of them are as good as the President:\u2014Well, every one knows his own\nconcerns best; so perhaps they are.  But poor Cousin Cramchild, to do him\njustice, not being of that opinion, and having a moral mission, and being\nno scholar to speak of, and hard up for an authority\u2014why, it was a very\ngreat temptation for him.  But some people, and I am afraid the professor\nwas one of them, interpret that in a more strange, curious, one-sided,\nleft-handed, topsy-turvy, inside-out, behind-before fashion than even\nCousin Cramchild; for they make it mean, that you must show your respect\nfor children, by never confessing yourself in the wrong to them, even if\nyou know that you are so, lest they should lose confidence in their\nelders.\n\nNow, if the professor had said to Ellie, \u201cYes, my darling, it is a\nwater-baby, and a very wonderful thing it is; and it shows how little I\nknow of the wonders of nature, in spite of forty years\u2019 honest labour.  I\nwas just telling you that there could be no such creatures; and, behold!\nhere is one come to confound my conceit and show me that Nature can do,\nand has done, beyond all that man\u2019s poor fancy can imagine.  So, let us\nthank the Maker, and Inspirer, and Lord of Nature for all His wonderful\nand glorious works, and try and find out something about this one;\u201d\u2014I\nthink that, if the professor had said that, little Ellie would have\nbelieved him more firmly, and respected him more deeply, and loved him\nbetter, than ever she had done before.  But he was of a different\nopinion.  He hesitated a moment.  He longed to keep Tom, and yet he half\nwished he never had caught him; and at last he quite longed to get rid of\nhim.  So he turned away and poked Tom with his finger, for want of\nanything better to do; and said carelessly, \u201cMy dear little maid, you\nmust have dreamt of water-babies last night, your head is so full of\nthem.\u201d\n\nNow Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable fright all the\nwhile; and had kept as quiet as he could, though he was called a\nHolothurian and a Cephalopod; for it was fixed in his little head that if\na man with clothes on caught him, he might put clothes on him too, and\nmake a dirty black chimney-sweep of him again.  But, when the professor\npoked him, it was more than he could bear; and, between fright and rage,\nhe turned to bay as valiantly as a mouse in a corner, and bit the\nprofessor\u2019s finger till it bled.\n\n\u201cOh! ah! yah!\u201d cried he; and glad of an excuse to be rid of Tom, dropped\nhim on to the seaweed, and thence he dived into the water and was gone in\na moment.\n\n\u201cBut it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak!\u201d cried Ellie.  \u201cAh, it is\ngone!\u201d  And she jumped down off the rock, to try and catch Tom before he\nslipped into the sea.\n\n                 [Picture: Ellie, the professor and Tom]\n\nToo late! and what was worse, as she sprang down, she slipped, and fell\nsome six feet, with her head on a sharp rock, and lay quite still.\n\nThe professor picked her up, and tried to waken her, and called to her,\nand cried over her, for he loved her very much: but she would not waken\nat all.  So he took her up in his arms and carried her to her governess,\nand they all went home; and little Ellie was put to bed, and lay there\nquite still; only now and then she woke up and called out about the\nwater-baby: but no one knew what she meant, and the professor did not\ntell, for he was ashamed to tell.\n\nAnd, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies came flying in at the\nwindow and brought her such a pretty pair of wings that she could not\nhelp putting them on; and she flew with them out of the window, and over\nthe land, and over the sea, and up through the clouds, and nobody heard\nor saw anything of her for a very long while.\n\nAnd this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a water-baby.  For\nmy part, I believe that the naturalists get dozens of them when they are\nout dredging; but they say nothing about them, and throw them overboard\nagain, for fear of spoiling their theories.  But, you see the professor\nwas found out, as every one is in due time.  A very terrible old fairy\nfound the professor out; she felt his bumps, and cast his nativity, and\ntook the lunars of him carefully inside and out; and so she knew what he\nwould do as well as if she had seen it in a print book, as they say in\nthe dear old west country; and he did it; and so he was found out\nbeforehand, as everybody always is; and the old fairy will find out the\nnaturalists some day, and put them in the _Times_, and then on whose side\nwill the laugh be?\n\nSo the old fairy took him in hand very severely there and then.  But she\nsays she is always most severe with the best people, because there is\nmost chance of curing them, and therefore they are the patients who pay\nher best; for she has to work on the same salary as the Emperor of\nChina\u2019s physicians (it is a pity that all do not), no cure, no pay.\n\nSo she took the poor professor in hand: and because he was not content\nwith things as they are, she filled his head with things as they are not,\nto try if he would like them better; and because he did not choose to\nbelieve in a water-baby when he saw it, she made him believe in worse\nthings than water-babies\u2014in _unicorns_, _fire-drakes_, _manticoras_,\n_basilisks_, _amphisb\u00e6nas_, _griffins_, _phoenixes_, _rocs_, _orcs_,\n_dog-headed men_, _three-headed dogs_, _three-bodied geryons_, and other\npleasant creatures, which folks think never existed yet, and which folks\nhope never will exist, though they know nothing about the matter, and\nnever will; and these creatures so upset, terrified, flustered,\naggravated, confused, astounded, horrified, and totally flabbergasted the\npoor professor that the doctors said that he was out of his wits for\nthree months; and perhaps they were right, as they are now and then.\n\nSo all the doctors in the county were called in to make a report on his\ncase; and of course every one of them flatly contradicted the other: else\nwhat use is there in being men of science?  But at last the majority\nagreed on a report in the true medical language, one half bad Latin, the\nother half worse Greek, and the rest what might have been English, if\nthey had only learnt to write it.  And this is the beginning thereof\u2014\n\n    \u201c_The subanhypaposupernal anastomoses of peritomic diacellurite in\n    the encephalo digital region of the distinguished individual of whose\n    symptomatic ph\u0153nomena we had the melancholy honour_ (_subsequently to\n    a preliminary diagnostic inspection_) _of making an inspectorial\n    diagnosis_, _presenting the interexclusively quadrilateral and\n    antinomian diathesis known as Bumpsterhausen\u2019s blue follicles_, _we\n    proceeded_\u201d\u2014\n\nBut what they proceeded to do My Lady never knew; for she was so\nfrightened at the long words that she ran for her life, and locked\nherself into her bedroom, for fear of being squashed by the words and\nstrangled by the sentence.  A boa constrictor, she said, was bad company\nenough: but what was a boa constrictor made of paving stones?\n\n\u201cIt was quite shocking!  What can they think is the matter with him?\u201d\nsaid she to the old nurse.\n\n\u201cThat his wit\u2019s just addled; may be wi\u2019 unbelief and heathenry,\u201d quoth\nshe.\n\n\u201cThen why can\u2019t they say so?\u201d\n\nAnd the heaven, and the sea, and the rocks, and the vales re-echoed\u2014\u201cWhy\nindeed?\u201d  But the doctors never heard them.\n\nSo she made Sir John write to the _Times_ to command the Chancellor of\nthe Exchequer for the time being to put a tax on long words;\u2014\n\nA light tax on words over three syllables, which are necessary evils,\nlike rats: but, like them, must be kept down judiciously.\n\nA heavy tax on words over four syllables, as _heterodoxy_, _spontaneity_,\n_spiritualism_, _spuriosity_, _etc._\n\nAnd on words over five syllables (of which I hope no one will wish to see\nany examples), a totally prohibitory tax.\n\nAnd a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from three or more\nlanguages at once; words derived from two languages having become so\ncommon that there was no more hope of rooting out them than of rooting\nout peth-winds.\n\nThe Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and a man of sense,\njumped at the notion; for he saw in it the one and only plan for\nabolishing Schedule D: but when he brought in his bill, most of the Irish\nmembers, and (I am sorry to say) some of the Scotch likewise, opposed it\nmost strongly, on the ground that in a free country no man was bound\neither to understand himself or to let others understand him.  So the\nbill fell through on the first reading; and the Chancellor, being a\nphilosopher, comforted himself with the thought that it was not the first\ntime that a woman had hit off a grand idea and the men turned up their\nstupid noses thereat.\n\nNow the doctors had it all their own way; and to work they went in\nearnest, and they gave the poor professor divers and sundry medicines, as\nprescribed by the ancients and moderns, from Hippocrates to\nFeuchtersleben, as below, viz.\u2014\n\n1.  _Hellebore_, _to wit_\u2014\n\n  _Hellebore of \u00c6ta_.\n\n  _Hellebore of Galatia_.\n\n  _Hellebore of Sicily_.\n\n  _And all other Hellebores_, _after the method of the Helleborising\n  Helleborists of the Helleboric era_.  _But that would not do_.\n  _Bumpsterhausen\u2019s blue follicles would not stir an inch out of his\n  encephalo digital region_.\n\n2.  _Trying to find out what was the matter with him_, _after the method\nof Hippocrates_,\n\n  _Aret\u00e6us_,\n\n  _Celsus_,\n\n  _Coelius Aurelianus_,\n\n  _And Galen_.\n\nBut they found that a great deal too much trouble, as most people have\nsince; and so had recourse to\u2014\n\n3.  _Borage_.\n\n  _Cauteries_.\n\nBoring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says Gordonius) \u201cwill,\nwithout doubt, do much good.\u201d  But it didn\u2019t.\n\n  _Bezoar stone_.\n\n  _Diamargaritum_.\n\n  _A ram\u2019s brain boiled in spice_.\n\n  _Oil of wormwood_.\n\n  _Water of Nile_.\n\n  _Capers_.\n\n  _Good wine_ (_but there was none to be got_).\n\n  _The water of a smith\u2019s forge_.\n\n  _Ambergris_.\n\n  _Mandrake pillows_.\n\n  _Dormouse fat_.\n\n  _Hares\u2019 ears_.\n\n  _Starvation_.\n\n  _Camphor_.\n\n  _Salts and senna_.\n\n  _Musk_.\n\n  _Opium_.\n\n  _Strait-waistcoats_.\n\n  _Bullyings_.\n\n  _Bumpings_.\n\n  _Bleedings_.\n\n  _Bucketings with cold water_.\n\n  _Knockings down_.\n\n  _Kneeling on his chest till they broke it in_, _etc. etc._; _after the\n  medi\u00e6val or monkish method_: _but that would not do_.\n  _Bumpsterhausen\u2019s blue follicles stuck there still_.\n\nThen\u2014\n\n4.  _Coaxing_.\n\n  _Kissing_.\n\n  _Champagne and turtle_.\n\n  _Red herrings and soda water_.\n\n  _Good advice_.\n\n  _Gardening_.\n\n  _Croquet_.\n\n  _Musical soir\u00e9es_.\n\n  _Aunt Salty_.\n\n  _Mild tobacco_.\n\n  _The Saturday Review_.\n\n  _A carriage with outriders_, _etc. etc._\n\nAfter the modern method.  But that would not do.\n\nAnd if he had but been a convict lunatic, and had shot at the Queen,\nkilled all his creditors to avoid paying them, or indulged in any other\nlittle amiable eccentricity of that kind, they would have given him in\naddition\u2014\n\nThe healthiest situation in England, on Easthampstead Plain.\n\nFree run of Windsor Forest.\n\nThe _Times_ every morning.\n\nA double-barrelled gun and pointers, and leave to shoot three Wellington\nCollege boys a week (not more) in case black game was scarce.\n\nBut as he was neither mad enough nor bad enough to be allowed such\nluxuries, they grew desperate, and fell into bad ways, viz.\u2014\n\n5.  _Suffumigations of sulphur_.\n\n  _Herrwiggius his_ \u201c_Incomparable drink for madmen_:\u201d\n\nOnly they could not find out what it was.\n\n  _Suffumigation of the liver of the fish_ * * *\n\nOnly they had forgotten its name, so Dr. Gray could not well procure them\na specimen.\n\n  _Metallic tractors_.\n\n  _Holloway\u2019s Ointment_.\n\n  _Electro-biology_.\n\n  _Valentine Greatrakes his Stroking Cure_.\n\n  _Spirit-rapping_.\n\n  _Holloway\u2019s Pills_.\n\n  _Table-turning_.\n\n  _Morison\u2019s Pills_.\n\n  _Hom\u0153opathy_.\n\n  _Parr\u2019s Life Pills_.\n\n  _Mesmerism_.\n\n  _Pure Bosh_.\n\n  _Exorcisms_, _for which the read Maleus Maleficarum_, _Nideri\n  Formicarium_, _Delrio_, _Wierus_, _etc._\n\nBut could not get one that mentioned water-babies.\n\n  _Hydropathy_.\n\n  _Madame Rachel\u2019s Elixir of Youth_.\n\n  _The Poughkeepsie Seer his Prophecies_.\n\n  _The distilled liquor of addle eggs_.\n\n  _Pyropathy_.\n\nAs successfully employed by the old inquisitors to cure the malady of\nthought, and now by the Persian Mollahs to cure that of rheumatism.\n\n  _Geopathy_, _or burying him_.\n\n  _Atmopathy_, _or steaming him_.\n\n  _Sympathy_, _after the method of Basil Valentine his Triumph of\n  Antimony_, _and Kenelm Digby his Weapon-salve_, _which some call a hair\n  of the dog that bit him_.\n\n  _Hermopathy_, _or pouring mercury down his throat to move the animal\n  spirits_.\n\n  _Meteoropathy_, _or going up to the moon to look for his lost wits_,\n  _as Ruggiero did for Orlando Furioso\u2019s_: _only_, _having no\n  hippogriff_, _they were forced to use a balloon_; _and_, _falling into\n  the North Sea_, _were picked up by a Yarmouth herring-boat_, _and came\n  home much the wiser_, _and all over scales_.\n\n  _Antipathy_, _or using him like_ \u201c_a man and a brother_.\u201d\n\n  _Apathy_, _or doing nothing at all_.\n\n  _With all other ipathies and opathies which Noodle has invented_, _and\n  Foodle tried_, _since black-fellows chipped flints at Abb\u00e9ville_\u2014_which\n  is a considerable time ago_, _to judge by the Great Exhibition_.\n\nBut nothing would do; for he screamed and cried all day for a water-baby,\nto come and drive away the monsters; and of course they did not try to\nfind one, because they did not believe in them, and were thinking of\nnothing but Bumpsterhausen\u2019s blue follicles; having, as usual, set the\ncart before the horse, and taken the effect for the cause.\n\nSo they were forced at last to let the poor professor ease his mind by\nwriting a great book, exactly contrary to all his old opinions; in which\nhe proved that the moon was made of green cheese, and that all the mites\nin it (which you may see sometimes quite plain through a telescope, if\nyou will only keep the lens dirty enough, as Mr. Weekes kept his voltaic\nbattery) are nothing in the world but little babies, who are hatching and\nswarming up there in millions, ready to come down into this world\nwhenever children want a new little brother or sister.\n\nWhich must be a mistake, for this one reason: that, there being no\natmosphere round the moon (though some one or other says there is, at\nleast on the other side, and that he has been round at the back of it to\nsee, and found that the moon was just the shape of a Bath bun, and so wet\nthat the man in the moon went about on Midsummer-day in Macintoshes and\nCording\u2019s boots, spearing eels and sneezing); that, therefore, I say,\nthere being no atmosphere, there can be no evaporation; and therefore the\ndew-point can never fall below 71.5\u00b0 below zero of Fahrenheit: and,\ntherefore, it cannot be cold enough there about four o\u2019clock in the\nmorning to condense the babies\u2019 mesenteric apophthegms into their left\nventricles; and, therefore, they can never catch the hooping-cough; and\nif they do not have hooping-cough, they cannot be babies at all; and,\ntherefore, there are no babies in the moon.\u2014Q.E.D.\n\n                          [Picture: Man in rain]\n\nWhich may seem a roundabout reason; and so, perhaps, it is: but you will\nhave heard worse ones in your time, and from better men than you are.\n\nBut one thing is certain; that, when the good old doctor got his book\nwritten, he felt considerably relieved from Bumpsterhausen\u2019s blue\nfollicles, and a few things infinitely worse; to wit, from pride and\nvain-glory, and from blindness and hardness of heart; which are the true\ncauses of Bumpsterhausen\u2019s blue follicles, and of a good many other ugly\nthings besides.  Whereon the foul flood-water in his brains ran down, and\ncleared to a fine coffee colour, such as fish like to rise in, till very\nfine clean fresh-run fish did begin to rise in his brains; and he caught\ntwo or three of them (which is exceedingly fine sport, for brain rivers),\nand anatomised them carefully, and never mentioned what he found out from\nthem, except to little children; and became ever after a sadder and a\nwiser man; which is a very good thing to become, my dear little boy, even\nthough one has to pay a heavy price for the blessing.\n\n                      [Picture: Bat with man\u2019s face]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\n          \u201cStern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear\n          The Godhead\u2019s most benignant grace;\n          Nor know we anything so fair\n          As is the smile upon thy face:\n          Flowers laugh before thee on their beds\n          And fragrance in thy footing treads;\n          Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;\n    And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.\u201d\n\n                                                WORDSWORTH, _Ode to Duty_.\n\n[Picture: Dog and cat] BUT what became of little Tom?\n\nHe slipped away off the rocks into the water, as I said before.  But he\ncould not help thinking of little Ellie.  He did not remember who she\nwas; but he knew that she was a little girl, though she was a hundred\ntimes as big as he.  That is not surprising: size has nothing to do with\nkindred.  A tiny weed may be first cousin to a great tree; and a little\ndog like Vick knows that Lioness is a dog too, though she is twenty times\nlarger than herself.  So Tom knew that Ellie was a little girl, and\nthought about her all that day, and longed to have had her to play with;\nbut he had very soon to think of something else.  And here is the account\nof what happened to him, as it was published next morning, in the\nWater-proof Gazette, on the finest watered paper, for the use of the\ngreat fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, who reads the news very carefully\nevery morning, and especially the police cases, as you will hear very\nsoon.\n\nHe was going along the rocks in three-fathom water, watching the pollock\ncatch prawns, and the wrasses nibble barnacles off the rocks, shells and\nall, when he saw a round cage of green withes; and inside it, looking\nvery much ashamed of himself, sat his friend the lobster, twiddling his\nhorns, instead of thumbs.\n\n                  [Picture: Tom, the lobster and otter]\n\n\u201cWhat, have you been naughty, and have they put you in the lock-up?\u201d\nasked Tom.\n\nThe lobster felt a little indignant at such a notion, but he was too much\ndepressed in spirits to argue; so he only said, \u201cI can\u2019t get out.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy did you get in?\u201d\n\n\u201cAfter that nasty piece of dead fish.\u201d  He had thought it looked and\nsmelt very nice when he was outside, and so it did, for a lobster: but\nnow he turned round and abused it because he was angry with himself.\n\n\u201cWhere did you get in?\u201d\n\n\u201cThrough that round hole at the top.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen why don\u2019t you get out through it?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause I can\u2019t:\u201d and the lobster twiddled his horns more fiercely than\never, but he was forced to confess.\n\n\u201cI have jumped upwards, downwards, backwards, and sideways, at least four\nthousand times; and I can\u2019t get out: I always get up underneath there,\nand can\u2019t find the hole.\u201d\n\nTom looked at the trap, and having more wit than the lobster, he saw\nplainly enough what was the matter; as you may if you will look at a\nlobster-pot.\n\n\u201cStop a bit,\u201d said Tom.  \u201cTurn your tail up to me, and I\u2019ll pull you\nthrough hindforemost, and then you won\u2019t stick in the spikes.\u201d\n\nBut the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he couldn\u2019t hit the hole.\nLike a great many fox-hunters, he was very sharp as long as he was in his\nown country; but as soon as they get out of it they lose their heads; and\nso the lobster, so to speak, lost his tail.\n\nTom reached and clawed down the hole after him, till he caught hold of\nhim; and then, as was to be expected, the clumsy lobster pulled him in\nhead foremost.\n\n\u201cHullo! here is a pretty business,\u201d said Tom.  \u201cNow take your great\nclaws, and break the points off those spikes, and then we shall both get\nout easily.\u201d\n\n\u201cDear me, I never thought of that,\u201d said the lobster; \u201cand after all the\nexperience of life that I have had!\u201d\n\nYou see, experience is of very little good unless a man, or a lobster,\nhas wit enough to make use of it.  For a good many people, like old\nPolonius, have seen all the world, and yet remain little better than\nchildren after all.\n\nBut they had not got half the spikes away when they saw a great dark\ncloud over them: and lo, and behold, it was the otter.\n\nHow she did grin and grin when she saw Tom.  \u201cYar!\u201d said she, \u201cyou little\nmeddlesome wretch, I have you now!  I will serve you out for telling the\nsalmon where I was!\u201d  And she crawled all over the pot to get in.\n\nTom was horribly frightened, and still more frightened when she found the\nhole in the top, and squeezed herself right down through it, all eyes and\nteeth.  But no sooner was her head inside than valiant Mr. Lobster caught\nher by the nose and held on.\n\nAnd there they were all three in the pot, rolling over and over, and very\ntight packing it was.  And the lobster tore at the otter, and the otter\ntore at the lobster, and both squeezed and thumped poor Tom till he had\nno breath left in his body; and I don\u2019t know what would have happened to\nhim if he had not at last got on the otter\u2019s back, and safe out of the\nhole.\n\nHe was right glad when he got out: but he would not desert his friend who\nhad saved him; and the first time he saw his tail uppermost he caught\nhold of it, and pulled with all his might.\n\nBut the lobster would not let go.\n\n\u201cCome along,\u201d said Tom; \u201cdon\u2019t you see she is dead?\u201d  And so she was,\nquite drowned and dead.\n\nAnd that was the end of the wicked otter.\n\nBut the lobster would not let go.\n\n\u201cCome along, you stupid old stick-in-the-mud,\u201d cried Tom, \u201cor the\nfisherman will catch you!\u201d  And that was true, for Tom felt some one\nabove beginning to haul up the pot.\n\n                      [Picture: Tom and the lobster]\n\nBut the lobster would not let go.  Tom saw the fisherman haul him up to\nthe boat-side, and thought it was all up with him.  But when Mr. Lobster\nsaw the fisherman, he gave such a furious and tremendous snap, that he\nsnapped out of his hand, and out of the pot, and safe into the sea.  But\nhe left his knobbed claw behind him; for it never came into his stupid\nhead to let go after all, so he just shook his claw off as the easier\nmethod.  It was something of a bull, that; but you must know the lobster\nwas an Irish lobster, and was hatched off Island Magee at the mouth of\nBelfast Lough.\n\nTom asked the lobster why he never thought of letting go.  He said very\ndeterminedly that it was a point of honour among lobsters.  And so it is,\nas the Mayor of Plymouth found out once to his cost\u2014eight or nine hundred\nyears ago, of course; for if it had happened lately it would be personal\nto mention it.\n\nFor one day he was so tired with sitting on a hard chair, in a grand\nfurred gown, with a gold chain round his neck, hearing one policeman\nafter another come in and sing, \u201cWhat shall we do with the drunken\nsailor, so early in the morning?\u201d and answering them each exactly alike:\n\n\u201cPut him in the round house till he gets sober, so early in the morning\u201d\u2014\n\nThat, when it was over, he jumped up, and played leap-frog with the\ntown-clerk till he burst his buttons, and then had his luncheon, and\nburst some more buttons, and then said: \u201cIt is a low spring-tide; I shall\ngo out this afternoon and cut my capers.\u201d\n\nNow he did not mean to cut such capers as you eat with boiled mutton.  It\nwas the commandant of artillery at Valetta who used to amuse himself with\ncutting them, and who stuck upon one of the bastions a notice, \u201cNo one\nallowed to cut capers here but me,\u201d which greatly edified the midshipmen\nin port, and the Maltese on the Nix Mangiare stairs.  But all that the\nmayor meant was that he would go and have an afternoon\u2019s fun, like any\nschoolboy, and catch lobsters with an iron hook.\n\nSo to the Mewstone he went, and for lobsters he looked.  And when he came\nto a certain crack in the rocks he was so excited that, instead of\nputting in his hook, he put in his hand; and Mr. Lobster was at home, and\ncaught him by the finger, and held on.\n\n\u201cYah!\u201d said the mayor, and pulled as hard as he dared: but the more he\npulled, the more the lobster pinched, till he was forced to be quiet.\n\nThen he tried to get his hook in with his other hand; but the hole was\ntoo narrow.\n\nThen he pulled again; but he could not stand the pain.\n\nThen he shouted and bawled for help: but there was no one nearer him than\nthe men-of-war inside the breakwater.\n\nThen he began to turn a little pale; for the tide flowed, and still the\nlobster held on.\n\nThen he turned quite white; for the tide was up to his knees, and still\nthe lobster held on.\n\nThen he thought of cutting off his finger; but he wanted two things to do\nit with\u2014courage and a knife; and he had got neither.\n\nThen he turned quite yellow; for the tide was up to his waist, and still\nthe lobster held on.\n\nThen he thought over all the naughty things he ever had done; all the\nsand which he had put in the sugar, and the sloe-leaves in the tea, and\nthe water in the treacle, and the salt in the tobacco (because his\nbrother was a brewer, and a man must help his own kin).\n\nThen he turned quite blue; for the tide was up to his breast, and still\nthe lobster held on.\n\nThen, I have no doubt, he repented fully of all the said naughty things\nwhich he had done, and promised to mend his life, as too many do when\nthey think they have no life left to mend.  Whereby, as they fancy, they\nmake a very cheap bargain.  But the old fairy with the birch rod soon\nundeceives them.\n\nAnd then he grew all colours at once, and turned up his eyes like a duck\nin thunder; for the water was up to his chin, and still the lobster held\non.\n\nAnd then came a man-of-war\u2019s boat round the Mewstone, and saw his head\nsticking up out of the water.  One said it was a keg of brandy, and\nanother that it was a cocoa-nut, and another that it was a buoy loose,\nand another that it was a black diver, and wanted to fire at it, which\nwould not have been pleasant for the mayor: but just then such a yell\ncame out of a great hole in the middle of it that the midshipman in\ncharge guessed what it was, and bade pull up to it as fast as they could.\nSo somehow or other the Jack-tars got the lobster out, and set the mayor\nfree, and put him ashore at the Barbican.  He never went lobster-catching\nagain; and we will hope he put no more salt in the tobacco, not even to\nsell his brother\u2019s beer.\n\n[Picture: The Mayor of Plymouth] And that is the story of the Mayor of\nPlymouth, which has two advantages\u2014first, that of being quite true; and\nsecond, that of having (as folks say all good stories ought to have) no\nmoral whatsoever: no more, indeed, has any part of this book, because it\nis a fairy tale, you know.\n\nAnd now happened to Tom a most wonderful thing; for he had not left the\nlobster five minutes before he came upon a water-baby.\n\nA real live water-baby, sitting on the white sand, very busy about a\nlittle point of rock.  And when it saw Tom it looked up for a moment, and\nthen cried, \u201cWhy, you are not one of us.  You are a new baby!  Oh, how\ndelightful!\u201d\n\nAnd it ran to Tom, and Tom ran to it, and they hugged and kissed each\nother for ever so long, they did not know why.  But they did not want any\nintroductions there under the water.\n\nAt last Tom said, \u201cOh, where have you been all this while?  I have been\nlooking for you so long, and I have been so lonely.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe have been here for days and days.  There are hundreds of us about the\nrocks.  How was it you did not see us, or hear us when we sing and romp\nevery evening before we go home?\u201d\n\nTom looked at the baby again, and then he said:\n\n\u201cWell, this is wonderful!  I have seen things just like you again and\nagain, but I thought you were shells, or sea-creatures.  I never took you\nfor water-babies like myself.\u201d\n\nNow, was not that very odd?  So odd, indeed, that you will, no doubt,\nwant to know how it happened, and why Tom could never find a water-baby\ntill after he had got the lobster out of the pot.  And, if you will read\nthis story nine times over, and then think for yourself, you will find\nout why.  It is not good for little boys to be told everything, and never\nto be forced to use their own wits.  They would learn, then, no more than\nthey do at Dr. Dulcimer\u2019s famous suburban establishment for the idler\nmembers of the youthful aristocracy, where the masters learn the lessons\nand the boys hear them\u2014which saves a great deal of trouble\u2014for the time\nbeing.\n\n\u201cNow,\u201d said the baby, \u201ccome and help me, or I shall not have finished\nbefore my brothers and sisters come, and it is time to go home.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat shall I help you at?\u201d\n\n\u201cAt this poor dear little rock; a great clumsy boulder came rolling by in\nthe last storm, and knocked all its head off, and rubbed off all its\nflowers.  And now I must plant it again with seaweeds, and coralline, and\nanemones, and I will make it the prettiest little rock-garden on all the\nshore.\u201d\n\nSo they worked away at the rock, and planted it, and smoothed the sand\ndown round, it, and capital fun they had till the tide began to turn.\nAnd then Tom heard all the other babies coming, laughing and singing and\nshouting and romping; and the noise they made was just like the noise of\nthe ripple.  So he knew that he had been hearing and seeing the\nwater-babies all along; only he did not know them, because his eyes and\nears were not opened.\n\nAnd in they came, dozens and dozens of them, some bigger than Tom and\nsome smaller, all in the neatest little white bathing dresses; and when\nthey found that he was a new baby, they hugged him and kissed him, and\nthen put him in the middle and danced round him on the sand, and there\nwas no one ever so happy as poor little Tom.\n\n\u201cNow then,\u201d they cried all at once, \u201cwe must come away home, we must come\naway home, or the tide will leave us dry.  We have mended all the broken\nsea-weed, and put all the rock-pools in order, and planted all the shells\nagain in the sand, and nobody will see where the ugly storm swept in last\nweek.\u201d\n\nAnd this is the reason why the rock-pools are always so neat and clean;\nbecause the water-babies come inshore after every storm to sweep them\nout, and comb them down, and put them all to rights again.\n\nOnly where men are wasteful and dirty, and let sewers run into the sea\ninstead of putting the stuff upon the fields like thrifty reasonable\nsouls; or throw herrings\u2019 heads and dead dog-fish, or any other refuse,\ninto the water; or in any way make a mess upon the clean shore\u2014there the\nwater-babies will not come, sometimes not for hundreds of years (for they\ncannot abide anything smelly or foul), but leave the sea-anemones and the\ncrabs to clear away everything, till the good tidy sea has covered up all\nthe dirt in soft mud and clean sand, where the water-babies can plant\nlive cockles and whelks and razor-shells and sea-cucumbers and\ngolden-combs, and make a pretty live garden again, after man\u2019s dirt is\ncleared away.  And that, I suppose, is the reason why there are no\nwater-babies at any watering-place which I have ever seen.\n\nAnd where is the home of the water-babies?  In St. Brandan\u2019s fairy isle.\n\nDid you never hear of the blessed St. Brandan, how he preached to the\nwild Irish on the wild, wild Kerry coast, he and five other hermits, till\nthey were weary and longed to rest?  For the wild Irish would not listen\nto them, or come to confession and to mass, but liked better to brew\npotheen, and dance the pater o\u2019pee, and knock each other over the head\nwith shillelaghs, and shoot each other from behind turf-dykes, and steal\neach other\u2019s cattle, and burn each other\u2019s homes; till St. Brandan and\nhis friends were weary of them, for they would not learn to be peaceable\nChristians at all.\n\nSo St. Brandan went out to the point of Old Dunmore, and looked over the\ntide-way roaring round the Blasquets, at the end of all the world, and\naway into the ocean, and sighed\u2014\u201cAh that I had wings as a dove!\u201d  And far\naway, before the setting sun, he saw a blue fairy sea, and golden fairy\nislands, and he said, \u201cThose are the islands of the blest.\u201d  Then he and\nhis friends got into a hooker, and sailed away and away to the westward,\nand were never heard of more.  But the people who would not hear him were\nchanged into gorillas, and gorillas they are until this day.\n\nAnd when St. Brandan and the hermits came to that fairy isle they found\nit overgrown with cedars and full of beautiful birds; and he sat down\nunder the cedars and preached to all the birds in the air.  And they\nliked his sermons so well that they told the fishes in the sea; and they\ncame, and St. Brandan preached to them; and the fishes told the\nwater-babies, who live in the caves under the isle; and they came up by\nhundreds every Sunday, and St. Brandan got quite a neat little\nSunday-school.  And there he taught the water-babies for a great many\nhundred years, till his eyes grew too dim to see, and his beard grew so\nlong that he dared not walk for fear of treading on it, and then he might\nhave tumbled down.  And at last he and the five hermits fell fast asleep\nunder the cedar-shades, and there they sleep unto this day.  But the\nfairies took to the water-babies, and taught them their lessons\nthemselves.\n\nAnd some say that St. Brandan will awake and begin to teach the babies\nonce more: but some think that he will sleep on, for better for worse,\ntill the coming of the Cocqcigrues.  But, on still clear summer evenings,\nwhen the sun sinks down into the sea, among golden cloud-capes and\ncloud-islands, and locks and friths of azure sky, the sailors fancy that\nthey see, away to westward, St. Brandan\u2019s fairy isle.\n\nBut whether men can see it or not, St. Brandan\u2019s Isle once actually stood\nthere; a great land out in the ocean, which has sunk and sunk beneath the\nwaves.  Old Plato called it Atlantis, and told strange tales of the wise\nmen who lived therein, and of the wars they fought in the old times.  And\nfrom off that island came strange flowers, which linger still about this\nland:\u2014the Cornish heath, and Cornish moneywort, and the delicate Venus\u2019s\nhair, and the London-pride which covers the Kerry mountains, and the\nlittle pink butterwort of Devon, and the great blue butterwort of\nIreland, and the Connemara heath, and the bristle-fern of the Turk\nwaterfall, and many a strange plant more; all fairy tokens left for wise\nmen and good children from off St. Brandan\u2019s Isle.\n\nNow when Tom got there, he found that the isle stood all on pillars, and\nthat its roots were full of caves.  There were pillars of black basalt,\nlike Staffa; and pillars of green and crimson serpentine, like Kynance;\nand pillars ribboned with red and white and yellow sandstone, like\nLivermead; and there were blue grottoes like Capri, and white grottoes\nlike Adelsberg; all curtained and draped with seaweeds, purple and\ncrimson, green and brown; and strewn with soft white sand, on which the\nwater-babies sleep every night.  But, to keep the place clean and sweet,\nthe crabs picked up all the scraps off the floor and ate them like so\nmany monkeys; while the rocks were covered with ten thousand\nsea-anemones, and corals and madrepores, who scavenged the water all day\nlong, and kept it nice and pure.  But, to make up to them for having to\ndo such nasty work, they were not left black and dirty, as poor\nchimney-sweeps and dustmen are.  No; the fairies are more considerate and\njust than that, and have dressed them all in the most beautiful colours\nand patterns, till they look like vast flower-beds of gay blossoms.  If\nyou think I am talking nonsense, I can only say that it is true; and that\nan old gentleman named Fourier used to say that we ought to do the same\nby chimney-sweeps and dustmen, and honour them instead of despising them;\nand he was a very clever old gentleman: but, unfortunately for him and\nthe world, as mad as a March hare.\n\nAnd, instead of watchmen and policemen to keep out nasty things at night,\nthere were thousands and thousands of water-snakes, and most wonderful\ncreatures they were.  They were all named after the Nereids, the\nsea-fairies who took care of them, Eunice and Polynoe, Phyllodoce and\nPsamathe, and all the rest of the pretty darlings who swim round their\nQueen Amphitrite, and her car of cameo shell.  They were dressed in green\nvelvet, and black velvet, and purple velvet; and were all jointed in\nrings; and some of them had three hundred brains apiece, so that they\nmust have been uncommonly shrewd detectives; and some had eyes in their\ntails; and some had eyes in every joint, so that they kept a very sharp\nlook-out; and when they wanted a baby-snake, they just grew one at the\nend of their own tails, and when it was able to take care of itself it\ndropped off; so that they brought up their families very cheaply.  But if\nany nasty thing came by, out they rushed upon it; and then out of each of\ntheir hundreds of feet there sprang a whole cutler\u2019s shop of\n\n_Scythes_,           _Javelins_,\n_Billhooks_,         _Lances_,\n_Pickaxes_,          _Halberts_,\n_Forks_,             _Gisarines_,\n_Penknives_,         _Poleaxes_,\n_Rapiers_,           _Fishhooks_,\n_Sabres_,            _Bradawls_,\n_Yataghans_,         _Gimblets_,\n_Creeses_,           _Corkscrews_,\n_Ghoorka swords_,    _Pins_,\n_Tucks_,             _Needles_,\n          _And so forth_,\n\nwhich stabbed, shot, poked, pricked, scratched, ripped, pinked, and\ncrimped those naughty beasts so terribly, that they had to run for their\nlives, or else be chopped into small pieces and be eaten afterwards.\nAnd, if that is not all, every word, true, then there is no faith in\nmicroscopes, and all is over with the Linn\u00e6an Society.\n\nAnd there were the water-babies in thousands, more than Tom, or you\neither, could count.\u2014All the little children whom the good fairies take\nto, because their cruel mothers and fathers will not; all who are\nuntaught and brought up heathens, and all who come to grief by ill-usage\nor ignorance or neglect; all the little children who are overlaid, or\ngiven gin when they are young, or are let to drink out of hot kettles, or\nto fall into the fire; all the little children in alleys and courts, and\ntumble-down cottages, who die by fever, and cholera, and measles, and\nscarlatina, and nasty complaints which no one has any business to have,\nand which no one will have some day, when folks have common sense; and\nall the little children who have been killed by cruel masters and wicked\nsoldiers; they were all there, except, of course, the babes of Bethlehem\nwho were killed by wicked King Herod; for they were taken straight to\nheaven long ago, as everybody knows, and we call them the Holy Innocents.\n\nBut I wish Tom had given up all his naughty tricks, and left off\ntormenting dumb animals now that he had plenty of playfellows to amuse\nhim.  Instead of that, I am sorry to say, he would meddle with the\ncreatures, all but the water-snakes, for they would stand no nonsense.\nSo he tickled the madrepores, to make them shut up; and frightened the\ncrabs, to make them hide in the sand and peep out at him with the tips of\ntheir eyes; and put stones into the anemones\u2019 mouths, to make them fancy\nthat their dinner was coming.\n\nThe other children warned him, and said, \u201cTake care what you are at.\nMrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is coming.\u201d  But Tom never heeded them, being quite\nriotous with high spirits and good luck, till, one Friday morning early,\nMrs. Bedonebyasyoudid came indeed.\n\nA very tremendous lady she was; and when the children saw her they all\nstood in a row, very upright indeed, and smoothed down their bathing\ndresses, and put their hands behind them, just as if they were going to\nbe examined by the inspector.\n\nAnd she had on a black bonnet, and a black shawl, and no crinoline at\nall; and a pair of large green spectacles, and a great hooked nose,\nhooked so much that the bridge of it stood quite up above her eyebrows;\nand under her arm she carried a great birch-rod.  Indeed, she was so ugly\nthat Tom was tempted to make faces at her: but did not; for he did not\nadmire the look of the birch-rod under her arm.\n\nAnd she looked at the children one by one, and seemed very much pleased\nwith them, though she never asked them one question about how they were\nbehaving; and then began giving them all sorts of nice\nsea-things\u2014sea-cakes, sea-apples, sea-oranges, sea-bullseyes, sea-toffee;\nand to the very best of all she gave sea-ices, made out of sea-cows\u2019\ncream, which never melt under water.\n\nAnd, if you don\u2019t quite believe me, then just think\u2014What is more cheap\nand plentiful than sea-rock?  Then why should there not be sea-toffee as\nwell?  And every one can find sea-lemons (ready quartered too) if they\nwill look for them at low tide; and sea-grapes too sometimes, hanging in\nbunches; and, if you will go to Nice, you will find the fish-market full\nof sea-fruit, which they call \u201cfrutta di mare:\u201d though I suppose they\ncall them \u201cfruits de mer\u201d now, out of compliment to that most successful,\nand therefore most immaculate, potentate who is seemingly desirous of\ninheriting the blessing pronounced on those who remove their neighbours\u2019\nland-mark.  And, perhaps, that is the very reason why the place is called\nNice, because there are so many nice things in the sea there: at least,\nif it is not, it ought to be.\n\n[Picture: Tom] Now little Tom watched all these sweet things given away,\ntill his mouth watered, and his eyes grew as round as an owl\u2019s.  For he\nhoped that his turn would come at last; and so it did.  For the lady\ncalled him up, and held out her fingers with something in them, and\npopped it into his mouth; and, lo and behold, it was a nasty cold hard\npebble.\n\n\u201cYou are a very cruel woman,\u201d said he, and began to whimper.\n\n\u201cAnd you are a very cruel boy; who puts pebbles into the sea-anemones\u2019\nmouths, to take them in, and make them fancy that they had caught a good\ndinner!  As you did to them, so I must do to you.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho told you that?\u201d said Tom.\n\n\u201cYou did yourself, this very minute.\u201d\n\nTom had never opened his lips; so he was very much taken aback indeed.\n\n\u201cYes; every one tells me exactly what they have done wrong; and that\nwithout knowing it themselves.  So there is no use trying to hide\nanything from me.  Now go, and be a good boy, and I will put no more\npebbles in your mouth, if you put none in other creatures\u2019.\u201d\n\n\u201cI did not know there was any harm in it,\u201d said Tom.\n\n\u201cThen you know now.  People continually say that to me: but I tell them,\nif you don\u2019t know that fire burns, that is no reason that it should not\nburn you; and if you don\u2019t know that dirt breeds fever, that is no reason\nwhy the fevers should not kill you.  The lobster did not know that there\nwas any harm in getting into the lobster-pot; but it caught him all the\nsame.\u201d\n\n\u201cDear me,\u201d thought Tom, \u201cshe knows everything!\u201d  And so she did, indeed.\n\n\u201cAnd so, if you do not know that things are wrong that is no reason why\nyou should not be punished for them; though not as much, not as much, my\nlittle man\u201d (and the lady looked very kindly, after all), \u201cas if you did\nknow.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, you are a little hard on a poor lad,\u201d said Tom.\n\n\u201cNot at all; I am the best friend you ever had in all your life.  But I\nwill tell you; I cannot help punishing people when they do wrong.  I like\nit no more than they do; I am often very, very sorry for them, poor\nthings: but I cannot help it.  If I tried not to do it, I should do it\nall the same.  For I work by machinery, just like an engine; and am full\nof wheels and springs inside; and am wound up very carefully, so that I\ncannot help going.\u201d\n\n\u201cWas it long ago since they wound you up?\u201d asked Tom.  For he thought,\nthe cunning little fellow, \u201cShe will run down some day: or they may\nforget to wind her up, as old Grimes used to forget to wind up his watch\nwhen he came in from the public-house; and then I shall be safe.\u201d\n\n\u201cI was wound up once and for all, so long ago, that I forget all about\nit.\u201d\n\n\u201cDear me,\u201d said Tom, \u201cyou must have been made a long time!\u201d\n\n\u201cI never was made, my child; and I shall go for ever and ever; for I am\nas old as Eternity, and yet as young as Time.\u201d\n\nAnd there came over the lady\u2019s face a very curious expression\u2014very\nsolemn, and very sad; and yet very, very sweet.  And she looked up and\naway, as if she were gazing through the sea, and through the sky, at\nsomething far, far off; and as she did so, there came such a quiet,\ntender, patient, hopeful smile over her face that Tom thought for the\nmoment that she did not look ugly at all.  And no more she did; for she\nwas like a great many people who have not a pretty feature in their\nfaces, and yet are lovely to behold, and draw little children\u2019s hearts to\nthem at once because though the house is plain enough, yet from the\nwindows a beautiful and good spirit is looking forth.\n\nAnd Tom smiled in her face, she looked so pleasant for the moment. And\nthe strange fairy smiled too, and said:\n\n\u201cYes.  You thought me very ugly just now, did you not?\u201d\n\nTom hung down his head, and got very red about the ears.\n\n\u201cAnd I am very ugly.  I am the ugliest fairy in the world; and I shall\nbe, till people behave themselves as they ought to do.  And then I shall\ngrow as handsome as my sister, who is the loveliest fairy in the world;\nand her name is Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.  So she begins where I end,\nand I begin where she ends; and those who will not listen to her must\nlisten to me, as you will see.  Now, all of you run away, except Tom; and\nhe may stay and see what I am going to do.  It will be a very good\nwarning for him to begin with, before he goes to school.\n\n\u201cNow, Tom, every Friday I come down here and call up all who have\nill-used little children and serve them as they served the children.\u201d\n\nAnd at that Tom was frightened, and crept under a stone; which made the\ntwo crabs who lived there very angry, and frightened their friend the\nbutter-fish into flapping hysterics: but he would not move for them.\n\nAnd first she called up all the doctors who give little children so much\nphysic (they were most of them old ones; for the young ones have learnt\nbetter, all but a few army surgeons, who still fancy that a baby\u2019s inside\nis much like a Scotch grenadier\u2019s), and she set them all in a row; and\nvery rueful they looked; for they knew what was coming.\n\nAnd first she pulled all their teeth out; and then she bled them all\nround: and then she dosed them with calomel, and jalap, and salts and\nsenna, and brimstone and treacle; and horrible faces they made; and then\nshe gave them a great emetic of mustard and water, and no basons; and\nbegan all over again; and that was the way she spent the morning.\n\nAnd then she called up a whole troop of foolish ladies, who pinch up\ntheir children\u2019s waists and toes; and she laced them all up in tight\nstays, so that they were choked and sick, and their noses grew red, and\ntheir hands and feet swelled; and then she crammed their poor feet into\nthe most dreadfully tight boots, and made them all dance, which they did\nmost clumsily indeed; and then she asked them how they liked it; and when\nthey said not at all, she let them go: because they had only done it out\nof foolish fashion, fancying it was for their children\u2019s good, as if\nwasps\u2019 waists and pigs\u2019 toes could be pretty, or wholesome, or of any use\nto anybody.\n\nThen she called up all the careless nurserymaids, and stuck pins into\nthem all over, and wheeled them about in perambulators with tight straps\nacross their stomachs and their heads and arms hanging over the side,\ntill they were quite sick and stupid, and would have had sun-strokes:\nbut, being under the water, they could only have water-strokes; which, I\nassure you, are nearly as bad, as you will find if you try to sit under a\nmill-wheel.  And mind\u2014when you hear a rumbling at the bottom of the sea,\nsailors will tell you that it is a ground-swell: but now you know better.\nIt is the old lady wheeling the maids about in perambulators.\n\nAnd by that time she was so tired, she had to go to luncheon.\n\nAnd after luncheon she set to work again, and called up all the cruel\nschoolmasters\u2014whole regiments and brigades of them; and when she saw\nthem, she frowned most terribly, and set to work in earnest, as if the\nbest part of the day\u2019s work was to come.  More than half of them were\nnasty, dirty, frowzy, grubby, smelly old monks, who, because they dare\nnot hit a man of their own size, amused themselves with beating little\nchildren instead; as you may see in the picture of old Pope Gregory (good\nman and true though he was, when he meddled with things which he did\nunderstand), teaching children to sing their fa-fa-mi-fa with a\ncat-o\u2019-nine tails under his chair: but, because they never had any\nchildren of their own, they took into their heads (as some folks do\nstill) that they were the only people in the world who knew how to manage\nchildren: and they first brought into England, in the old Anglo-Saxon\ntimes, the fashion of treating free boys, and girls too, worse than you\nwould treat a dog or a horse: but Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has caught them\nall long ago; and given them many a taste of their own rods; and much\ngood may it do them.\n\nAnd she boxed their ears, and thumped them over the head with rulers, and\npandied their hands with canes, and told them that they told stories, and\nwere this and that bad sort of people; and the more they were very\nindignant, and stood upon their honour, and declared they told the truth,\nthe more she declared they were not, and that they were only telling\nlies; and at last she birched them all round soundly with her great\nbirch-rod and set them each an imposition of three hundred thousand lines\nof Hebrew to learn by heart before she came back next Friday.  And at\nthat they all cried and howled so, that their breaths came all up through\nthe sea like bubbles out of soda-water; and that is one reason of the\nbubbles in the sea.  There are others: but that is the one which\nprincipally concerns little boys.  And by that time she was so tired that\nshe was glad to stop; and, indeed, she had done a very good day\u2019s work.\n\nTom did not quite dislike the old lady: but he could not help thinking\nher a little spiteful\u2014and no wonder if she was, poor old soul; for if she\nhas to wait to grow handsome till people do as they would be done by, she\nwill have to wait a very long time.\n\nPoor old Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid! she has a great deal of hard work before\nher, and had better have been born a washerwoman, and stood over a tub\nall day: but, you see, people cannot always choose their own profession.\n\nBut Tom longed to ask her one question; and after all, whenever she\nlooked at him, she did not look cross at all; and now and then there was\na funny smile in her face, and she chuckled to herself in a way which\ngave Tom courage, and at last he said:\n\n\u201cPray, ma\u2019am, may I ask you a question?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly, my little dear.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t you bring all the bad masters here and serve them out too?\nThe butties that knock about the poor collier-boys; and the nailers that\nfile off their lads\u2019 noses and hammer their fingers; and all the master\nsweeps, like my master Grimes?  I saw him fall into the water long ago;\nso I surely expected he would have been here.  I\u2019m sure he was bad enough\nto me.\u201d\n\nThen the old lady looked so very stern that Tom was quite frightened, and\nsorry that he had been so bold.  But she was not angry with him.  She\nonly answered, \u201cI look after them all the week round; and they are in a\nvery different place from this, because they knew that they were doing\nwrong.\u201d\n\nShe spoke very quietly; but there was something in her voice which made\nTom tingle from head to foot, as if he had got into a shoal of\nsea-nettles.\n\n\u201cBut these people,\u201d she went on, \u201cdid not know that they were doing\nwrong: they were only stupid and impatient; and therefore I only punish\nthem till they become patient, and learn to use their common sense like\nreasonable beings.  But as for chimney-sweeps, and collier-boys, and\nnailer lads, my sister has set good people to stop all that sort of\nthing; and very much obliged to her I am; for if she could only stop the\ncruel masters from ill-using poor children, I should grow handsome at\nleast a thousand years sooner.  And now do you be a good boy, and do as\nyou would be done by, which they did not; and then, when my sister,\nMADAME DOASYOUWOULDBEDONEBY, comes on Sunday, perhaps she will take\nnotice of you, and teach you how to behave.  She understands that better\nthan I do.\u201d  And so she went.\n\nTom was very glad to hear that there was no chance of meeting Grimes\nagain, though he was a little sorry for him, considering that he used\nsometimes to give him the leavings of the beer: but he determined to be a\nvery good boy all Saturday; and he was; for he never frightened one crab,\nnor tickled any live corals, nor put stones into the sea anemones\u2019\nmouths, to make them fancy they had got a dinner; and when Sunday morning\ncame, sure enough, MRS. DOASYOUWOULDBEDONEBY came too.  Whereat all the\nlittle children began dancing and clapping their hands, and Tom danced\ntoo with all his might.\n\nAnd as for the pretty lady, I cannot tell you what the colour of her hair\nwas, or, of her eyes: no more could Tom; for, when any one looks at her,\nall they can think of is, that she has the sweetest, kindest, tenderest,\nfunniest, merriest face they ever saw, or want to see.  But Tom saw that\nshe was a very tall woman, as tall as her sister: but instead of being\ngnarly and horny, and scaly, and prickly, like her, she was the most\nnice, soft, fat, smooth, pussy, cuddly, delicious creature who ever\nnursed a baby; and she understood babies thoroughly, for she had plenty\nof her own, whole rows and regiments of them, and has to this day.  And\nall her delight was, whenever she had a spare moment, to play with\nbabies, in which she showed herself a woman of sense; for babies are the\nbest company, and the pleasantest playfellows, in the world; at least, so\nall the wise people in the world think.  And therefore when the children\nsaw her, they naturally all caught hold of her, and pulled her till she\nsat down on a stone, and climbed into her lap, and clung round her neck,\nand caught hold of her hands; and then they all put their thumbs into\ntheir mouths, and began cuddling and purring like so many kittens, as\nthey ought to have done.  While those who could get nowhere else sat down\non the sand, and cuddled her feet\u2014for no one, you know, wear shoes in the\nwater, except horrid old bathing-women, who are afraid of the\nwater-babies pinching their horny toes.  And Tom stood staring at them;\nfor he could not understand what it was all about.\n\n\u201cAnd who are you, you little darling?\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cOh, that is the new baby!\u201d they all cried, pulling their thumbs out of\ntheir mouths; \u201cand he never had any mother,\u201d and they all put their\nthumbs back again, for they did not wish to lose any time.\n\n\u201cThen I will be his mother, and he shall have the very best place; so get\nout, all of you, this moment.\u201d\n\nAnd she took up two great armfuls of babies\u2014nine hundred under one arm,\nand thirteen hundred under the other\u2014and threw them away, right and left,\ninto the water.  But they minded it no more than the naughty boys in\nStruwelpeter minded when St. Nicholas dipped them in his inkstand; and\ndid not even take their thumbs out of their mouths, but came paddling and\nwriggling back to her like so many tadpoles, till you could see nothing\nof her from head to foot for the swarm of little babies.\n\nBut she took Tom in her arms, and laid him in the softest place of all,\nand kissed him, and patted him, and talked to him, tenderly and low, such\nthings as he had never heard before in his life; and Tom looked up into\nher eyes, and loved her, and loved, till he fell fast asleep from pure\nlove.\n\nAnd when he woke she was telling the children a story.  And what story\ndid she tell them?  One story she told them, which begins every Christmas\nEve, and yet never ends at all for ever and ever; and, as she went on,\nthe children took their thumbs out of their mouths and listened quite\nseriously; but not sadly at all; for she never told them anything sad;\nand Tom listened too, and never grew tired of listening.  And he listened\nso long that he fell fast asleep again, and, when he woke, the lady was\nnursing him still.\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t go away,\u201d said little Tom.  \u201cThis is so nice.  I never had any one\nto cuddle me before.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t go away,\u201d said all the children; \u201cyou have not sung us one song.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I have time for only one.  So what shall it be?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe doll you lost!  The doll you lost!\u201d cried all the babies at once.\n\n                           [Picture: The doll]\n\nSo the strange fairy sang:\u2014\n\n    _I once had a sweet little doll_, _dears_,\n       _The prettiest doll in the world_;\n    _Her cheeks were so red and so white_, _dears_,\n       _And her hair was so charmingly curled_.\n    _But I lost my poor little doll_, _dears_,\n       _As I played in the heath one day_;\n    _And I cried for her more than a week_, _dears_,\n       _But I never could find where she lay_.\n\n                        [Picture: The broken doll]\n\n    _I found my poor little doll_, _dears_,\n       _As I played in the heath one day_:\n    _Folks say she is terribly changed_, _dears_,\n       _For her paint is all washed away_,\n    _And her arm trodden off by the cows_, _dears_,\n       _And her hair not the least bit curled_:\n    _Yet_, _for old sakes\u2019 sake she is still_, _dears_,\n       _The prettiest doll in the world_.\n\nWhat a silly song for a fairy to sing!\n\nAnd what silly water-babies to be quite delighted at it!\n\nWell, but you see they have not the advantage of Aunt Agitate\u2019s Arguments\nin the sea-land down below.\n\n\u201cNow,\u201d said the fairy to Tom, \u201cwill you be a good boy for my sake, and\ntorment no more sea-beasts till I come back?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you will cuddle me again?\u201d said poor little Tom.\n\n\u201cOf course I will, you little duck.  I should like to take you with me\nand cuddle you all the way, only I must not;\u201d and away she went.\n\nSo Tom really tried to be a good boy, and tormented no sea-beasts after\nthat as long as he lived; and he is quite alive, I assure you, still.\n\nOh, how good little boys ought to be who have kind pussy mammas to cuddle\nthem and tell them stories; and how afraid they ought to be of growing\nnaughty, and bringing tears into their mammas\u2019 pretty eyes!\n\n                    [Picture: Little both with mother]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\n    \u201cThou little child, yet glorious in the night\n    Of heaven-born freedom on thy Being\u2019s height,\n    Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke\n    The Years to bring the inevitable yoke\u2014\n    Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?\n    Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,\n    And custom lie upon thee with a weight\n    Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.\u201d\n\n                                                               WORDSWORTH.\n\n[Picture: The Officer and a crying child] HERE I come to the very saddest\npart of all my story.  I know some people will only laugh at it, and call\nit much ado about nothing.  But I know one man who would not; and he was\nan officer with a pair of gray moustaches as long as your arm, who said\nonce in company that two of the most heart-rending sights in the world,\nwhich moved him most to tears, which he would do anything to prevent or\nremedy, were a child over a broken toy and a child stealing sweets.\n\nThe company did not laugh at him; his moustaches were too long and too\ngray for that: but, after he was gone, they called him sentimental and so\nforth, all but one dear little old Quaker lady with a soul as white as\nher cap, who was not, of course, generally partial to soldiers; and she\nsaid very quietly, like a Quaker:\n\n\u201cFriends, it is borne upon my mind that that is a truly brave man.\u201d\n\nNow you may fancy that Tom was quite good, when he had everything that he\ncould want or wish: but you would be very much mistaken.  Being quite\ncomfortable is a very good thing; but it does not make people good.\nIndeed, it sometimes makes them naughty, as it has made the people in\nAmerica; and as it made the people in the Bible, who waxed fat and\nkicked, like horses overfed and underworked.  And I am very sorry to say\nthat this happened to little Tom.  For he grew so fond of the\nsea-bullseyes and sea-lollipops that his foolish little head could think\nof nothing else: and he was always longing for more, and wondering when\nthe strange lady would come again and give him some, and what she would\ngive him, and how much, and whether she would give him more than the\nothers.  And he thought of nothing but lollipops by day, and dreamt of\nnothing else by night\u2014and what happened then?\n\nThat he began to watch the lady to see where she kept the sweet things:\nand began hiding, and sneaking, and following her about, and pretending\nto be looking the other way, or going after something else, till he found\nout that she kept them in a beautiful mother-of-pearl cabinet away in a\ndeep crack of the rocks.\n\nAnd he longed to go to the cabinet, and yet he was afraid; and then he\nlonged again, and was less afraid; and at last, by continual thinking\nabout it, he longed so violently that he was not afraid at all.  And one\nnight, when all the other children were asleep, and he could not sleep\nfor thinking of lollipops, he crept away among the rocks, and got to the\ncabinet, and behold! it was open.\n\nBut, when he saw all the nice things inside, instead of being delighted,\nhe was quite frightened, and wished he had never come there.  And then he\nwould only touch them, and he did; and then he would only taste one, and\nhe did; and then he would only eat one, and he did; and then he would\nonly eat two, and then three, and so on; and then he was terrified lest\nshe should come and catch him, and began gobbling them down so fast that\nhe did not taste them, or have any pleasure in them; and then he felt\nsick, and would have only one more; and then only one more again; and so\non till he had eaten them all up.\n\nAnd all the while, close behind him, stood Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.\n\nSome people may say, But why did she not keep her cupboard locked?  Well,\nI know.\u2014It may seem a very strange thing, but she never does keep her\ncupboard locked; every one may go and taste for themselves, and fare\naccordingly.  It is very odd, but so it is; and I am quite sure that she\nknows best.  Perhaps she wishes people to keep their fingers out of the\nfire, by having them burned.\n\nShe took off her spectacles, because she did not like to see too much;\nand in her pity she arched up her eyebrows into her very hair, and her\neyes grew so wide that they would have taken in all the sorrows of the\nworld, and filled with great big tears, as they too often do.\n\nBut all she said was:\n\n\u201cAh, you poor little dear! you are just like all the rest.\u201d\n\nBut she said it to herself, and Tom neither heard nor saw her.  Now, you\nmust not fancy that she was sentimental at all.  If you do, and think\nthat she is going to let off you, or me, or any human being when we do\nwrong, because she is too tender-hearted to punish us, then you will find\nyourself very much mistaken, as many a man does every year and every day.\n\nBut what did the strange fairy do when she saw all her lollipops eaten?\n\nDid she fly at Tom, catch him by the scruff of the neck, hold him, howk\nhim, hump him, hurry him, hit him, poke him, pull him, pinch him, pound\nhim, put him in the corner, shake him, slap him, set him on a cold stone\nto reconsider himself, and so forth?\n\nNot a bit.  You may watch her at work if you know where to find her.  But\nyou will never see her do that.  For, if she had, she knew quite well Tom\nwould have fought, and kicked, and bit, and said bad words, and turned\nagain that moment into a naughty little heathen chimney-sweep, with his\nhand, like Ishmael\u2019s of old, against every man, and every man\u2019s hand\nagainst him.\n\nDid she question him, hurry him, frighten him, threaten him, to make him\nconfess?  Not a bit.  You may see her, as I said, at her work often\nenough if you know where to look for her: but you will never see her do\nthat.  For, if she had, she would have tempted him to tell lies in his\nfright; and that would have been worse for him, if possible, than even\nbecoming a heathen chimney-sweep again.\n\nNo.  She leaves that for anxious parents and teachers (lazy ones, some\ncall them), who, instead of giving children a fair trial, such as they\nwould expect and demand for themselves, force them by fright to confess\ntheir own faults\u2014which is so cruel and unfair that no judge on the bench\ndare do it to the wickedest thief or murderer, for the good British law\nforbids it\u2014ay, and even punish them to make them confess, which is so\ndetestable a crime that it is never committed now, save by Inquisitors,\nand Kings of Naples, and a few other wretched people of whom the world is\nweary.  And then they say, \u201cWe have trained up the child in the way he\nshould go, and when he grew up he has departed from it.  Why then did\nSolomon say that he would not depart from it?\u201d  But perhaps the way of\nbeating, and hurrying and frightening, and questioning, was not the way\nthat the child should go; for it is not even the way in which a colt\nshould go if you want to break it in and make it a quiet serviceable\nhorse.\n\nSome folks may say, \u201cAh! but the Fairy does not need to do that if she\nknows everything already.\u201d  True.  But, if she did not know, she would\nnot surely behave worse than a British judge and jury; and no more should\nparents and teachers either.\n\nSo she just said nothing at all about the matter, not even when Tom came\nnext day with the rest for sweet things.  He was horribly afraid of\ncoming: but he was still more afraid of staying away, lest any one should\nsuspect him.  He was dreadfully afraid, too, lest there should be no\nsweets\u2014as was to be expected, he having eaten them all\u2014and lest then the\nfairy should inquire who had taken them.  But, behold! she pulled out\njust as many as ever, which astonished Tom, and frightened him still\nmore.\n\nAnd, when the fairy looked him full in the face, he shook from head to\nfoot: however she gave him his share like the rest, and he thought within\nhimself that she could not have found him out.\n\nBut, when he put the sweets into his mouth, he hated the taste of them;\nand they made him so sick that he had to get away as fast as he could;\nand terribly sick he was, and very cross and unhappy, all the week after.\n\nThen, when next week came, he had his share again; and again the fairy\nlooked him full in the face; but more sadly than she had ever looked.\nAnd he could not bear the sweets: but took them again in spite of\nhimself.\n\n[Picture: Prickly Tom] And when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, he wanted\nto be cuddled like the rest; but she said very seriously:\n\n\u201cI should like to cuddle you; but I cannot, you are so horny and\nprickly.\u201d\n\nAnd Tom looked at himself: and he was all over prickles, just like a\nsea-egg.\n\nWhich was quite natural; for you must know and believe that people\u2019s\nsouls make their bodies just as a snail makes its shell (I am not joking,\nmy little man; I am in serious, solemn earnest).  And therefore, when\nTom\u2019s soul grew all prickly with naughty tempers, his body could not help\ngrowing prickly, too, so that nobody would cuddle him, or play with him,\nor even like to look at him.\n\nWhat could Tom do now but go away and hide in a corner and cry?  For\nnobody would play with him, and he knew full well why.\n\nAnd he was so miserable all that week that when the ugly fairy came and\nlooked at him once more full in the face, more seriously and sadly than\never, he could stand it no longer, and thrust the sweetmeats away,\nsaying, \u201cNo, I don\u2019t want any: I can\u2019t bear them now,\u201d and then burst out\ncrying, poor little man, and told Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid every word as it\nhappened.\n\nHe was horribly frightened when he had done so; for he expected her to\npunish him very severely.  But, instead, she only took him up and kissed\nhim, which was not quite pleasant, for her chin was very bristly indeed;\nbut he was so lonely-hearted, he thought that rough kissing was better\nthan none.\n\n\u201cI will forgive you, little man,\u201d she said.  \u201cI always forgive every one\nthe moment they tell me the truth of their own accord.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen you will take away all these nasty prickles?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is a very different matter.  You put them there yourself, and only\nyou can take them away.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut how can I do that?\u201d asked Tom, crying afresh.\n\n\u201cWell, I think it is time for you to go to school; so I shall fetch you a\nschoolmistress, who will teach you how to get rid of your prickles.\u201d  And\nso she went away.\n\nTom was frightened at the notion of a school-mistress; for he thought she\nwould certainly come with a birch-rod or a cane; but he comforted\nhimself, at last, that she might be something like the old woman in\nVendale\u2014which she was not in the least; for, when the fairy brought her,\nshe was the most beautiful little girl that ever was seen, with long\ncurls floating behind her like a golden cloud, and long robes floating\nall round her like a silver one.\n\n                    [Picture: Tom and the little girl]\n\n\u201cThere he is,\u201d said the fairy; \u201cand you must teach him to be good,\nwhether you like or not.\u201d\n\n\u201cI know,\u201d said the little girl; but she did not seem quite to like, for\nshe put her finger in her mouth, and looked at Tom under her brows; and\nTom put his finger in his mouth, and looked at her under his brows, for\nhe was horribly ashamed of himself.\n\nThe little girl seemed hardly to know how to begin; and perhaps she would\nnever have begun at all if poor Tom had not burst out crying, and begged\nher to teach him to be good and help him to cure his prickles; and at\nthat she grew so tender-hearted that she began teaching him as prettily\nas ever child was taught in the world.\n\nAnd what did the little girl teach Tom?  She taught him, first, what you\nhave been taught ever since you said your first prayers at your mother\u2019s\nknees; but she taught him much more simply.  For the lessons in that\nworld, my child, have no such hard words in them as the lessons in this,\nand therefore the water-babies like them better than you like your\nlessons, and long to learn them more and more; and grown men cannot\npuzzle nor quarrel over their meaning, as they do here on land; for those\nlessons all rise clear and pure, like the Test out of Overton Pool, out\nof the everlasting ground of all life and truth.\n\nSo she taught Tom every day in the week; only on Sundays she always went\naway home, and the kind fairy took her place.  And before she had taught\nTom many Sundays, his prickles had vanished quite away, and his skin was\nsmooth and clean again.\n\n\u201cDear me!\u201d said the little girl; \u201cwhy, I know you now.  You are the very\nsame little chimney-sweep who came into my bedroom.\u201d\n\n\u201cDear me!\u201d cried Tom.  \u201cAnd I know you, too, now.  You are the very\nlittle white lady whom I saw in bed.\u201d  And he jumped at her, and longed\nto hug and kiss her; but did not, remembering that she was a lady born;\nso he only jumped round and round her till he was quite tired.\n\nAnd then they began telling each other all their story\u2014how he had got\ninto the water, and she had fallen over the rock; and how he had swum\ndown to the sea, and how she had flown out of the window; and how this,\nthat, and the other, till it was all talked out: and then they both began\nover again, and I can\u2019t say which of the two talked fastest.\n\nAnd then they set to work at their lessons again, and both liked them so\nwell that they went on well till seven full years were past and gone.\n\nYou may fancy that Tom was quite content and happy all those seven years;\nbut the truth is, he was not.  He had always one thing on his mind, and\nthat was\u2014where little Ellie went, when she went home on Sundays.\n\nTo a very beautiful place, she said.\n\nBut what was the beautiful place like, and where was it?\n\nAh! that is just what she could not say.  And it is strange, but true,\nthat no one can say; and that those who have been oftenest in it, or even\nnearest to it, can say least about it, and make people understand least\nwhat it is like.  There are a good many folks about the\nOther-end-of-Nowhere (where Tom went afterwards), who pretend to know it\nfrom north to south as well as if they had been penny postmen there; but,\nas they are safe at the Other-end-of-Nowhere, nine hundred and\nninety-nine million miles away, what they say cannot concern us.\n\nBut the dear, sweet, loving, wise, good, self-sacrificing people, who\nreally go there, can never tell you anything about it, save that it is\nthe most beautiful place in all the world; and, if you ask them more,\nthey grow modest, and hold their peace, for fear of being laughed at; and\nquite right they are.\n\nSo all that good little Ellie could say was, that it was worth all the\nrest of the world put together.  And of course that only made Tom the\nmore anxious to go likewise.\n\n\u201cMiss Ellie,\u201d he said at last, \u201cI will know why I cannot go with you when\nyou go home on Sundays, or I shall have no peace, and give you none\neither.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou must ask the fairies that.\u201d\n\nSo when the fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, came next, Tom asked her.\n\n\u201cLittle boys who are only fit to play with sea-beasts cannot go there,\u201d\nshe said.  \u201cThose who go there must go first where they do not like, and\ndo what they do not like, and help somebody they do not like.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, did Ellie do that?\u201d\n\n\u201cAsk her.\u201d\n\nAnd Ellie blushed, and said, \u201cYes, Tom; I did not like coming here at\nfirst; I was so much happier at home, where it is always Sunday.  And I\nwas afraid of you, Tom, at first, because\u2014because\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause I was all over prickles?  But I am not prickly now, am I, Miss\nEllie?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said Ellie.  \u201cI like you very much now; and I like coming here,\ntoo.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd perhaps,\u201d said the fairy, \u201cyou will learn to like going where you\ndon\u2019t like, and helping some one that you don\u2019t like, as Ellie has.\u201d\n\nBut Tom put his finger in his mouth, and hung his head down; for he did\nnot see that at all.\n\nSo when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, Tom asked her; for he thought in\nhis little head, She is not so strict as her sister, and perhaps she may\nlet me off more easily.\n\nAh, Tom, Tom, silly fellow! and yet I don\u2019t know why I should blame you,\nwhile so many grown people have got the very same notion in their heads.\n\nBut, when they try it, they get just the same answer as Tom did.  For,\nwhen he asked the second fairy, she told him just what the first did, and\nin the very same words.\n\nTom was very unhappy at that.  And, when Ellie went home on Sunday, he\nfretted and cried all day, and did not care to listen to the fairy\u2019s\nstories about good children, though they were prettier than ever.\nIndeed, the more he overheard of them, the less he liked to listen,\nbecause they were all about children who did what they did not like, and\ntook trouble for other people, and worked to feed their little brothers\nand sisters instead of caring only for their play.  And, when she began\nto tell a story about a holy child in old times, who was martyred by the\nheathen because it would not worship idols, Tom could bear no more, and\nran away and hid among the rocks.\n\nAnd, when Ellie came back, he was shy with her, because he fancied she\nlooked down on him, and thought him a coward.  And then he grew quite\ncross with her, because she was superior to him, and did what he could\nnot do.  And poor Ellie was quite surprised and sad; and at last Tom\nburst out crying; but he would not tell her what was really in his mind.\n\nAnd all the while he was eaten up with curiosity to know where Ellie went\nto; so that he began not to care for his playmates, or for the sea-palace\nor anything else.  But perhaps that made matters all the easier for him;\nfor he grew so discontented with everything round him that he did not\ncare to stay, and did not care where he went.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d he said, at last, \u201cI am so miserable here, I\u2019ll go; if only you\nwill go with me?\u201d\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d said Ellie, \u201cI wish I might; but the worst of it is, that the fairy\nsays that you must go alone if you go at all.  Now don\u2019t poke that poor\ncrab about, Tom\u201d (for he was feeling very naughty and mischievous), \u201cor\nthe fairy will have to punish you.\u201d\n\nTom was very nearly saying, \u201cI don\u2019t care if she does;\u201d but he stopped\nhimself in time.\n\n\u201cI know what she wants me to do,\u201d he said, whining most dolefully.  \u201cShe\nwants me to go after that horrid old Grimes.  I don\u2019t like him, that\u2019s\ncertain.  And if I find him, he will turn me into a chimney-sweep again,\nI know.  That\u2019s what I have been afraid of all along.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, he won\u2019t\u2014I know as much as that.  Nobody can turn water-babies into\nsweeps, or hurt them at all, as long as they are good.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh,\u201d said naughty Tom, \u201cI see what you want; you are persuading me all\nalong to go, because you are tired of me, and want to get rid of me.\u201d\n\nLittle Ellie opened her eyes very wide at that, and they were all\nbrimming over with tears.\n\n\u201cOh, Tom, Tom!\u201d she said, very mournfully\u2014and then she cried, \u201cOh, Tom!\nwhere are you?\u201d\n\nAnd Tom cried, \u201cOh, Ellie, where are you?\u201d\n\nFor neither of them could see each other\u2014not the least.  Little Ellie\nvanished quite away, and Tom heard her voice calling him, and growing\nsmaller and smaller, and fainter and fainter, till all was silent.\n\nWho was frightened then but Tom?  He swam up and down among the rocks,\ninto all the halls and chambers, faster than ever he swam before, but\ncould not find her.  He shouted after her, but she did not answer; he\nasked all the other children, but they had not seen her; and at last he\nwent up to the top of the water and began crying and screaming for Mrs.\nBedonebyasyoudid\u2014which perhaps was the best thing to do\u2014for she came in a\nmoment.\n\n[Picture: Tom crying] \u201cOh!\u201d said Tom.  \u201cOh dear, oh dear!  I have been\nnaughty to Ellie, and I have killed her\u2014I know I have killed her.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot quite that,\u201d said the fairy; \u201cbut I have sent her away home, and she\nwill not come back again for I do not know how long.\u201d\n\nAnd at that Tom cried so bitterly that the salt sea was swelled with his\ntears, and the tide was .3,954,620,819 of an inch higher than it had been\nthe day before: but perhaps that was owing to the waxing of the moon.  It\nmay have been so; but it is considered right in the new philosophy, you\nknow, to give spiritual causes for physical phenomena\u2014especially in\nparlour-tables; and, of course, physical causes for spiritual ones, like\nthinking, and praying, and knowing right from wrong.  And so they odds it\ntill it comes even, as folks say down in Berkshire.\n\n\u201cHow cruel of you to send Ellie away!\u201d sobbed Tom.  \u201cHowever, I will find\nher again, if I go to the world\u2019s end to look for her.\u201d\n\nThe fairy did not slap Tom, and tell him to hold his tongue: but she took\nhim on her lap very kindly, just as her sister would have done; and put\nhim in mind how it was not her fault, because she was wound up inside,\nlike watches, and could not help doing things whether she liked or not.\nAnd then she told him how he had been in the nursery long enough, and\nmust go out now and see the world, if he intended ever to be a man; and\nhow he must go all alone by himself, as every one else that ever was born\nhas to go, and see with his own eyes, and smell with his own nose, and\nmake his own bed and lie on it, and burn his own fingers if he put them\ninto the fire.  And then she told him how many fine things there were to\nbe seen in the world, and what an odd, curious, pleasant, orderly,\nrespectable, well-managed, and, on the whole, successful (as, indeed,\nmight have been expected) sort of a place it was, if people would only be\ntolerably brave and honest and good in it; and then she told him not to\nbe afraid of anything he met, for nothing would harm him if he remembered\nall his lessons, and did what he knew was right.  And at last she\ncomforted poor little Tom so much that he was quite eager to go, and\nwanted to set out that minute.  \u201cOnly,\u201d he said, \u201cif I might see Ellie\nonce before I went!\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy do you want that?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause\u2014because I should be so much happier if I thought she had\nforgiven me.\u201d\n\nAnd in the twinkling of an eye there stood Ellie, smiling, and looking so\nhappy that Tom longed to kiss her; but was still afraid it would not be\nrespectful, because she was a lady born.\n\n\u201cI am going, Ellie!\u201d said Tom.  \u201cI am going, if it is to the world\u2019s end.\nBut I don\u2019t like going at all, and that\u2019s the truth.\u201d\n\n\u201cPooh! pooh! pooh!\u201d said the fairy.  \u201cYou will like it very well indeed,\nyou little rogue, and you know that at the bottom of your heart.  But if\nyou don\u2019t, I will make you like it.  Come here, and see what happens to\npeople who do only what is pleasant.\u201d\n\nAnd she took out of one of her cupboards (she had all sorts of mysterious\ncupboards in the cracks of the rocks) the most wonderful waterproof book,\nfull of such photographs as never were seen.  For she had found out\nphotography (and this is a fact) more than 13,598,000 years before\nanybody was born; and, what is more, her photographs did not merely\nrepresent light and shade, as ours do, but colour also, and all colours,\nas you may see if you look at a black-cock\u2019s tail, or a butterfly\u2019s wing,\nor indeed most things that are or can be, so to speak.  And therefore her\nphotographs were very curious and famous, and the children looked with\ngreat delight for the opening of the book.\n\nAnd on the title-page was written, \u201cThe History of the great and famous\nnation of the Doasyoulikes, who came away from the country of Hardwork,\nbecause they wanted to play on the Jews\u2019 harp all day long.\u201d\n\nIn the first picture they saw these Doasyoulikes living in the land of\nReadymade, at the foot of the Happy-go-lucky Mountains, where flapdoodle\ngrows wild; and if you want to know what that is, you must read Peter\nSimple.\n\nThey lived very much such a life as those jolly old Greeks in Sicily,\nwhom you may see painted on the ancient vases, and really there seemed to\nbe great excuses for them, for they had no need to work.\n\nInstead of houses they lived in the beautiful caves of tufa, and bathed\nin the warm springs three times a day; and, as for clothes, it was so\nwarm there that the gentlemen walked about in little beside a cocked hat\nand a pair of straps, or some light summer tackle of that kind; and the\nladies all gathered gossamer in autumn (when they were not too lazy) to\nmake their winter dresses.\n\nThey were very fond of music, but it was too much trouble to learn the\npiano or the violin; and as for dancing, that would have been too great\nan exertion.  So they sat on ant-hills all day long, and played on the\nJews\u2019 harp; and, if the ants bit them, why they just got up and went to\nthe next ant-hill, till they were bitten there likewise.\n\n                  [Picture: Woman surrounded by fairies]\n\nAnd they sat under the flapdoodle-trees, and let the flapdoodle drop into\ntheir mouths; and under the vines, and squeezed the grape-juice down\ntheir throats; and, if any little pigs ran about ready roasted, crying,\n\u201cCome and eat me,\u201d as was their fashion in that country, they waited till\nthe pigs ran against their mouths, and then took a bite, and were\ncontent, just as so many oysters would have been.\n\nThey needed no weapons, for no enemies ever came near their land; and no\ntools, for everything was readymade to their hand; and the stern old\nfairy Necessity never came near them to hunt them up, and make them use\ntheir wits, or die.\n\nAnd so on, and so on, and so on, till there were never such comfortable,\neasy-going, happy-go-lucky people in the world.\n\n\u201cWell, that is a jolly life,\u201d said Tom.\n\n\u201cYou think so?\u201d said the fairy.  \u201cDo you see that great peaked mountain\nthere behind,\u201d said the fairy, \u201cwith smoke coming out of its top?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd do you see all those ashes, and slag, and cinders lying about?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen turn over the next five hundred years, and you will see what\nhappens next.\u201d\n\nAnd behold the mountain had blown up like a barrel of gunpowder, and then\nboiled over like a kettle; whereby one-third of the Doasyoulikes were\nblown into the air, and another third were smothered in ashes; so that\nthere was only one-third left.\n\n\u201cYou see,\u201d said the fairy, \u201cwhat comes of living on a burning mountain.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, why did you not warn them?\u201d said little Ellie.\n\n\u201cI did warn them all that I could.  I let the smoke come out of the\nmountain; and wherever there is smoke there is fire.  And I laid the\nashes and cinders all about; and wherever there are cinders, cinders may\nbe again.  But they did not like to face facts, my dears, as very few\npeople do; and so they invented a cock-and-bull story, which, I am sure,\nI never told them, that the smoke was the breath of a giant, whom some\ngods or other had buried under the mountain; and that the cinders were\nwhat the dwarfs roasted the little pigs whole with; and other nonsense of\nthat kind.  And, when folks are in that humour, I cannot teach them, save\nby the good old birch-rod.\u201d\n\nAnd then she turned over the next five hundred years: and there were the\nremnant of the Doasyoulikes, doing as they liked, as before.  They were\ntoo lazy to move away from the mountain; so they said, If it has blown up\nonce, that is all the more reason that it should not blow up again.  And\nthey were few in number: but they only said, The more the merrier, but\nthe fewer the better fare.  However, that was not quite true; for all the\nflapdoodle-trees were killed by the volcano, and they had eaten all the\nroast pigs, who, of course, could not be expected to have little ones.\nSo they had to live very hard, on nuts and roots which they scratched out\nof the ground with sticks.  Some of them talked of sowing corn, as their\nancestors used to do, before they came into the land of Readymade; but\nthey had forgotten how to make ploughs (they had forgotten even how to\nmake Jews\u2019 harps by this time), and had eaten all the seed-corn which\nthey brought out of the land of Hardwork years since; and of course it\nwas too much trouble to go away and find more.  So they lived miserably\non roots and nuts, and all the weakly little children had great stomachs,\nand then died.\n\n\u201cWhy,\u201d said Tom, \u201cthey are growing no better than savages.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd look how ugly they are all getting,\u201d said Ellie.\n\n\u201cYes; when people live on poor vegetables instead of roast beef and\nplum-pudding, their jaws grow large, and their lips grow coarse, like the\npoor Paddies who eat potatoes.\u201d\n\nAnd she turned over the next five hundred years.  And there they were all\nliving up in trees, and making nests to keep off the rain.  And\nunderneath the trees lions were prowling about.\n\n\u201cWhy,\u201d said Ellie, \u201cthe lions seem to have eaten a good many of them, for\nthere are very few left now.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said the fairy; \u201cyou see it was only the strongest and most active\nones who could climb the trees, and so escape.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut what great, hulking, broad-shouldered chaps they are,\u201d said Tom;\n\u201cthey are a rough lot as ever I saw.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, they are getting very strong now; for the ladies will not marry any\nbut the very strongest and fiercest gentlemen, who can help them up the\ntrees out of the lions\u2019 way.\u201d\n\nAnd she turned over the next five hundred years.  And in that they were\nfewer still, and stronger, and fiercer; but their feet had changed shape\nvery oddly, for they laid hold of the branches with their great toes, as\nif they had been thumbs, just as a Hindoo tailor uses his toes to thread\nhis needle.\n\nThe children were very much surprised, and asked the fairy whether that\nwas her doing.\n\n\u201cYes, and no,\u201d she said, smiling.  \u201cIt was only those who could use their\nfeet as well as their hands who could get a good living: or, indeed, get\nmarried; so that they got the best of everything, and starved out all the\nrest; and those who are left keep up a regular breed of toe-thumb-men, as\na breed of short-horns, or are skye-terriers, or fancy pigeons is kept\nup.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut there is a hairy one among them,\u201d said Ellie.\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d said the fairy, \u201cthat will be a great man in his time, and chief of\nall the tribe.\u201d\n\nAnd, when she turned over the next five hundred years, it was true.\n\nFor this hairy chief had had hairy children, and they hairier children\nstill; and every one wished to marry hairy husbands, and have hairy\nchildren too; for the climate was growing so damp that none but the hairy\nones could live: all the rest coughed and sneezed, and had sore throats,\nand went into consumptions, before they could grow up to be men and\nwomen.\n\nThen the fairy turned over the next five hundred years.  And they were\nfewer still.\n\n\u201cWhy, there is one on the ground picking up roots,\u201d said Ellie, \u201cand he\ncannot walk upright.\u201d\n\nNo more he could; for in the same way that the shape of their feet had\naltered, the shape of their backs had altered also.\n\n\u201cWhy,\u201d cried Tom, \u201cI declare they are all apes.\u201d\n\n\u201cSomething fearfully like it, poor foolish creatures,\u201d said the fairy.\n\u201cThey are grown so stupid now, that they can hardly think: for none of\nthem have used their wits for many hundred years.  They have almost\nforgotten, too, how to talk.  For each stupid child forgot some of the\nwords it heard from its stupid parents, and had not wits enough to make\nfresh words for itself.  Beside, they are grown so fierce and suspicious\nand brutal that they keep out of each other\u2019s way, and mope and sulk in\nthe dark forests, never hearing each other\u2019s voice, till they have\nforgotten almost what speech is like.  I am afraid they will all be apes\nvery soon, and all by doing only what they liked.\u201d\n\nAnd in the next five hundred years they were all dead and gone, by bad\nfood and wild beasts and hunters; all except one tremendous old fellow\nwith jaws like a jack, who stood full seven feet high; and M. Du Chaillu\ncame up to him, and shot him, as he stood roaring and thumping his\nbreast.  And he remembered that his ancestors had once been men, and\ntried to say, \u201cAm I not a man and a brother?\u201d but had forgotten how to\nuse his tongue; and then he had tried to call for a doctor, but he had\nforgotten the word for one.  So all he said was \u201cUbboboo!\u201d and died.\n\n                              [Picture: Ape]\n\nAnd that was the end of the great and jolly nation of the Doasyoulikes.\nAnd, when Tom and Ellie came to the end of the book, they looked very sad\nand solemn; and they had good reason so to do, for they really fancied\nthat the men were apes, and never thought, in their simplicity, of asking\nwhether the creatures had hippopotamus majors in their brains or not; in\nwhich case, as you have been told already, they could not possibly have\nbeen apes, though they were more apish than the apes of all aperies.\n\n\u201cBut could you not have saved them from becoming apes?\u201d said little\nEllie, at last.\n\n\u201cAt first, my dear; if only they would have behaved like men, and set to\nwork to do what they did not like.  But the longer they waited, and\nbehaved like the dumb beasts, who only do what they like, the stupider\nand clumsier they grew; till at last they were past all cure, for they\nhad thrown their own wits away.  It is such things as this that help to\nmake me so ugly, that I know not when I shall grow fair.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd where are they all now?\u201d asked Ellie.\n\n\u201cExactly where they ought to be, my dear.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes!\u201d said the fairy, solemnly, half to herself, as she closed the\nwonderful book.  \u201cFolks say now that I can make beasts into men, by\ncircumstance, and selection, and competition, and so forth.  Well,\nperhaps they are right; and perhaps, again, they are wrong.  That is one\nof the seven things which I am forbidden to tell, till the coming of the\nCocqcigrues; and, at all events, it is no concern of theirs.  Whatever\ntheir ancestors were, men they are; and I advise them to behave as such,\nand act accordingly.  But let them recollect this, that there are two\nsides to every question, and a downhill as well as an uphill road; and,\nif I can turn beasts into men, I can, by the same laws of circumstance,\nand selection, and competition, turn men into beasts.  You were very near\nbeing turned into a beast once or twice, little Tom.  Indeed, if you had\nnot made up your mind to go on this journey, and see the world, like an\nEnglishman, I am not sure but that you would have ended as an eft in a\npond.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, dear me!\u201d said Tom; \u201csooner than that, and be all over slime, I\u2019ll\ngo this minute, if it is to the world\u2019s end.\u201d\n\n                             [Picture: Newt]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\n    \u201cAnd Nature, the old Nurse, took\n       The child upon her knee,\n    Saying, \u2018Here is a story book\n       Thy father hath written for thee.\n\n    \u201c\u2018Come wander with me,\u2019 she said,\n       \u2018Into regions yet untrod,\n    And read what is still unread\n       In the Manuscripts of God.\u2019\n\n    \u201cAnd he wandered away and away\n       With Nature, the dear old Nurse,\n    Who sang to him night and day\n       The rhymes of the universe.\u201d\n\n                                                               LONGFELLOW.\n\n[Picture: Tom about to dive] \u201cNOW,\u201d said Tom, \u201cI am ready be off, if it\u2019s\nto the world\u2019s end.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d said the fairy, \u201cthat is a brave, good boy.  But you must go\nfarther than the world\u2019s end, if you want to find Mr. Grimes; for he is\nat the Other-end-of-Nowhere.  You must go to Shiny Wall, and through the\nwhite gate that never was opened; and then you will come to Peacepool,\nand Mother Carey\u2019s Haven, where the good whales go when they die.  And\nthere Mother Carey will tell you the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere, and\nthere you will find Mr. Grimes.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, dear!\u201d said Tom.  \u201cBut I do not know my way to Shiny Wall, or where\nit is at all.\u201d\n\n\u201cLittle boys must take the trouble to find out things for themselves, or\nthey will never grow to be men; so that you must ask all the beasts in\nthe sea and the birds in the air, and if you have been good to them, some\nof them will tell you the way to Shiny Wall.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Tom, \u201cit will be a long journey, so I had better start at\nonce.  Good-bye, Miss Ellie; you know I am getting a big boy, and I must\ngo out and see the world.\u201d\n\n\u201cI know you must,\u201d said Ellie; \u201cbut you will not forget me, Tom.  I shall\nwait here till you come.\u201d\n\nAnd she shook hands with him, and bade him good-bye.  Tom longed very\nmuch again to kiss her; but he thought it would not be respectful,\nconsidering she was a lady born; so he promised not to forget her: but\nhis little whirl-about of a head was so full of the notion of going out\nto see the world, that it forgot her in five minutes: however, though his\nhead forgot her, I am glad to say his heart did not.\n\nSo he asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the birds in the air, but\nnone of them knew the way to Shiny Wall.  For why?  He was still too far\ndown south.\n\nThen he met a ship, far larger than he had ever seen\u2014a gallant\nocean-steamer, with a long cloud of smoke trailing behind; and he\nwondered how she went on without sails, and swam up to her to see.  A\nschool of dolphins were running races round and round her, going three\nfeet for her one, and Tom asked them the way to Shiny Wall: but they did\nnot know.  Then he tried to find out how she moved, and at last he saw\nher screw, and was so delighted with it that he played under her quarter\nall day, till he nearly had his nose knocked off by the fans, and thought\nit time to move.  Then he watched the sailors upon deck, and the ladies,\nwith their bonnets and parasols: but none of them could see him, because\ntheir eyes were not opened,\u2014as, indeed, most people\u2019s eyes are not.\n\nAt last there came out into the quarter-gallery a very pretty lady, in\ndeep black widow\u2019s weeds, and in her arms a baby.  She leaned over the\nquarter-gallery, and looked back and back toward England far away; and as\nshe looked she sang:\n\n                                      I.\n\n    \u201c_Soft soft wind_, _from out the sweet south sliding_,\n       _Waft thy silver cloud-webs athwart the summer sea_;\n    _Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining_\n       _Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me_.\n\n                                     II.\n\n    \u201c_Deep deep Love_, _within thine own abyss abiding_,\n       _Pour Thyself abroad_, _O Lord_, _on earth and air and sea_;\n    _Worn weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding_,\n       _Shield from sorrow_, _sin_, _and shame my helpless babe and me_.\u201d\n\nHer voice was so soft and low, and the music of the air so sweet, that\nTom could have listened to it all day.  But as she held the baby over the\ngallery rail, to show it the dolphins leaping and the water gurgling in\nthe ship\u2019s wake, lo! and behold, the baby saw Tom.\n\n                           [Picture: The lady]\n\nHe was quite sure of that for when their eyes met, the baby smiled and\nheld out his hands; and Tom smiled and held out his hands too; and the\nbaby kicked and leaped, as if it wanted to jump overboard to him.\n\n\u201cWhat do you see, my darling?\u201d said the lady; and her eyes followed the\nbaby\u2019s till she too caught sight of Tom, swimming about among the\nfoam-beads below.\n\nShe gave a little shriek and start; and then she said, quite quietly,\n\u201cBabies in the sea?  Well, perhaps it is the happiest place for them;\u201d\nand waved her hand to Tom, and cried, \u201cWait a little, darling, only a\nlittle: and perhaps we shall go with you and be at rest.\u201d\n\nAnd at that an old nurse, all in black, came out and talked to her, and\ndrew her in.  And Tom turned away northward, sad and wondering; and\nwatched the great steamer slide away into the dusk, and the lights on\nboard peep out one by one, and die out again, and the long bar of smoke\nfade away into the evening mist, till all was out of sight.\n\nAnd he swam northward again, day after day, till at last he met the King\nof the Herrings, with a curry-comb growing out of his nose, and a sprat\nin his mouth for a cigar, and asked him the way to Shiny Wall; so he\nbolted his sprat head foremost, and said:\n\n\u201cIf I were you, young Gentleman, I should go to the Allalonestone, and\nask the last of the Gairfowl.  She is of a very ancient clan, very nearly\nas ancient as my own; and knows a good deal which these modern upstarts\ndon\u2019t, as ladies of old houses are likely to do.\u201d\n\n                   [Picture: The King of the Herrings]\n\nTom asked his way to her, and the King of the Herrings told him very\nkindly, for he was a courteous old gentleman of the old school, though he\nwas horribly ugly, and strangely bedizened too, like the old dandies who\nlounge in the club-house windows.\n\nBut just as Tom had thanked him and set off, he called after him: \u201cHi!  I\nsay, can you fly?\u201d\n\n\u201cI never tried,\u201d says Tom.  \u201cWhy?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause, if you can, I should advise you to say nothing to the old lady\nabout it.  There; take a hint.  Good-bye.\u201d\n\nAnd away Tom went for seven days and seven nights due north-west, till he\ncame to a great codbank, the like of which he never saw before.  The\ngreat cod lay below in tens of thousands, and gobbled shell-fish all day\nlong; and the blue sharks roved above in hundreds, and gobbled them when\nthey came up.  So they ate, and ate, and ate each other, as they had done\nsince the making of the world; for no man had come here yet to catch\nthem, and find out how rich old Mother Carey is.\n\n                         [Picture: The Gairfowl]\n\nAnd there he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing up on the\nAllalonestones all alone.  And a very grand old lady she was, full three\nfeet high, and bolt upright, like some old Highland chieftainess.  She\nhad on a black velvet gown, and a white pinner and apron, and a very high\nbridge to her nose (which is a sure mark of high breeding), and a large\npair of white spectacles on it, which made her look rather odd: but it\nwas the ancient fashion of her house.\n\nAnd instead of wings, she had two little feathery arms, with which she\nfanned herself, and complained of the dreadful heat; and she kept on\ncrooning an old song to herself, which she learnt when she was a little\nbaby-bird, long ago\u2014\n\n    \u201c_Two little birds they sat on a stone_,\n    _One swam away_, _and then there was one_,\n          _With a fal-lal-la-lady_.\n\n    \u201c_The other swam after_, _and then there was none_,\n    _And so the poor stone was left all alone_;\n          _With a fal-lal-la-lady_.\u201d\n\nIt was \u201cflew\u201d away, properly, and not \u201cswam\u201d away: but, as she could not\nfly, she had a right to alter it.  However, it was a very fit song for\nher to sing, because she was a lady herself.\n\nTom came up to her very humbly, and made his bow; and the first thing she\nsaid was\u2014\n\n\u201cHave you wings?  Can you fly?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh dear, no, ma\u2019am; I should not think of such thing,\u201d said cunning\nlittle Tom.\n\n\u201cThen I shall have great pleasure in talking to you, my dear.  It is\nquite refreshing nowadays to see anything without wings.  They must all\nhave wings, forsooth, now, every new upstart sort of bird, and fly.  What\ncan they want with flying, and raising themselves above their proper\nstation in life?  In the days of my ancestors no birds ever thought of\nhaving wings, and did very well without; and now they all laugh at me\nbecause I keep to the good old fashion.  Why, the very marrocks and\ndovekies have got wings, the vulgar creatures, and poor little ones\nenough they are; and my own cousins too, the razor-bills, who are\ngentlefolk born, and ought to know better than to ape their inferiors.\u201d\n\nAnd so she was running on, while Tom tried to get in a word edgeways; and\nat last he did, when the old lady got out of breath, and began fanning\nherself again; and then he asked if she knew the way to Shiny Wall.\n\n\u201cShiny Wall?  Who should know better than I?  We all came from Shiny\nWall, thousands of years ago, when it was decently cold, and the climate\nwas fit for gentlefolk; but now, what with the heat, and what with these\nvulgar-winged things who fly up and down and eat everything, so that\ngentlepeople\u2019s hunting is all spoilt, and one really cannot get one\u2019s\nliving, or hardly venture off the rock for fear of being flown against by\nsome creature that would not have dared to come within a mile of one a\nthousand years ago\u2014what was I saying?  Why, we have quite gone down in\nthe world, my dear, and have nothing left but our honour.  And I am the\nlast of my family.  A friend of mine and I came and settled on this rock\nwhen we were young, to be out of the way of low people.  Once we were a\ngreat nation, and spread over all the Northern Isles.  But men shot us\nso, and knocked us on the head, and took our eggs\u2014why, if you will\nbelieve it, they say that on the coast of Labrador the sailors used to\nlay a plank from the rock on board the thing called their ship, and drive\nus along the plank by hundreds, till we tumbled down into the ship\u2019s\nwaist in heaps; and then, I suppose, they ate us, the nasty fellows!\nWell\u2014but\u2014what was I saying?  At last, there were none of us left, except\non the old Gairfowlskerry, just off the Iceland coast, up which no man\ncould climb.  Even there we had no peace; for one day, when I was quite a\nyoung girl, the land rocked, and the sea boiled, and the sky grew dark,\nand all the air was filled with smoke and dust, and down tumbled the old\nGairfowlskerry into the sea.  The dovekies and marrocks, of course, all\nflew away; but we were too proud to do that.  Some of us were dashed to\npieces, and some drowned; and those who were left got away to Eldey, and\nthe dovekies tell me they are all dead now, and that another\nGairfowlskerry has risen out of the sea close to the old one, but that it\nis such a poor flat place that it is not safe to live on: and so here I\nam left alone.\u201d\n\nThis was the Gairfowl\u2019s story, and, strange as it may seem, it is every\nword of it true.\n\n\u201cIf you only had had wings!\u201d said Tom; \u201cthen you might all have flown\naway too.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, young gentleman: and if people are not gentleman and ladies, and\nforget that _noblesse oblige_, they will find it as easy to get on in the\nworld as other people who don\u2019t care what they do.  Why, if I had not\nrecollected that _noblesse oblige_, I should not have been all alone\nnow.\u201d  And the poor old lady sighed.\n\n\u201cHow was that, ma\u2019am?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, my dear, a gentleman came hither with me, and after we had been\nhere some time, he wanted to marry\u2014in fact, he actually proposed to me.\nWell, I can\u2019t blame him; I was young, and very handsome then, I don\u2019t\ndeny: but you see, I could not hear of such a thing, because he was my\ndeceased sister\u2019s husband, you see?\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course not, ma\u2019am,\u201d said Tom; though, of course, he knew nothing\nabout it.  \u201cShe was very much diseased, I suppose?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou do not understand me, my dear.  I mean, that being a lady, and with\nright and honourable feelings, as our house always has had, I felt it my\nduty to snub him, and howk him, and peck him continually, to keep him at\nhis proper distance; and, to tell the truth, I once pecked him a little\ntoo hard, poor fellow, and he tumbled backwards off the rock, and\u2014really,\nit was very unfortunate, but it was not my fault\u2014a shark coming by saw\nhim flapping, and snapped him up. And since then I have lived all alone\u2014\n\n    \u2018_With a fal-lal-la-lady_.\u2019\n\nAnd soon I shall be gone, my little dear, and nobody will miss me; and\nthen the poor stone will be left all alone.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, please, which is the way to Shiny Wall?\u201d said Tom.\n\n\u201cOh, you must go, my little dear\u2014you must go.  Let me see\u2014I am sure\u2014that\nis\u2014really, my poor old brains are getting quite puzzled.  Do you know, my\nlittle dear, I am afraid, if you want to know, you must ask some of these\nvulgar birds about, for I have quite forgotten.\u201d\n\nAnd the poor old Gairfowl began to cry tears of pure oil; and Tom was\nquite sorry for her; and for himself too, for he was at his wit\u2019s end\nwhom to ask.\n\nBut by there came a flock of petrels, who are Mother Carey\u2019s own\nchickens; and Tom thought them much prettier than Lady Gairfowl, and so\nperhaps they were; for Mother Carey had had a great deal of fresh\nexperience between the time that she invented the Gairfowl and the time\nthat she invented them.  They flitted along like a flock of black\nswallows, and hopped and skipped from wave to wave, lifting up their\nlittle feet behind them so daintily, and whistling to each other so\ntenderly, that Tom fell in love with them at once, and called them to\nknow the way to Shiny Wall.\n\n\u201cShiny Wall?  Do you want Shiny Wall?  Then come with us, and we will\nshow you.  We are Mother Carey\u2019s own chickens, and she sends us out over\nall the seas, to show the good birds the way home.\u201d\n\nTom was delighted, and swam off to them, after he had made his bow to the\nGairfowl.  But she would not return his bow: but held herself bolt\nupright, and wept tears of oil as she sang:\n\n    \u201c_And so the poor stone was left all alone_;\n          _With a fal-lal-la-lady_.\u201d\n\nBut she was wrong there; for the stone was not left all alone: and the\nnext time that Tom goes by it, he will see a sight worth seeing.\n\nThe old Gairfowl is gone already: but there are better things come in her\nplace; and when Tom comes he will see the fishing-smacks anchored there\nin hundreds, from Scotland, and from Ireland, and from the Orkneys, and\nthe Shetlands, and from all the Northern ports, full of the children of\nthe old Norse Vikings, the masters of the sea.  And the men will be\nhauling in the great cod by thousands, till their hands are sore from the\nlines; and they will be making cod-liver oil and guano, and salting down\nthe fish; and there will be a man-of-war steamer there to protect them,\nand a lighthouse to show them the way; and you and I, perhaps, shall go\nsome day to the Allalonestone to the great summer sea-fair, and dredge\nstrange creatures such as man never saw before; and we shall hear the\nsailors boast that it is not the worst jewel in Queen Victoria\u2019s crown,\nfor there are eighty miles of codbank, and food for all the poor folk in\nthe land.  That is what Tom will see, and perhaps you and I shall see it\ntoo.  And then we shall not be sorry because we cannot get a Gairfowl to\nstuff, much less find gairfowl enough to drive them into stone pens and\nslaughter them, as the old Norsemen did, or drive them on board along a\nplank till the ship was victualled with them, as the old English and\nFrench rovers used to do, of whom dear old Hakluyt tells: but we shall\nremember what Mr. Tennyson says: how\n\n    \u201c_The old order changeth_, _giving place to the new_,\n    _And God fulfils himself in many ways_.\u201d\n\nAnd now Tom was all agog to start for Shiny Wall; but the petrels said\nno.  They must go first to Allfowlsness, and wait there for the great\ngathering of all the sea-birds, before they start for their summer\nbreeding-places far away in the Northern Isles; and there they would be\nsure to find some birds which were going to Shiny Wall: but where\nAllfowlsness was, he must promise never to tell, lest men should go there\nand shoot the birds, and stuff them, and put them into stupid museums,\ninstead of leaving them to play and breed and work in Mother Carey\u2019s\nwater-garden, where they ought to be.\n\nSo where Allfowlsness is nobody must know; and all that is to be said\nabout it is, that Tom waited there many days; and as he waited, he saw a\nvery curious sight.  On the rabbit burrows on the shore there gathered\nhundreds and hundreds of hoodie-crows, such as you see in Cambridgeshire.\nAnd they made such a noise, that Tom came on shore and went up to see\nwhat was the matter.\n\n                             [Picture: Crows]\n\nAnd there he found them holding their great caucus, which they hold every\nyear in the North; and all their stump-orators were speechifying; and for\na tribune, the speaker stood on an old sheep\u2019s skull.\n\nAnd they cawed and cawed, and boasted of all the clever things they had\ndone; how many lambs\u2019 eyes they had picked out, and how many dead\nbullocks they had eaten, and how many young grouse they had swallowed\nwhole, and how many grouse-eggs they had flown away with, stuck on the\npoint of their bills, which is the hoodie-crow\u2019s particularly clever\nfeat, of which he is as proud as a gipsy is of doing the hokany-baro; and\nwhat that is, I won\u2019t tell you.\n\nAnd at last they brought out the prettiest, neatest young lady-crow that\never was seen, and set her in the middle, and all began abusing and\nvilifying, and rating, and bullyragging at her, because she had stolen no\ngrouse-eggs, and had actually dared to say that she would not steal any.\nSo she was to be tried publicly by their laws (for the hoodies always try\nsome offenders in their great yearly parliament).  And there she stood in\nthe middle, in her black gown and gray hood, looking as meek and as neat\nas a Quakeress, and they all bawled at her at once\u2014\n\nAnd it was in vain that she pleaded\u2014\n\n    _That she did not like grouse-eggs_;\n\n    _That she could get her living very well without them_;\n\n    _That she was afraid to eat them_, _for fear of the gamekeepers_;\n\n    _That she had not the heart to eat them_, _because the grouse were\n    such pretty_, _kind_, _jolly birds_;\n\n    _And a dozen reasons more_.\n\nFor all the other scaul-crows set upon her, and pecked her to death there\nand then, before Tom could come to help her; and then flew away, very\nproud of what they had done.\n\nNow, was not this a scandalous transaction?\n\nBut they are true republicans, these hoodies, who do every one just what\nhe likes, and make other people do so too; so that, for any freedom of\nspeech, thought, or action, which is allowed among them, they might as\nwell be American citizens of the new school.\n\nBut the fairies took the good crow, and gave her nine new sets of\nfeathers running, and turned her at last into the most beautiful bird of\nparadise with a green velvet suit and a long tail, and sent her to eat\nfruit in the Spice Islands, where cloves and nutmegs grow.\n\nAnd Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid settled her account with the wicked hoodies.\nFor, as they flew away, what should they find but a nasty dead dog?\u2014on\nwhich they all set to work, peeking and gobbling and cawing and\nquarrelling to their hearts\u2019 content.  But the moment afterwards, they\nall threw up their bills into the air, and gave one screech; and then\nturned head over heels backward, and fell down dead, one hundred and\ntwenty-three of them at once.  For why?  The fairy had told the\ngamekeeper in a dream, to fill the dead dog full of strychnine; and so he\ndid.\n\nAnd after a while the birds began to gather at Allfowlsness, in thousands\nand tens of thousands, blackening all the air; swans and brant geese,\nharlequins and eiders, harolds and garganeys, smews and goosanders,\ndivers and loons, grebes and dovekies, auks and razor-bills, gannets and\npetrels, skuas and terns, with gulls beyond all naming or numbering; and\nthey paddled and washed and splashed and combed and brushed themselves on\nthe sand, till the shore was white with feathers; and they quacked and\nclucked and gabbled and chattered and screamed and whooped as they talked\nover matters with their friends, and settled where they were to go and\nbreed that summer, till you might have heard them ten miles off; and\nlucky it was for them that there was no one to hear them but the old\nkeeper, who lived all alone upon the Ness, in a turf hut thatched with\nheather and fringed round with great stones slung across the roof by\nbent-ropes, lest the winter gales should blow the hut right away.  But he\nnever minded the birds nor hurt them, because they were not in season;\nindeed, he minded but two things in the whole world, and those were, his\nBible and his grouse; for he was as good an old Scotchman as ever knit\nstockings on a winter\u2019s night: only, when all the birds were going, he\ntoddled out, and took off his cap to them, and wished them a merry\njourney and a safe return; and then gathered up all the feathers which\nthey had left, and cleaned them to sell down south, and make feather-beds\nfor stuffy people to lie on.\n\n                         [Picture: The Scotchman]\n\nThen the petrels asked this bird and that whether they would take Tom to\nShiny Wall: but one set was going to Sutherland, and one to the\nShetlands, and one to Norway, and one to Spitzbergen, and one to Iceland,\nand one to Greenland: but none would go to Shiny Wall.  So the\ngood-natured petrels said that they would show him part of the way\nthemselves, but they were only going as far as Jan Mayen\u2019s Land; and\nafter that he must shift for himself.\n\nAnd then all the birds rose up, and streamed away in long black lines,\nnorth, and north-east, and north-west, across the bright blue summer sky;\nand their cry was like ten thousand packs of hounds, and ten thousand\npeals of bells.  Only the puffins stayed behind, and killed the young\nrabbits, and laid their eggs in the rabbit-burrows; which was rough\npractice, certainly; but a man must see to his own family.\n\nAnd, as Tom and the petrels went north-eastward, it began to blow right\nhard; for the old gentleman in the gray great-coat, who looks after the\nbig copper boiler, in the gulf of Mexico, had got behindhand with his\nwork; so Mother Carey had sent an electric message to him for more steam;\nand now the steam was coming, as much in an hour as ought to have come in\na week, puffing and roaring and swishing and swirling, till you could not\nsee where the sky ended and the sea began.  But Tom and the petrels never\ncared, for the gale was right abaft, and away they went over the crests\nof the billows, as merry as so many flying-fish.\n\nAnd at last they saw an ugly sight\u2014the black side of a great ship,\nwaterlogged in the trough of the sea.  Her funnel and her masts were\noverboard, and swayed and surged under her lee; her decks were swept as\nclean as a barn floor, and there was no living soul on board.\n\nThe petrels flew up to her, and wailed round her; for they were very\nsorry indeed, and also they expected to find some salt pork; and Tom\nscrambled on board of her and looked round, frightened and sad.\n\nAnd there, in a little cot, lashed tight under the bulwark, lay a baby\nfast asleep; the very same baby, Tom saw at once, which he had seen in\nthe singing lady\u2019s arms.\n\nHe went up to it, and wanted to wake it; but behold, from under the cot\nout jumped a little black and tan terrier dog, and began barking and\nsnapping at Tom, and would not let him touch the cot.\n\nTom knew the dog\u2019s teeth could not hurt him: but at least it could shove\nhim away, and did; and he and the dog fought and struggled, for he wanted\nto help the baby, and did not want to throw the poor dog overboard: but\nas they were struggling there came a tall green sea, and walked in over\nthe weather side of the ship, and swept them all into the waves.\n\n\u201cOh, the baby, the baby!\u201d screamed Tom: but the next moment he did not\nscream at all; for he saw the cot settling down through the green water,\nwith the baby, smiling in it, fast asleep; and he saw the fairies come up\nfrom below, and carry baby and cradle gently down in their soft arms; and\nthen he knew it was all right, and that there would be a new water-baby\nin St. Brandan\u2019s Isle.\n\nAnd the poor little dog?\n\n                            [Picture: The dog]\n\nWhy, after he had kicked and coughed a little, he sneezed so hard, that\nhe sneezed himself clean out of his skin, and turned into a water-dog,\nand jumped and danced round Tom, and ran over the crests of the waves,\nand snapped at the jelly-fish and the mackerel, and followed Tom the\nwhole way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.\n\nThen they went on again, till they began to see the peak of Jan Mayen\u2019s\nLand, standing-up like a white sugar-loaf, two miles above the clouds.\n\nAnd there they fell in with a whole flock of molly-mocks, who were\nfeeding on a dead whale.\n\n\u201cThese are the fellows to show you the way,\u201d said Mother Carey\u2019s\nchickens; \u201cwe cannot help you farther north.  We don\u2019t like to get among\nthe ice pack, for fear it should nip our toes: but the mollys dare fly\nanywhere.\u201d\n\n                    [Picture: Mother Carey\u2019s chickens]\n\nSo the petrels called to the mollys: but they were so busy and greedy,\ngobbling and peeking and spluttering and fighting over the blubber, that\nthey did not take the least notice.\n\n\u201cCome, come,\u201d said the petrels, \u201cyou lazy greedy lubbers, this young\ngentleman is going to Mother Carey, and if you don\u2019t attend on him, you\nwon\u2019t earn your discharge from her, you know.\u201d\n\n\u201cGreedy we are,\u201d says a great fat old molly, \u201cbut lazy we ain\u2019t; and, as\nfor lubbers, we\u2019re no more lubbers than you.  Let\u2019s have a look at the\nlad.\u201d\n\nAnd he flapped right into Tom\u2019s face, and stared at him in the most\nimpudent way (for the mollys are audacious fellows, as all whalers know),\nand then asked him where he hailed from, and what land he sighted last.\n\nAnd, when Tom told him, he seemed pleased, and said he was a good plucked\none to have got so far.\n\n\u201cCome along, lads,\u201d he said to the rest, \u201cand give this little chap a\ncast over the pack, for Mother Carey\u2019s sake.  We\u2019ve eaten blubber enough\nfor to-day, and we\u2019ll e\u2019en work out a bit of our time by helping the\nlad.\u201d\n\nSo the mollys took Tom up on their backs, and flew off with him, laughing\nand joking\u2014and oh, how they did smell of train oil!\n\n\u201cWho are you, you jolly birds?\u201d asked Tom.\n\n\u201cWe are the spirits of the old Greenland skippers (as every sailor\nknows), who hunted here, right whales and horse-whales, full hundreds of\nyears agone.  But, because we were saucy and greedy, we were all turned\ninto mollys, to eat whale\u2019s blubber all our days.  But lubbers we are\nnone, and could sail a ship now against any man in the North seas, though\nwe don\u2019t hold with this new-fangled steam.  And it\u2019s a shame of those\nblack imps of petrels to call us so; but because they\u2019re her grace\u2019s\npets, they think they may say anything they like.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd who are you?\u201d asked Tom of him, for he saw that he was the king of\nall the birds.\n\n\u201cMy name is Hendrick Hudson, and a right good skipper was I; and my name\nwill last to the world\u2019s end, in spite of all the wrong I did.  For I\ndiscovered Hudson River, and I named Hudson\u2019s Bay; and many have come in\nmy wake that dared not have shown me the way.  But I was a hard man in my\ntime, that\u2019s truth, and stole the poor Indians off the coast of Maine,\nand sold them for slaves down in Virginia; and at last I was so cruel to\nmy sailors, here in these very seas, that they set me adrift in an open\nboat, and I never was heard of more.  So now I\u2019m the king of all mollys,\ntill I\u2019ve worked out my time.\u201d\n\nAnd now they came to the edge of the pack, and beyond it they could see\nShiny Wall looming, through mist, and snow, and storm.  But the pack\nrolled horribly upon the swell, and the ice giants fought and roared, and\nleapt upon each other\u2019s backs, and ground each other to powder, so that\nTom was afraid to venture among them, lest he should be ground to powder\ntoo.  And he was the more afraid, when he saw lying among the ice pack\nthe wrecks of many a gallant ship; some with masts and yards all\nstanding, some with the seamen frozen fast on board.  Alas, alas, for\nthem!  They were all true English hearts; and they came to their end like\ngood knights-errant, in searching for the white gate that never was\nopened yet.\n\nBut the good mollys took Tom and his dog up, and flew with them safe over\nthe pack and the roaring ice giants, and set them down at the foot of\nShiny Wall.\n\n\u201cAnd where is the gate?\u201d asked Tom.\n\n\u201cThere is no gate,\u201d said the mollys.\n\n\u201cNo gate?\u201d cried Tom, aghast.\n\n\u201cNone; never a crack of one, and that\u2019s the whole of the secret, as\nbetter fellows, lad, than you have found to their cost; and if there had\nbeen, they\u2019d have killed by now every right whale that swims the sea.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat am I to do, then?\u201d\n\n\u201cDive under the floe, to be sure, if you have pluck.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve not come so far to turn now,\u201d said Tom; \u201cso here goes for a\nheader.\u201d\n\n\u201cA lucky voyage to you, lad,\u201d said the mollys; \u201cwe knew you were one of\nthe right sort.  So good-bye.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t you come too?\u201d asked Tom.\n\nBut the mollys only wailed sadly, \u201cWe can\u2019t go yet, we can\u2019t go yet,\u201d and\nflew away over the pack.\n\nSo Tom dived under the great white gate which never was opened yet, and\nwent on in black darkness, at the bottom of the sea, for seven days and\nseven nights.  And yet he was not a bit frightened.  Why should he be?\nHe was a brave English lad, whose business is to go out and see all the\nworld.\n\nAnd at last he saw the light, and clear clear water overhead; and up he\ncame a thousand fathoms, among clouds of sea-moths, which fluttered round\nhis head.  There were moths with pink heads and wings and opal bodies,\nthat flapped about slowly; moths with brown wings that flapped about\nquickly; yellow shrimps that hopped and skipped most quickly of all; and\njellies of all the colours in the world, that neither hopped nor skipped,\nbut only dawdled and yawned, and would not get out of his way.  The dog\nsnapped at them till his jaws were tired; but Tom hardly minded them at\nall, he was so eager to get to the top of the water, and see the pool\nwhere the good whales go.\n\nAnd a very large pool it was, miles and miles across, though the air was\nso clear that the ice cliffs on the opposite side looked as if they were\nclose at hand.  All round it the ice cliffs rose, in walls and spires and\nbattlements, and caves and bridges, and stories and galleries, in which\nthe ice-fairies live, and drive away the storms and clouds, that Mother\nCarey\u2019s pool may lie calm from year\u2019s end to year\u2019s end.  And the sun\nacted policeman, and walked round outside every day, peeping just over\nthe top of the ice wall, to see that all went right; and now and then he\nplayed conjuring tricks, or had an exhibition of fireworks, to amuse the\nice-fairies.  For he would make himself into four or five suns at once,\nor paint the sky with rings and crosses and crescents of white fire, and\nstick himself in the middle of them, and wink at the fairies; and I\ndaresay they were very much amused; for anything\u2019s fun in the country.\n\nAnd there the good whales lay, the happy sleepy beasts, upon the still\noily sea.  They were all right whales, you must know, and finners, and\nrazor-backs, and bottle-noses, and spotted sea-unicorns with long ivory\nhorns.  But the sperm whales are such raging, ramping, roaring,\nrumbustious fellows, that, if Mother Carey let them in, there would be no\nmore peace in Peacepool.  So she packs them away in a great pond by\nthemselves at the South Pole, two hundred and sixty-three miles\nsouth-south-east of Mount Erebus, the great volcano in the ice; and there\nthey butt each other with their ugly noses, day and night from year\u2019s end\nto year\u2019s end.\n\n                         [Picture: Mother Carey]\n\nBut here there were only good quiet beasts, lying about like the black\nhulls of sloops, and blowing every now and then jets of white steam, or\nsculling round with their huge mouths open, for the sea-moths to swim\ndown their throats.  There were no threshers there to thresh their poor\nold backs, or sword-fish to stab their stomachs, or saw-fish to rip them\nup, or ice-sharks to bite lumps out of their sides, or whalers to harpoon\nand lance them.  They were quite safe and happy there; and all they had\nto do was to wait quietly in Peacepool, till Mother Carey sent for them\nto make them out of old beasts into new.\n\nTom swam up to the nearest whale, and asked the way to Mother Carey.\n\n\u201cThere she sits in the middle,\u201d said the whale.\n\nTom looked; but he could see nothing in the middle of the pool, but one\npeaked iceberg: and he said so.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s Mother Carey,\u201d said the whale, \u201cas you will find when you get to\nher.  There she sits making old beasts into new all the year round.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow does she do that?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s her concern, not mine,\u201d said the old whale; and yawned so wide\n(for he was very large) that there swam into his mouth 943 sea-moths,\n13,846 jelly-fish no bigger than pins\u2019 heads, a string of salp\u00e6 nine\nyards long, and forty-three little ice-crabs, who gave each other a\nparting pinch all round, tucked their legs under their stomachs, and\ndetermined to die decently, like Julius C\u00e6sar.\n\n\u201cI suppose,\u201d said Tom, \u201cshe cuts up a great whale like you into a whole\nshoal of porpoises?\u201d\n\nAt which the old whale laughed so violently that he coughed up all the\ncreatures; who swam away again very thankful at having escaped out of\nthat terrible whalebone net of his, from which bourne no traveller\nreturns; and Tom went on to the iceberg, wondering.\n\nAnd, when he came near it, it took the form of the grandest old lady he\nhad ever seen\u2014a white marble lady, sitting on a white marble throne.  And\nfrom the foot of the throne there swum away, out and out into the sea,\nmillions of new-born creatures, of more shapes and colours than man ever\ndreamed.  And they were Mother Carey\u2019s children, whom she makes out of\nthe sea-water all day long.\n\n                         [Picture: Mother Carey]\n\nHe expected, of course\u2014like some grown people who ought to know better\u2014to\nfind her snipping, piecing, fitting, stitching, cobbling, basting,\nfiling, planing, hammering, turning, polishing, moulding, measuring,\nchiselling, clipping, and so forth, as men do when they go to work to\nmake anything.\n\nBut, instead of that, she sat quite still with her chin upon her hand,\nlooking down into the sea with two great grand blue eyes, as blue as the\nsea itself.  Her hair was as white as the snow\u2014for she was very very\nold\u2014in fact, as old as anything which you are likely to come across,\nexcept the difference between right and wrong.\n\nAnd, when she saw Tom, she looked at him very kindly.\n\n\u201cWhat do you want, my little man?  It is long since I have seen a\nwater-baby here.\u201d\n\nTom told her his errand, and asked the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.\n\n\u201cYou ought to know yourself, for you have been there already.\u201d\n\n\u201cHave I, ma\u2019am?  I\u2019m sure I forget all about it.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen look at me.\u201d\n\nAnd, as Tom looked into her great blue eyes, he recollected the way\nperfectly.\n\nNow, was not that strange?\n\n\u201cThank you, ma\u2019am,\u201d said Tom.  \u201cThen I won\u2019t trouble your ladyship any\nmore; I hear you are very busy.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am never more busy than I am now,\u201d she said, without stirring a\nfinger.\n\n\u201cI heard, ma\u2019am, that you were always making new beasts out of old.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo people fancy.  But I am not going to trouble myself to make things,\nmy little dear.  I sit here and make them make themselves.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are a clever fairy, indeed,\u201d thought Tom.  And he was quite right.\n\nThat is a grand trick of good old Mother Carey\u2019s, and a grand answer,\nwhich she has had occasion to make several times to impertinent people.\n\nThere was once, for instance, a fairy who was so clever that she found\nout how to make butterflies.  I don\u2019t mean sham ones; no: but real live\nones, which would fly, and eat, and lay eggs, and do everything that they\nought; and she was so proud of her skill that she went flying straight\noff to the North Pole, to boast to Mother Carey how she could make\nbutterflies.\n\nBut Mother Carey laughed.\n\n\u201cKnow, silly child,\u201d she said, \u201cthat any one can make things, if they\nwill take time and trouble enough: but it is not every one who, like me,\ncan make things make themselves.\u201d\n\nBut people do not yet believe that Mother Carey is as clever as all that\ncomes to; and they will not till they, too, go the journey to the\nOther-end-of-Nowhere.\n\n\u201cAnd now, my pretty little man,\u201d said Mother Carey, \u201cyou are sure you\nknow the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere?\u201d\n\nTom thought; and behold, he had forgotten it utterly.\n\n\u201cThat is because you took your eyes off me.\u201d\n\nTom looked at her again, and recollected; and then looked away, and\nforgot in an instant.\n\n\u201cBut what am I to do, ma\u2019am?  For I can\u2019t keep looking at you when I am\nsomewhere else.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou must do without me, as most people have to do, for nine hundred and\nninety-nine thousandths of their lives; and look at the dog instead; for\nhe knows the way well enough, and will not forget it.  Besides, you may\nmeet some very queer-tempered people there, who will not let you pass\nwithout this passport of mine, which you must hang round your neck and\ntake care of; and, of course, as the dog will always go behind you, you\nmust go the whole way backward.\u201d\n\n\u201cBackward!\u201d cried Tom.  \u201cThen I shall not be able to see my way.\u201d\n\n\u201cOn the contrary, if you look forward, you will not see a step before\nyou, and be certain to go wrong; but, if you look behind you, and watch\ncarefully whatever you have passed, and especially keep your eye on the\ndog, who goes by instinct, and therefore can\u2019t go wrong, then you will\nknow what is coming next, as plainly as if you saw it in a\nlooking-glass.\u201d\n\nTom was very much astonished: but he obeyed her, for he had learnt always\nto believe what the fairies told him.\n\n\u201cSo it is, my dear child,\u201d said Mother Carey; \u201cand I will tell you a\nstory, which will show you that I am perfectly right, as it is my custom\nto be.\n\n\u201cOnce on a time, there were two brothers.  One was called Prometheus,\nbecause he always looked before him, and boasted that he was wise\nbeforehand.  The other was called Epimetheus, because he always looked\nbehind him, and did not boast at all; but said humbly, like the Irishman,\nthat he had sooner prophesy after the event.\n\n\u201cWell, Prometheus was a very clever fellow, of course, and invented all\nsorts of wonderful things.  But, unfortunately, when they were set to\nwork, to work was just what they would not do: wherefore very little has\ncome of them, and very little is left of them; and now nobody knows what\nthey were, save a few arch\u00e6ological old gentlemen who scratch in queer\ncorners, and find little there save Ptinum Furem, Blaptem Mortisagam,\nAcarum Horridum, and Tineam Laciniarum.\n\n\u201cBut Epimetheus was a very slow fellow, certainly, and went among men for\na clod, and a muff, and a milksop, and a slowcoach, and a bloke, and a\nboodle, and so forth.  And very little he did, for many years: but what\nhe did, he never had to do over again.\n\n\u201cAnd what happened at last?  There came to the two brothers the most\nbeautiful creature that ever was seen, Pandora by name; which means, All\nthe gifts of the Gods.  But because she had a strange box in her hand,\nthis fanciful, forecasting, suspicious, prudential, theoretical,\ndeductive, prophesying Prometheus, who was always settling what was going\nto happen, would have nothing to do with pretty Pandora and her box.\n\n\u201cBut Epimetheus took her and it, as he took everything that came; and\nmarried her for better for worse, as every man ought, whenever he has\neven the chance of a good wife.  And they opened the box between them, of\ncourse, to see what was inside: for, else, of what possible use could it\nhave been to them?\n\n\u201cAnd out flew all the ills which flesh is heir to; all the children of\nthe four great bogies, Self-will, Ignorance, Fear, and Dirt\u2014for instance:\n\n_Measles_,           _Famines_,\n_Monks_,             _Quacks_,\n_Scarlatina_,        _Unpaid bills_,\n_Idols_,             _Tight stays_,\n_Hooping-coughs_,    _Potatoes_,\n_Popes_,             _Bad Wine_,\n_Wars_,              _Despots_,\n_Peacemongers_,      _Demagogues_,\n_And_, _worst of all_, _Naughty Boys\nand Girls_.\n\nBut one thing remained at the bottom of the box, and that was, Hope.\n\n\u201cSo Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, as most men do in this world:\nbut he got the three best things in the world into the bargain\u2014a good\nwife, and experience, and hope: while Prometheus had just as much\ntrouble, and a great deal more (as you will hear), of his own making;\nwith nothing beside, save fancies spun out of his own brain, as a spider\nspins her web out of her stomach.\n\n\u201cAnd Prometheus kept on looking before him so far ahead, that as he was\nrunning about with a box of lucifers (which were the only useful things\nhe ever invented, and do as much harm as good), he trod on his own nose,\nand tumbled down (as most deductive philosophers do), whereby he set the\nThames on fire; and they have hardly put it out again yet.  So he had to\nbe chained to the top of a mountain, with a vulture by him to give him a\npeck whenever he stirred, lest he should turn the whole world upside down\nwith his prophecies and his theories.\n\n\u201cBut stupid old Epimetheus went working and grubbing on, with the help of\nhis wife Pandora, always looking behind him to see what had happened,\ntill he really learnt to know now and then what would happen next; and\nunderstood so well which side his bread was buttered, and which way the\ncat jumped, that he began to make things which would work, and go on\nworking, too; to till and drain the ground, and to make looms, and ships,\nand railroads, and steam ploughs, and electric telegraphs, and all the\nthings which you see in the Great Exhibition; and to foretell famine, and\nbad weather, and the price of stocks and (what is hardest of all) the\nnext vagary of the great idol Whirligig, which some call Public Opinion;\ntill at last he grew as rich as a Jew, and as fat as a farmer, and people\nthought twice before they meddled with him, but only once before they\nasked him to help them; for, because he earned his money well, he could\nafford to spend it well likewise.\n\n\u201cAnd his children are the men of science, who get good lasting work done\nin the world; but the children of Prometheus are the fanatics, and the\ntheorists, and the bigots, and the bores, and the noisy windy people, who\ngo telling silly folk what will happen, instead of looking to see what\nhas happened already.\u201d\n\nNow, was not Mother Carey\u2019s a wonderful story?  And, I am happy to say,\nTom believed it every word.\n\n                      [Picture: Old Mother Shipton]\n\nFor so it happened to Tom likewise.  He was very sorely tried; for\nthough, by keeping the dog to heels (or rather to toes, for he had to\nwalk backward), he could see pretty well which way the dog was hunting,\nyet it was much slower work to go backwards than to go forwards.  But,\nwhat was more trying still, no sooner had he got out of Peacepool, than\nthere came running to him all the conjurors, fortune-tellers,\nastrologers, prophesiers, projectors, prestigiators, as many as were in\nthose parts (and there are too many of them everywhere), Old Mother\nShipton on her broomstick, with Merlin, Thomas the Rhymer, Gerbertus,\nRabanus Maurus, Nostradamus, Zadkiel, Raphael, Moore, Old Nixon, and a\ngood many in black coats and white ties who might have known better,\nconsidering in what century they were born, all bawling and screaming at\nhim, \u201cLook a-head, only look a-head; and we will show you what man never\nsaw before, and right away to the end of the world!\u201d\n\nBut I am proud to say that, though Tom had not been to Cambridge\u2014for, if\nhe had, he would have certainly been senior wrangler\u2014he was such a little\ndogged, hard, gnarly, foursquare brick of an English boy, that he never\nturned his head round once all the way from Peacepool to the\nOther-end-of-Nowhere: but kept his eye on the dog, and let him pick out\nthe scent, hot or cold, straight or crooked, wet or dry, up hill or down\ndale; by which means he never made a single mistake, and saw all the\nwonderful and hitherto by-no-mortal-man-imagined things, which it is my\nduty to relate to you in the next chapter.\n\n                          [Picture: Tom and dog]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII AND LAST\n\n\n    \u201cCome to me, O ye children!\n       For I hear you at your play;\n    And the questions that perplexed me\n       Have vanished quite away.\n\n    \u201cYe open the Eastern windows,\n       That look towards the sun,\n    Where thoughts are singing swallows,\n       And the brooks of morning run.\n\n                        [Picture: Two young girls]\n\n    \u201cFor what are all our contrivings\n       And the wisdom of our books,\n    When compared with your caresses,\n       And the gladness of your looks?\n\n    \u201cYe are better than all the ballads\n       That ever were sung or said;\n    For ye are living poems,\n       And all the rest are dead.\u201d\n\n                                                               LONGFELLOW.\n\n[Picture: Tom and dog] HERE begins the never-to-be-too-much-studied\naccount of the nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth part of the wonderful things\nwhich Tom saw on his journey to the Other-end-of-Nowhere; which all good\nlittle children are requested to read; that, if ever they get to the\nOther-end-of-Nowhere, as they may very probably do, they may not burst\nout laughing, or try to run away, or do any other silly vulgar thing\nwhich may offend Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.\n\nNow, as soon as Tom had left Peacepool, he came to the white lap of the\ngreat sea-mother, ten thousand fathoms deep; where she makes world-pap\nall day long, for the steam-giants to knead, and the fire-giants to bake,\ntill it has risen and hardened into mountain-loaves and island-cakes.\n\nAnd there Tom was very near being kneaded up in the world-pap, and turned\ninto a fossil water-baby; which would have astonished the Geological\nSociety of New Zealand some hundreds of thousands of years hence.\n\nFor, as he walked along in the silence of the sea-twilight, on the soft\nwhite ocean floor, he was aware of a hissing, and a roaring, and a\nthumping, and a pumping, as of all the steam-engines in the world at\nonce.  And, when he came near, the water grew boiling-hot; not that that\nhurt him in the least: but it also grew as foul as gruel; and every\nmoment he stumbled over dead shells, and fish, and sharks, and seals, and\nwhales, which had been killed by the hot water.\n\nAnd at last he came to the great sea-serpent himself, lying dead at the\nbottom; and as he was too thick to scramble over, Tom had to walk round\nhim three-quarters of a mile and more, which put him out of his path\nsadly; and, when he had got round, he came to the place called Stop.  And\nthere he stopped, and just in time.\n\nFor he was on the edge of a vast hole in the bottom of the sea, up which\nwas rushing and roaring clear steam enough to work all the engines in the\nworld at once; so clear, indeed, that it was quite light at moments; and\nTom could see almost up to the top of the water above, and down below\ninto the pit for nobody knows how far.\n\nBut, as soon as he bent his head over the edge, he got such a rap on the\nnose from pebbles, that he jumped back again; for the steam, as it rushed\nup, rasped away the sides of the hole, and hurled it up into the sea in a\nshower of mud and gravel and ashes; and then it spread all around, and\nsank again, and covered in the dead fish so fast, that before Tom had\nstood there five minutes he was buried in silt up to his ankles, and\nbegan to be afraid that he should have been buried alive.\n\nAnd perhaps he would have been, but that while he was thinking, the whole\npiece of ground on which he stood was torn off and blown upwards, and\naway flew Tom a mile up through the sea, wondering what was coming next.\n\nAt last he stopped\u2014thump! and found himself tight in the legs of the most\nwonderful bogy which he had ever seen.\n\nIt had I don\u2019t know how many wings, as big as the sails of a windmill,\nand spread out in a ring like them; and with them it hovered over the\nsteam which rushed up, as a ball hovers over the top of a fountain.  And\nfor every wing above it had a leg below, with a claw like a comb at the\ntip, and a nostril at the root; and in the middle it had no stomach and\none eye; and as for its mouth, that was all on one side, as the\nmadreporiform tubercle in a star-fish is.  Well, it was a very strange\nbeast; but no stranger than some dozens which you may see.\n\n\u201cWhat do you want here,\u201d it cried quite peevishly, \u201cgetting in my way?\u201d\nand it tried to drop Tom: but he held on tight to its claws, thinking\nhimself safer where he was.\n\nSo Tom told him who he was, and what his errand was.  And the thing\nwinked its one eye, and sneered:\n\n\u201cI am too old to be taken in in that way.  You are come after gold\u2014I know\nyou are.\u201d\n\n\u201cGold!  What is gold?\u201d  And really Tom did not know; but the suspicious\nold bogy would not believe him.\n\nBut after a while Tom began to understand a little.  For, as the vapours\ncame up out of the hole, the bogy smelt them with his nostrils, and\ncombed them and sorted them with his combs; and then, when they steamed\nup through them against his wings, they were changed into showers and\nstreams of metal.  From one wing fell gold-dust, and from another silver,\nand from another copper, and from another tin, and from another lead, and\nso on, and sank into the soft mud, into veins and cracks, and hardened\nthere.  Whereby it comes to pass that the rocks are full of metal.\n\nBut, all of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam below, and the hole was\nleft empty in an instant: and then down rushed the water into the hole,\nin such a whirlpool that the bogy spun round and round as fast as a\nteetotum.  But that was all in his day\u2019s work, like a fair fall with the\nhounds; so all he did was to say to Tom\u2014\n\n\u201cNow is your time, youngster, to get down, if you are in earnest, which I\ndon\u2019t believe.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ll soon see,\u201d said Tom; and away he went, as bold as Baron\nMunchausen, and shot down the rushing cataract like a salmon at\nBallisodare.\n\nAnd, when he got to the bottom, he swam till he was washed on shore safe\nupon the Other-end-of-Nowhere; and he found it, to his surprise, as most\nother people do, much more like This-End-of-Somewhere than he had been in\nthe habit of expecting.\n\nAnd first he went through Waste-paper-land, where all the stupid books\nlie in heaps, up hill and down dale, like leaves in a winter wood; and\nthere he saw people digging and grubbing among them, to make worse books\nout of bad ones, and thrashing chaff to save the dust of it; and a very\ngood trade they drove thereby, especially among children.\n\nThen he went by the sea of slops, to the mountain of messes, and the\nterritory of tuck, where the ground was very sticky, for it was all made\nof bad toffee (not Everton toffee, of course), and full of deep cracks\nand holes choked with wind-fallen fruit, and green goose-berries, and\nsloes, and crabs, and whinberries, and hips and haws, and all the nasty\nthings which little children will eat, if they can get them.  But the\nfairies hide them out of the way in that country as fast as they can, and\nvery hard work they have, and of very little use it is.  For as fast as\nthey hide away the old trash, foolish and wicked people make fresh trash\nfull of lime and poisonous paints, and actually go and steal receipts out\nof old Madame Science\u2019s big book to invent poisons for little children,\nand sell them at wakes and fairs and tuck-shops.  Very well.  Let them go\non.  Dr. Letheby and Dr. Hassall cannot catch them, though they are\nsetting traps for them all day long.  But the Fairy with the birch-rod\nwill catch them all in time, and make them begin at one corner of their\nshops, and eat their way out at the other: by which time they will have\ngot such stomach-aches as will cure them of poisoning little children.\n\nNext he saw all the little people in the world, writing all the little\nbooks in the world, about all the other little people in the world;\nprobably because they had no great people to write about: and if the\nnames of the books were not Squeeky, nor the Pump-lighter, nor the Narrow\nNarrow World, nor the Hills of the Chattermuch, nor the Children\u2019s\nTwaddeday, why then they were something else.  And, all the rest of the\nlittle people in the world read the books, and thought themselves each as\ngood as the President; and perhaps they were right, for every one knows\nhis own business best.  But Tom thought he would sooner have a jolly good\nfairy tale, about Jack the Giant-killer or Beauty and the Beast, which\ntaught him something that he didn\u2019t know already.\n\nAnd next he came to the centre of Creation (the hub, they call it there),\nwhich lies in latitude 42.21\u00b0 south, and longitude 108.56\u00b0 east.\n\nAnd there he found all the wise people instructing mankind in the science\nof spirit-rapping, while their house was burning over their heads: and\nwhen Tom told them of the fire, they held an indignation meeting\nforthwith, and unanimously determined to hang Tom\u2019s dog for coming into\ntheir country with gunpowder in his mouth.  Tom couldn\u2019t help saying that\nthough they did fancy they had carried all the wit away with them out of\nLincolnshire two hundred years ago, yet if they had had one such\nLincolnshire nobleman among them as good old Lord Yarborough, he would\nhave called for the fire-engines before he hanged other people\u2019s dogs.\nBut it was of no use, and the dog was hanged: and Tom couldn\u2019t even have\nhis carcase; for they had abolished the have-his-carcase act in that\ncountry, for fear lest when rogues fell out, honest men should come by\ntheir own.  And so they would have succeeded perfectly, as they always\ndo, only that (as they also always do) they failed in one little\nparticular, viz. that the dog would not die, being a water-dog, but bit\ntheir fingers so abominably that they were forced to let him go, and Tom\nlikewise, as British subjects.  Whereon they recommenced rapping for the\nspirits of their fathers; and very much astonished the poor old spirits\nwere when they came, and saw how, according to the laws of Mrs.\nBedonebyasyoudid, their descendants had weakened their constitution by\nhard living.\n\nThen came Tom to the Island of Polupragmosyne (which some call Rogues\u2019\nHarbour; but they are wrong; for that is in the middle of Bramshill\nBushes, and the county police have cleared it out long ago).  There every\none knows his neighbour\u2019s business better than his own; and a very noisy\nplace it is, as might be expected, considering that all the inhabitants\nare _ex officio_ on the wrong side of the house in the \u201cParliament of\nMan, and the Federation of the World;\u201d and are always making wry mouths,\nand crying that the fairies\u2019 grapes were sour.\n\nThere Tom saw ploughs drawing horses, nails driving hammers, birds\u2019 nests\ntaking boys, books making authors, bulls keeping china-shops, monkeys\nshaving cats, dead dogs drilling live lions, blind brigadiers shelfed as\nprincipals of colleges, play-actors not in the least shelfed as popular\npreachers; and, in short, every one set to do something which he had not\nlearnt, because in what he had learnt, or pretended to learn, he had\nfailed.\n\nThere stands the Pantheon of the Great Unsuccessful, from the builders of\nthe Tower of Babel to those of the Trafalgar Fountains; in which\npoliticians lecture on the constitutions which ought to have marched,\nconspirators on the revolutions which ought to have succeeded, economists\non the schemes which ought to have made every one\u2019s fortune, and\nprojectors on the discoveries which ought to have set the Thames on fire.\nThere cobblers lecture on orthopedy (whatsoever that may be) because they\ncannot sell their shoes; and poets on \u00c6sthetics (whatsoever that may be)\nbecause they cannot sell their poetry.  There philosophers demonstrate\nthat England would be the freest and richest country in the world, if she\nwould only turn Papist again; penny-a-liners abuse the Times, because\nthey have not wit enough to get on its staff; and young ladies walk about\nwith lockets of Charles the First\u2019s hair (or of somebody else\u2019s, when the\nJews\u2019 genuine stock is used up), inscribed with the neat and appropriate\nlegend\u2014which indeed is popular through all that land, and which, I hope,\nyou will learn to translate in due time and to perpend likewise:\u2014\n\n    \u201c_Victrix causa diis placuit_, _sed victa puellis_.\u201d\n\nWhen he got into the middle of the town, they all set on him at once, to\nshow him his way; or rather, to show him that he did not know his way;\nfor as for asking him what way he wanted to go, no one ever thought of\nthat.\n\nBut one pulled him hither, and another poked him thither, and a third\ncried\u2014\n\n\u201cYou mustn\u2019t go west, I tell you; it is destruction to go west.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I am not going west, as you may see,\u201d said Tom.\n\nAnd another, \u201cThe east lies here, my dear; I assure you this is the\neast.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I don\u2019t want to go east,\u201d said Tom.\n\n\u201cWell, then, at all events, whichever way you are going, you are going\nwrong,\u201d cried they all with one voice\u2014which was the only thing which they\never agreed about; and all pointed at once to all the thirty-and-two\npoints of the compass, till Tom thought all the sign-posts in England had\ngot together, and fallen fighting.\n\nAnd whether he would have ever escaped out of the town, it is hard to\nsay, if the dog had not taken it into his head that they were going to\npull his master in pieces, and tackled them so sharply about the\ngastrocnemius muscle, that he gave them some business of their own to\nthink of at last; and while they were rubbing their bitten calves, Tom\nand the dog got safe away.\n\nOn the borders of that island he found Gotham, where the wise men live;\nthe same who dragged the pond because the moon had fallen into it, and\nplanted a hedge round the cuckoo, to keep spring all the year.  And he\nfound them bricking up the town gate, because it was so wide that little\nfolks could not get through.  And, when he asked why, they told him they\nwere expanding their liturgy.  So he went on; for it was no business of\nhis: only he could not help saying that in his country, if the kitten\ncould not get in at the same hole as the cat, she might stay outside and\nmew.\n\nBut he saw the end of such fellows, when he came to the island of the\nGolden Asses, where nothing but thistles grow.  For there they were all\nturned into mokes with ears a yard long, for meddling with matters which\nthey do not understand, as Lucius did in the story.  And like him, mokes\nthey must remain, till, by the laws of development, the thistles develop\ninto roses.  Till then, they must comfort themselves with the thought,\nthat the longer their ears are, the thicker their hides; and so a good\nbeating don\u2019t hurt them.\n\nThen came Tom to the great land of Hearsay, in which are no less than\nthirty and odd kings, beside half a dozen Republics, and perhaps more by\nnext mail.\n\nAnd there he fell in with a deep, dark, deadly, and destructive war,\nwaged by the princes and potentates of those parts, both spiritual and\ntemporal, against what do you think?  One thing I am sure of.  That\nunless I told you, you would never know; nor how they waged that war\neither; for all their strategy and art military consisted in the safe and\neasy process of stopping their ears and screaming, \u201cOh, don\u2019t tell us!\u201d\nand then running away.\n\nSo when Tom came into that land, he found them all, high and low, man,\nwoman, and child, running for their lives day and night continually, and\nentreating not to be told they didn\u2019t know what: only the land being an\nisland, and they having a dislike to the water (being a musty lot for the\nmost part), they ran round and round the shore for ever, which (as the\nisland was exactly of the same circumference as the planet on which we\nhave the honour of living) was hard work, especially to those who had\nbusiness to look after.  But before them, as bandmaster and fugleman, ran\na gentleman shearing a pig; the melodious strains of which animal led\nthem for ever, if not to conquest, still to flight; and kept up their\nspirits mightily with the thought that they would at least have the pig\u2019s\nwool for their pains.\n\nAnd running after them, day and night, came such a poor, lean, seedy,\nhard-worked old giant, as ought to have been cockered up, and had a good\ndinner given him, and a good wife found him, and been set to play with\nlittle children; and then he would have been a very presentable old\nfellow after all; for he had a heart, though it was considerably\novergrown with brains.\n\nHe was made up principally of fish bones and parchment, put together with\nwire and Canada balsam; and smelt strongly of spirits, though he never\ndrank anything but water: but spirits he used somehow, there was no\ndenying.  He had a great pair of spectacles on his nose, and a\nbutterfly-net in one hand, and a geological hammer in the other; and was\nhung all over with pockets, full of collecting boxes, bottles,\nmicroscopes, telescopes, barometers, ordnance maps, scalpels, forceps,\nphotographic apparatus, and all other tackle for finding out everything\nabout everything, and a little more too.  And, most strange of all, he\nwas running not forwards but backwards, as fast as he could.\n\nAway all the good folks ran from him, except Tom, who stood his ground\nand dodged between his legs; and the giant, when he had passed him,\nlooked down, and cried, as if he was quite pleased and comforted,\u2014\n\n\u201cWhat? who are you?  And you actually don\u2019t run away, like all the rest?\u201d\nBut he had to take his spectacles off, Tom remarked, in order to see him\nplainly.\n\nTom told him who he was; and the giant pulled out a bottle and a cork\ninstantly, to collect him with.\n\nBut Tom was too sharp for that, and dodged between his legs and in front\nof him; and then the giant could not see him at all.\n\n\u201cNo, no, no!\u201d said Tom, \u201cI\u2019ve not been round the world, and through the\nworld, and up to Mother Carey\u2019s haven, beside being caught in a net and\ncalled a Holothurian and a Cephalopod, to be bottled up by any old giant\nlike you.\u201d\n\nAnd when the giant understood what a great traveller Tom had been, he\nmade a truce with him at once, and would have kept him there to this day\nto pick his brains, so delighted was he at finding any one to tell him\nwhat he did not know before.\n\n\u201cAh, you lucky little dog!\u201d said he at last, quite simply\u2014for he was the\nsimplest, pleasantest, honestest, kindliest old Dominie Sampson of a\ngiant that ever turned the world upside down without intending it\u2014\u201cah,\nyou lucky little dog!  If I had only been where you have been, to see\nwhat you have seen!\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Tom, \u201cif you want to do that, you had best put your head\nunder water for a few hours, as I did, and turn into a water-baby, or\nsome other baby, and then you might have a chance.\u201d\n\n\u201cTurn into a baby, eh?  If I could do that, and know what was happening\nto me for but one hour, I should know everything then, and be at rest.\nBut I can\u2019t; I can\u2019t be a little child again; and I suppose if I could,\nit would be no use, because then I should then know nothing about what\nwas happening to me.  Ah, you lucky little dog!\u201d said the poor old giant.\n\n\u201cBut why do you run after all these poor people?\u201d said Tom, who liked the\ngiant very much.\n\n\u201cMy dear, it\u2019s they that have been running after me, father and son, for\nhundreds and hundreds of years, throwing stones at me till they have\nknocked off my spectacles fifty times, and calling me a malignant and a\nturbaned Turk, who beat a Venetian and traduced the State\u2014goodness only\nknows what they mean, for I never read poetry\u2014and hunting me round and\nround\u2014though catch me they can\u2019t, for every time I go over the same\nground, I go the faster, and grow the bigger.  While all I want is to be\nfriends with them, and to tell them something to their advantage, like\nMr. Joseph Ady: only somehow they are so strangely afraid of hearing it.\nBut, I suppose I am not a man of the world, and have no tact.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut why don\u2019t you turn round and tell them so?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause I can\u2019t.  You see, I am one of the sons of Epimetheus, and must\ngo backwards, if I am to go at all.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut why don\u2019t you stop, and let them come up to you?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, my dear, only think.  If I did, all the butterflies and\ncockyolybirds would fly past me, and then I should catch no more new\nspecies, and should grow rusty and mouldy, and die.  And I don\u2019t intend\nto do that, my dear; for I have a destiny before me, they say: though\nwhat it is I don\u2019t know, and don\u2019t care.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t care?\u201d said Tom.\n\n\u201cNo.  Do the duty which lies nearest you, and catch the first beetle you\ncome across, is my motto; and I have thriven by it for some hundred\nyears.  Now I must go on.  Dear me, while I have been talking to you, at\nleast nine new species have escaped me.\u201d\n\nAnd on went the giant, behind before, like a bull in a china-shop, till\nhe ran into the steeple of the great idol temple (for they are all\nidolaters in those parts, of course, else they would never be afraid of\ngiants), and knocked the upper half clean off, hurting himself horribly\nabout the small of the back.\n\nBut little he cared; for as soon as the ruins of the steeple were well\nbetween his legs, he poked and peered among the falling stones, and\nshifted his spectacles, and pulled out his pocket-magnifier, and cried\u2014\n\n\u201cAn entirely new Oniscus, and three obscure Podurell\u00e6!  Besides a moth\nwhich M. le Roi des Papillons (though he, like all Frenchmen, is given to\nhasty inductions) says is confined to the limits of the Glacial Drift.\nThis is most important!\u201d\n\nAnd down he sat on the nave of the temple (not being a man of the world)\nto examine his Podurell\u00e6.  Whereon (as was to be expected) the roof caved\nin bodily, smashing the idols, and sending the priests flying out of\ndoors and windows, like rabbits out of a burrow when a ferret goes in.\n\nBut he never heeded; for out of the dust flew a bat, and the giant had\nhim in a moment.\n\n\u201cDear me!  This is even more important!  Here is a cognate species to\nthat which Macgilliwaukie Brown insists is confined to the Buddhist\ntemples of Little Thibet; and now when I look at it, it may be only a\nvariety produced by difference of climate!\u201d\n\nAnd having bagged his bat, up he got, and on he went; while all the\npeople ran, being in none the better humour for having their temple\nsmashed for the sake of three obscure species of Podurella, and a\nBuddhist bat.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d thought Tom, \u201cthis is a very pretty quarrel, with a good deal to\nbe said on both sides.  But it is no business of mine.\u201d\n\nAnd no more it was, because he was a water-baby, and had the original sow\nby the right ear; which you will never have, unless you be a baby,\nwhether of the water, the land, or the air, matters not, provided you can\nonly keep on continually being a baby.\n\nSo the giant ran round after the people, and the people ran round after\nthe giant, and they are running, unto this day for aught I know, or do\nnot know; and will run till either he, or they, or both, turn into little\nchildren.  And then, as Shakespeare says (and therefore it must be true)\u2014\n\n    \u201c_Jack shall have Gill_\n    _Nought shall go ill_\n    _The man shall have his mare again_, _and all go well_.\u201d\n\nThen Tom came to a very famous island, which was called, in the days of\nthe great traveller Captain Gulliver, the Isle of Laputa.  But Mrs.\nBedonebyasyoudid has named it over again the Isle of Tomtoddies, all\nheads and no bodies.\n\nAnd when Tom came near it, he heard such a grumbling and grunting and\ngrowling and wailing and weeping and whining that he thought people must\nbe ringing little pigs, or cropping puppies\u2019 ears, or drowning kittens:\nbut when he came nearer still, he began to hear words among the noise;\nwhich was the Tomtoddies\u2019 song which they sing morning and evening, and\nall night too, to their great idol Examination\u2014\n\n    \u201c_I can\u2019t learn my lesson_: _the examiner\u2019s coming_!\u201d\n\nAnd that was the only song which they knew.\n\nAnd when Tom got on shore the first thing he saw was a great pillar, on\none side of which was inscribed, \u201cPlaythings not allowed here;\u201d at which\nhe was so shocked that he would not stay to see what was written on the\nother side.  Then he looked round for the people of the island: but\ninstead of men, women, and children, he found nothing but turnips and\nradishes, beet and mangold wurzel, without a single green leaf among\nthem, and half of them burst and decayed, with toad-stools growing out of\nthem.  Those which were left began crying to Tom, in half a dozen\ndifferent languages at once, and all of them badly spoken, \u201cI can\u2019t learn\nmy lesson; do come and help me!\u201d  And one cried, \u201cCan you show me how to\nextract this square root?\u201d\n\nAnd another, \u201cCan you tell me the distance between \u03b1 Lyr\u00e6 and \u03b2\nCamelopardis?\u201d\n\nAnd another, \u201cWhat is the latitude and longitude of Snooksville, in\nNoman\u2019s County, Oregon, U.S.?\u201d\n\nAnd another, \u201cWhat was the name of Mutius Sc\u00e6vola\u2019s thirteenth cousin\u2019s\ngrandmother\u2019s maid\u2019s cat?\u201d\n\nAnd another, \u201cHow long would it take a school-inspector of average\nactivity to tumble head over heels from London to York?\u201d\n\nAnd another, \u201cCan you tell me the name of a place that nobody ever heard\nof, where nothing ever happened, in a country which has not been\ndiscovered yet?\u201d\n\nAnd another, \u201cCan you show me how to correct this hopelessly corrupt\npassage of Graidiocolosyrtus Tabenniticus, on the cause why crocodiles\nhave no tongues?\u201d\n\nAnd so on, and so on, and so on, till one would have thought they were\nall trying for tide-waiters\u2019 places, or cornetcies in the heavy dragoons.\n\n\u201cAnd what good on earth will it do you if I did tell you?\u201d quoth Tom.\n\nWell, they didn\u2019t know that: all they knew was the examiner was coming.\n\nThen Tom stumbled on the hugest and softest nimblecomequick turnip you\never saw filling a hole in a crop of swedes, and it cried to him, \u201cCan\nyou tell me anything at all about anything you like?\u201d\n\n\u201cAbout what?\u201d says Tom.\n\n\u201cAbout anything you like; for as fast as I learn things I forget them\nagain.  So my mamma says that my intellect is not adapted for methodic\nscience, and says that I must go in for general information.\u201d\n\nTom told him that he did not know general information, nor any officers\nin the army; only he had a friend once that went for a drummer: but he\ncould tell him a great many strange things which he had seen in his\ntravels.\n\nSo he told him prettily enough, while the poor turnip listened very\ncarefully; and the more he listened, the more he forgot, and the more\nwater ran out of him.\n\nTom thought he was crying: but it was only his poor brains running away,\nfrom being worked so hard; and as Tom talked, the unhappy turnip streamed\ndown all over with juice, and split and shrank till nothing was left of\nhim but rind and water; whereat Tom ran away in a fright, for he thought\nhe might be taken up for killing the turnip.\n\n[Picture: The turnip] But, on the contrary, the turnip\u2019s parents were\nhighly delighted, and considered him a saint and a martyr, and put up a\nlong inscription over his tomb about his wonderful talents, early\ndevelopment, and unparalleled precocity.  Were they not a foolish couple?\nBut there was a still more foolish couple next to them, who were beating\na wretched little radish, no bigger than my thumb, for sullenness and\nobstinacy and wilful stupidity, and never knew that the reason why it\ncouldn\u2019t learn or hardly even speak was, that there was a great worm\ninside it eating out all its brains.  But even they are no foolisher than\nsome hundred score of papas and mammas, who fetch the rod when they ought\nto fetch a new toy, and send to the dark cupboard instead of to the\ndoctor.\n\nTom was so puzzled and frightened with all he saw, that he was longing to\nask the meaning of it; and at last he stumbled over a respectable old\nstick lying half covered with earth.  But a very stout and worthy stick\nit was, for it belonged to good Roger Ascham in old time, and had carved\non its head King Edward the Sixth, with the Bible in his hand.\n\n\u201cYou see,\u201d said the stick, \u201cthere were as pretty little children once as\nyou could wish to see, and might have been so still if they had been only\nleft to grow up like human beings, and then handed over to me; but their\nfoolish fathers and mothers, instead of letting them pick flowers, and\nmake dirt-pies, and get birds\u2019 nests, and dance round the gooseberry\nbush, as little children should, kept them always at lessons, working,\nworking, working, learning week-day lessons all week-days, and Sunday\nlessons all Sunday, and weekly examinations every Saturday, and monthly\nexaminations every month, and yearly examinations every year, everything\nseven times over, as if once was not enough, and enough as good as a\nfeast\u2014till their brains grew big, and their bodies grew small, and they\nwere all changed into turnips, with little but water inside; and still\ntheir foolish parents actually pick the leaves off them as fast as they\ngrow, lest they should have anything green about them.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d said Tom, \u201cif dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby knew of it she would\nsend them a lot of tops, and balls, and marbles, and ninepins, and make\nthem all as jolly as sand-boys.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt would be no use,\u201d said the stick.  \u201cThey can\u2019t play now, if they\ntried.  Don\u2019t you see how their legs have turned to roots and grown into\nthe ground, by never taking any exercise, but sapping and moping always\nin the same place?  But here comes the Examiner-of-all-Examiners.  So you\nhad better get away, I warn you, or he will examine you and your dog into\nthe bargain, and set him to examine all the other dogs, and you to\nexamine all the other water-babies.  There is no escaping out of his\nhands, for his nose is nine thousand miles long, and can go down\nchimneys, and through keyholes, upstairs, downstairs, in my lady\u2019s\nchamber, examining all little boys, and the little boys\u2019 tutors likewise.\nBut when he is thrashed\u2014so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has promised me\u2014I shall\nhave the thrashing of him: and if I don\u2019t lay it on with a will it\u2019s a\npity.\u201d\n\nTom went off: but rather slowly and surlily; for he was somewhat minded\nto face this same Examiner-of-all-Examiners, who came striding among the\npoor turnips, binding heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and laying\nthem on little children\u2019s shoulders, like the Scribes and Pharisees of\nold, and not touching the same with one of his fingers; for he had plenty\nof money, and a fine house to live in, and so forth; which was more than\nthe poor little turnips had.\n\nBut when he got near, he looked so big and burly and dictatorial, and\nshouted so loud to Tom, to come and be examined, that Tom ran for his\nlife, and the dog too.  And really it was time; for the poor turnips, in\ntheir hurry and fright, crammed themselves so fast to be ready for the\nExaminer, that they burst and popped by dozens all round him, till the\nplace sounded like Aldershot on a field-day, and Tom thought he should be\nblown into the air, dog and all.\n\nAs he went down to the shore he passed the poor turnip\u2019s new tomb.  But\nMrs. Bedonebyasyoudid had taken away the epitaph about talents and\nprecocity and development, and put up one of her own instead which Tom\nthought much more sensible:\u2014\n\n    \u201c_Instruction sore long time I bore_,\n       _And cramming was in vain_;\n    _Till heaven did please my woes to ease_\n       _With water on the brain_.\u201d\n\nSo Tom jumped into the sea, and swam on his way, singing:\u2014\n\n    \u201c_Farewell_, _Tomtoddies all_; _I thank my stars_\n    _That nought I know save those three royal r\u2019s_:\n    _Reading and riting sure_, _with rithmetick_,\n    _Will help a lad of sense through thin and thick_.\u201d\n\nWhereby you may see that Tom was no poet: but no more was John Bunyan,\nthough he was as wise a man as you will meet in a month of Sundays.\n\nAnd next he came to Oldwivesfabledom, where the folks were all heathens,\nand worshipped a howling ape.  And there he found a little boy sitting in\nthe middle of the road, and crying bitterly.\n\n\u201cWhat are you crying for?\u201d said Tom.\n\n\u201cBecause I am not as frightened as I could wish to be.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot frightened?  You are a queer little chap: but, if you want to be\nfrightened, here goes\u2014Boo!\u201d\n\n\u201cAh,\u201d said the little boy, \u201cthat is very kind of you; but I don\u2019t feel\nthat it has made any impression.\u201d\n\nTom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on him, fettle him over the\nhead with a brick, or anything else whatsoever which would give him the\nslightest comfort.\n\nBut he only thanked Tom very civilly, in fine long words which he had\nheard other folk use, and which therefore, he thought were fit and proper\nto use himself; and cried on till his papa and mamma came, and sent off\nfor the Powwow man immediately.  And a very good-natured gentleman and\nlady they were, though they were heathens; and talked quite pleasantly to\nTom about his travels, till the Powwow man arrived, with his thunderbox\nunder his arm.\n\nAnd a well-fed, ill-favoured gentleman he was, as ever served Her Majesty\nat Portland.  Tom was a little frightened at first; for he thought it was\nGrimes.  But he soon saw his mistake: for Grimes always looked a man in\nthe face; and this fellow never did.  And when he spoke, it was fire and\nsmoke; and when he sneezed, it was squibs and crackers; and when he cried\n(which he did whenever it paid him), it was boiling pitch; and some of it\nwas sure to stick.\n\n\u201cHere we are again!\u201d cried he, like the clown in a pantomime.  \u201cSo you\ncan\u2019t feel frightened, my little dear\u2014eh?  I\u2019ll do that for you.  I\u2019ll\nmake an impression on you!  Yah!  Boo!  Whirroo!  Hullabaloo!\u201d\n\nAnd he rattled, thumped, brandished his thunderbox, yelled, shouted,\nraved, roared, stamped, and danced corrobory like any black fellow; and\nthen he touched a spring in the thunderbox, and out popped turnip-ghosts\nand magic-lanthorns and pasteboard bogies and spring-heeled Jacks, and\nsallaballas, with such a horrid din, clatter, clank, roll, rattle, and\nroar, that the little boy turned up the whites of his eyes, and fainted\nright away.\n\nAnd at that his poor heathen papa and mamma were as much delighted as if\nthey had found a gold mine; and fell down upon their knees before the\nPowwow man, and gave him a palanquin with a pole of solid silver and\ncurtains of cloth of gold; and carried him about in it on their own\nbacks: but as soon as they had taken him up, the pole stuck to their\nshoulders, and they could not set him down any more, but carried him on\nwillynilly, as Sinbad carried the old man of the sea: which was a\npitiable sight to see; for the father was a very brave officer, and wore\ntwo swords and a blue button; and the mother was as pretty a lady as ever\nhad pinched feet like a Chinese.  But you see, they had chosen to do a\nfoolish thing just once too often; so, by the laws of Mrs.\nBedonebyasyoudid, they had to go on doing it whether they chose or not,\ntill the coming of the Cocqcigrues.\n\nAh! don\u2019t you wish that some one would go and convert those poor\nheathens, and teach them not to frighten their little children into fits?\n\n\u201cNow, then,\u201d said the Powwow man to Tom, \u201cwouldn\u2019t you like to be\nfrightened, my little dear?  For I can see plainly that you are a very\nwicked, naughty, graceless, reprobate boy.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re another,\u201d quoth Tom, very sturdily.  And when the man ran at him,\nand cried \u201cBoo!\u201d  Tom ran at him in return, and cried \u201cBoo!\u201d likewise,\nright in his face, and set the little dog upon him; and at his legs the\ndog went.\n\nAt which, if you will believe it, the fellow turned tail, thunderbox and\nall, with a \u201cWoof!\u201d like an old sow on the common; and ran for his life,\nscreaming, \u201cHelp! thieves! murder! fire!  He is going to kill me!  I am a\nruined man!  He will murder me; and break, burn, and destroy my precious\nand invaluable thunderbox; and then you will have no more thunder-showers\nin the land.  Help! help! help!\u201d\n\nAt which the papa and mamma and all the people of Oldwivesfabledom flew\nat Tom, shouting, \u201cOh, the wicked, impudent, hard-hearted, graceless boy!\nBeat him, kick him, shoot him, drown him, hang him, burn him!\u201d and so\nforth: but luckily they had nothing to shoot, hang, or burn him with, for\nthe fairies had hid all the killing-tackle out of the way a little while\nbefore; so they could only pelt him with stones; and some of the stones\nwent clean through him, and came out the other side.  But he did not mind\nthat a bit; for the holes closed up again as fast as they were made,\nbecause he was a water-baby.  However, he was very glad when he was safe\nout of the country, for the noise there made him all but deaf.\n\nThen he came to a very quiet place, called Leaveheavenalone.  And there\nthe sun was drawing water out of the sea to make steam-threads, and the\nwind was twisting them up to make cloud-patterns, till they had worked\nbetween them the loveliest wedding veil of Chantilly lace, and hung it up\nin their own Crystal Palace for any one to buy who could afford it; while\nthe good old sea never grudged, for she knew they would pay her back\nhonestly.  So the sun span, and the wind wove, and all went well with the\ngreat steam-loom; as is likely, considering\u2014and considering\u2014and\nconsidering\u2014\n\nAnd at last, after innumerable adventures, each more wonderful than the\nlast, he saw before him a huge building, much bigger, and\u2014what is most\nsurprising\u2014a little uglier than a certain new lunatic asylum, but not\nbuilt quite of the same materials.  None of it, at least\u2014or, indeed, for\naught that I ever saw, any part of any other building whatsoever\u2014is cased\nwith nine-inch brick inside and out, and filled up with rubble between\nthe walls, in order that any gentleman who has been confined during Her\nMajesty\u2019s pleasure may be unconfined during his own pleasure, and take a\nwalk in the neighbouring park to improve his spirits, after an hour\u2019s\nlight and wholesome labour with his dinner-fork or one of the legs of his\niron bedstead.  No.  The walls of this building were built on an entirely\ndifferent principle, which need not be described, as it has not yet been\ndiscovered.\n\n[Picture: Truncheon] Tom walked towards this great building, wondering\nwhat it was, and having a strange fancy that he might find Mr. Grimes\ninside it, till he saw running toward him, and shouting \u201cStop!\u201d three or\nfour people, who, when they came nearer, were nothing else than\npolicemen\u2019s truncheons, running along without legs or arms.\n\nTom was not astonished.  He was long past that.  Besides, he had seen the\nnavicul\u00e6 in the water move nobody knows how, a hundred times, without\narms, or legs, or anything to stand in their stead.  Neither was he\nfrightened for he had been doing no harm.\n\nSo he stopped; and, when the foremost truncheon came up and asked his\nbusiness, he showed Mother Carey\u2019s pass; and the truncheon looked at it\nin the oddest fashion; for he had one eye in the middle of his upper end,\nso that when he looked at anything, being quite stiff, he had to slope\nhimself, and poke himself, till it was a wonder why he did not tumble\nover; but, being quite full of the spirit of justice (as all policemen,\nand their truncheons, ought to be), he was always in a position of stable\nequilibrium, whichever way he put himself.\n\n\u201cAll right\u2014pass on,\u201d said he at last.  And then he added: \u201cI had better\ngo with you, young man.\u201d  And Tom had no objection, for such company was\nboth respectable and safe; so the truncheon coiled its thong neatly round\nits handle, to prevent tripping itself up\u2014for the thong had got loose in\nrunning\u2014and marched on by Tom\u2019s side.\n\n\u201cWhy have you no policeman to carry you?\u201d asked Tom, after a while.\n\n\u201cBecause we are not like those clumsy-made truncheons in the land-world,\nwhich cannot go without having a whole man to carry them about.  We do\nour own work for ourselves; and do it very well, though I say it who\nshould not.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen why have you a thong to your handle?\u201d asked Tom.\n\n\u201cTo hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are off duty.\u201d\n\nTom had got his answer, and had no more to say, till they came up to the\ngreat iron door of the prison.  And there the truncheon knocked twice,\nwith its own head.\n\nA wicket in the door opened, and out looked a tremendous old brass\nblunderbuss charged up to the muzzle with slugs, who was the porter; and\nTom started back a little at the sight of him.\n\n                        [Picture: The blunderbuss]\n\n\u201cWhat case is this?\u201d he asked in a deep voice, out of his broad bell\nmouth.\n\n\u201cIf you please, sir, it is no case; only a young gentleman from her\nladyship, who wants to see Grimes, the master-sweep.\u201d\n\n\u201cGrimes?\u201d said the blunderbuss.  And he pulled in his muzzle, perhaps to\nlook over his prison-lists.\n\n\u201cGrimes is up chimney No. 345,\u201d he said from inside.  \u201cSo the young\ngentleman had better go on to the roof.\u201d\n\nTom looked up at the enormous wall, which seemed at least ninety miles\nhigh, and wondered how he should ever get up: but, when he hinted that to\nthe truncheon, it settled the matter in a moment.  For it whisked round,\nand gave him such a shove behind as sent him up to the roof in no time,\nwith his little dog under his arm.\n\nAnd there he walked along the leads, till he met another truncheon, and\ntold him his errand.\n\n\u201cVery good,\u201d it said.  \u201cCome along: but it will be of no use.  He is the\nmost unremorseful, hard-hearted, foul-mouthed fellow I have in charge;\nand thinks about nothing but beer and pipes, which are not allowed here,\nof course.\u201d\n\nSo they walked along over the leads, and very sooty they were, and Tom\nthought the chimneys must want sweeping very much.  But he was surprised\nto see that the soot did not stick to his feet, or dirty them in the\nleast.  Neither did the live coals, which were lying about in plenty,\nburn him; for, being a water-baby, his radical humours were of a moist\nand cold nature, as you may read at large in Lemnius, Cardan, Van\nHelmont, and other gentlemen, who knew as much as they could, and no man\ncan know more.\n\nAnd at last they came to chimney No. 345.  Out of the top of it, his head\nand shoulders just showing, stuck poor Mr. Grimes, so sooty, and bleared,\nand ugly, that Tom could hardly bear to look at him.  And in his mouth\nwas a pipe; but it was not a-light; though he was pulling at it with all\nhis might.\n\n                        [Picture: Tom and Grimes]\n\n\u201cAttention, Mr. Grimes,\u201d said the truncheon; \u201chere is a gentleman come to\nsee you.\u201d\n\nBut Mr. Grimes only said bad words; and kept grumbling, \u201cMy pipe won\u2019t\ndraw.  My pipe won\u2019t draw.\u201d\n\n\u201cKeep a civil tongue, and attend!\u201d said the truncheon; and popped up just\nlike Punch, hitting Grimes such a crack over the head with itself, that\nhis brains rattled inside like a dried walnut in its shell.  He tried to\nget his hands out, and rub the place: but he could not, for they were\nstuck fast in the chimney.  Now he was forced to attend.\n\n\u201cHey!\u201d he said, \u201cwhy, it\u2019s Tom!  I suppose you have come here to laugh at\nme, you spiteful little atomy?\u201d\n\nTom assured him he had not, but only wanted to help him.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t want anything except beer, and that I can\u2019t get; and a light to\nthis bothering pipe, and that I can\u2019t get either.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll get you one,\u201d said Tom; and he took up a live coal (there were\nplenty lying about) and put it to Grimes\u2019 pipe: but it went out\ninstantly.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s no use,\u201d said the truncheon, leaning itself up against the chimney\nand looking on.  \u201cI tell you, it is no use.  His heart is so cold that it\nfreezes everything that comes near him.  You will see that presently,\nplain enough.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, of course, it\u2019s my fault.  Everything\u2019s always my fault,\u201d said\nGrimes.  \u201cNow don\u2019t go to hit me again\u201d (for the truncheon started\nupright, and looked very wicked); \u201cyou know, if my arms were only free,\nyou daren\u2019t hit me then.\u201d\n\nThe truncheon leant back against the chimney, and took no notice of the\npersonal insult, like a well-trained policeman as it was, though he was\nready enough to avenge any transgression against morality or order.\n\n\u201cBut can\u2019t I help you in any other way?  Can\u2019t I help you to get out of\nthis chimney?\u201d said Tom.\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d interposed the truncheon; \u201che has come to the place where everybody\nmust help themselves; and he will find it out, I hope, before he has done\nwith me.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, yes,\u201d said Grimes, \u201cof course it\u2019s me.  Did I ask to be brought here\ninto the prison?  Did I ask to be set to sweep your foul chimneys?  Did I\nask to have lighted straw put under me to make me go up?  Did I ask to\nstick fast in the very first chimney of all, because it was so shamefully\nclogged up with soot?  Did I ask to stay here\u2014I don\u2019t know how long\u2014a\nhundred years, I do believe, and never get my pipe, nor my beer, nor\nnothing fit for a beast, let alone a man?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d answered a solemn voice behind.  \u201cNo more did Tom, when you behaved\nto him in the very same way.\u201d\n\nIt was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.  And, when the truncheon saw her, it\nstarted bolt upright\u2014Attention!\u2014and made such a low bow, that if it had\nnot been full of the spirit of justice, it must have tumbled on its end,\nand probably hurt its one eye.  And Tom made his bow too.\n\n\u201cOh, ma\u2019am,\u201d he said, \u201cdon\u2019t think about me; that\u2019s all past and gone,\nand good times and bad times and all times pass over.  But may not I help\npoor Mr. Grimes?  Mayn\u2019t I try and get some of these bricks away, that he\nmay move his arms?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou may try, of course,\u201d she said.\n\nSo Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks: but he could not move one.  And\nthen he tried to wipe Mr. Grimes\u2019 face: but the soot would not come off.\n\n\u201cOh, dear!\u201d he said.  \u201cI have come all this way, through all these\nterrible places, to help you, and now I am of no use at all.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou had best leave me alone,\u201d said Grimes; \u201cyou are a good-natured\nforgiving little chap, and that\u2019s truth; but you\u2019d best be off.  The\nhail\u2019s coming on soon, and it will beat the eyes out of your little\nhead.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat hail?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, hail that falls every evening here; and, till it comes close to me,\nit\u2019s like so much warm rain: but then it turns to hail over my head, and\nknocks me about like small shot.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat hail will never come any more,\u201d said the strange lady.  \u201cI have\ntold you before what it was.  It was your mother\u2019s tears, those which she\nshed when she prayed for you by her bedside; but your cold heart froze it\ninto hail.  But she is gone to heaven now, and will weep no more for her\ngraceless son.\u201d\n\nThen Grimes was silent awhile; and then he looked very sad.\n\n\u201cSo my old mother\u2019s gone, and I never there to speak to her!  Ah! a good\nwoman she was, and might have been a happy one, in her little school\nthere in Vendale, if it hadn\u2019t been for me and my bad ways.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid she keep the school in Vendale?\u201d asked Tom.  And then he told Grimes\nall the story of his going to her house, and how she could not abide the\nsight of a chimney-sweep, and then how kind she was, and how he turned\ninto a water-baby.\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d said Grimes, \u201cgood reason she had to hate the sight of a\nchimney-sweep.  I ran away from her and took up with the sweeps, and\nnever let her know where I was, nor sent her a penny to help her, and now\nit\u2019s too late\u2014too late!\u201d said Mr. Grimes.\n\nAnd he began crying and blubbering like a great baby, till his pipe\ndropped out of his mouth, and broke all to bits.\n\n\u201cOh, dear, if I was but a little chap in Vendale again, to see the clear\nbeck, and the apple-orchard, and the yew-hedge, how different I would go\non!  But it\u2019s too late now.  So you go along, you kind little chap, and\ndon\u2019t stand to look at a man crying, that\u2019s old enough to be your father,\nand never feared the face of man, nor of worse neither.  But I\u2019m beat\nnow, and beat I must be.  I\u2019ve made my bed, and I must lie on it.  Foul I\nwould be, and foul I am, as an Irishwoman said to me once; and little I\nheeded it.  It\u2019s all my own fault: but it\u2019s too late.\u201d  And he cried so\nbitterly that Tom began crying too.\n\n\u201cNever too late,\u201d said the fairy, in such a strange soft new voice that\nTom looked up at her; and she was so beautiful for the moment, that Tom\nhalf fancied she was her sister.\n\nNo more was it too late.  For, as poor Grimes cried and blubbered on, his\nown tears did what his mother\u2019s could not do, and Tom\u2019s could not do, and\nnobody\u2019s on earth could do for him; for they washed the soot off his face\nand off his clothes; and then they washed the mortar away from between\nthe bricks; and the chimney crumbled down; and Grimes began to get out of\nit.\n\nUp jumped the truncheon, and was going to hit him on the crown a\ntremendous thump, and drive him down again like a cork into a bottle.\nBut the strange lady put it aside.\n\n\u201cWill you obey me if I give you a chance?\u201d\n\n\u201cAs you please, ma\u2019am.  You\u2019re stronger than me\u2014that I know too well, and\nwiser than me, I know too well also.  And, as for being my own master,\nI\u2019ve fared ill enough with that as yet.  So whatever your ladyship\npleases to order me; for I\u2019m beat, and that\u2019s the truth.\u201d\n\n\u201cBe it so then\u2014you may come out.  But remember, disobey me again, and\ninto a worse place still you go.\u201d\n\n\u201cI beg pardon ma\u2019am, but I never disobeyed you that I know of.  I never\nhad the honour of setting eyes upon you till I came to these ugly\nquarters.\u201d\n\n\u201cNever saw me?  Who said to you, Those that will be foul, foul they will\nbe?\u201d\n\nGrimes looked up; and Tom looked up too; for the voice was that of the\nIrishwoman who met them the day that they went out together to Harthover.\n\u201cI gave you your warning then: but you gave it yourself a thousand times\nbefore and since.  Every bad word that you said\u2014every cruel and mean\nthing that you did\u2014every time that you got tipsy\u2014every day that you went\ndirty\u2014you were disobeying me, whether you knew it or not.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf I\u2019d only known, ma\u2019am\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cYou knew well enough that you were disobeying something, though you did\nnot know it was me.  But come out and take your chance.  Perhaps it may\nbe your last.\u201d\n\nSo Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, if it had not been for\nthe scars on his face, he looked as clean and respectable as a\nmaster-sweep need look.\n\n\u201cTake him away,\u201d said she to the truncheon, \u201cand give him his\nticket-of-leave.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what is he to do, ma\u2019am?\u201d\n\n\u201cGet him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will find some very steady\nmen working out their time there, who will teach him his business: but\nmind, if that crater gets choked again, and there is an earthquake in\nconsequence, bring them all to me, and I shall investigate the case very\nseverely.\u201d\n\nSo the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking as meek as a drowned\nworm.\n\nAnd for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweeping the crater of Etna\nto this very day.\n\n\u201cAnd now,\u201d said the fairy to Tom, \u201cyour work here is done.  You may as\nwell go back again.\u201d\n\n\u201cI should be glad enough to go,\u201d said Tom, \u201cbut how am I to get up that\ngreat hole again, now the steam has stopped blowing?\u201d\n\n\u201cI will take you up the backstairs: but I must bandage your eyes first;\nfor I never allow anybody to see those backstairs of mine.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, ma\u2019am, if you bid me\nnot.\u201d\n\n\u201cAha!  So you think, my little man.  But you would soon forget your\npromise if you got back into the land-world.  For, if people only once\nfound out that you had been up my backstairs, you would have all the fine\nladies kneeling to you, and the rich men emptying their purses before\nyou, and statesmen offering you place and power; and young and old, rich\nand poor, crying to you, \u2018Only tell us the great backstairs secret, and\nwe will be your slaves; we will make you lord, king, emperor, bishop,\narchbishop, pope, if you like\u2014only tell us the secret of the backstairs.\nFor thousands of years we have been paying, and petting, and obeying, and\nworshipping quacks who told us they had the key of the backstairs, and\ncould smuggle us up them; and in spite of all our disappointments, we\nwill honour, and glorify, and adore, and beatify, and translate, and\napotheotise you likewise, on the chance of your knowing something about\nthe backstairs, that we may all go on pilgrimage to it; and, even if we\ncannot get up it, lie at the foot of it, and cry\u2014\n\n    \u2018_Oh_, _backstairs_,\n    _precious backstairs_,\n    _invaluable backstairs_,\n    _requisite backstairs_,\n    _necessary backstairs_,\n    _good-natured backstairs_,\n    _cosmopolitan backstairs_,\n    _comprehensive backstairs_,\n    _accommodating backstairs_,\n    _well-bred backstairs_,\n    _commercial backstairs_,\n    _economical backstairs_,\n    _practical backstairs_,\n    _logical backstairs_,\n    _deductive backstairs_,\n    _comfortable backstairs_,\n    _humane backstairs_,\n    _reasonable backstairs_,\n    _long-sought backstairs_,\n    _coveted backstairs_,\n    _aristocratic backstairs_,\n    _respectable backstairs_,\n    _gentlenmanlike backstairs_,\n    _ladylike backstairs_,\n    _orthodox backstairs_,\n    _probable backstairs_,\n    _credible backstairs_,\n    _demonstrable backstairs_,\n    _irrefragable backstairs_,\n    _potent backstairs_,\n    _all-but-omnipotent backstairs_,\n    &c.\n\nSave us from the consequences of our own actions, and from the cruel\nfairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid!\u2019  Do not you think that you would be a\nlittle tempted then to tell what you know, laddie?\u201d\n\nTom thought so certainly.  \u201cBut why do they want so to know about the\nbackstairs?\u201d asked he, being a little frightened at the long words, and\nnot understanding them the least; as, indeed, he was not meant to do, or\nyou either.\n\n\u201cThat I shall not tell you.  I never put things into little folks\u2019 heads\nwhich are but too likely to come there of themselves.  So come\u2014now I must\nbandage your eyes.\u201d  So she tied the bandage on his eyes with one hand,\nand with the other she took it off.\n\n\u201cNow,\u201d she said, \u201cyou are safe up the stairs.\u201d  Tom opened his eyes very\nwide, and his mouth too; for he had not, as he thought, moved a single\nstep.  But, when he looked round him, there could be no doubt that he was\nsafe up the backstairs, whatsoever they may be, which no man is going to\ntell you, for the plain reason that no man knows.\n\nThe first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, high and sharp\nagainst the rosy dawn; and St. Brandan\u2019s Isle reflected double in the\nstill broad silver sea.  The wind sang softly in the cedars, and the\nwater sang among the eaves: the sea-birds sang as they streamed out into\nthe ocean, and the land-birds as they built among the boughs; and the air\nwas so full of song that it stirred St. Brandan and his hermits, as they\nslumbered in the shade; and they moved their good old lips, and sang\ntheir morning hymn amid their dreams.  But among all the songs one came\nacross the water more sweet and clear than all; for it was the song of a\nyoung girl\u2019s voice.\n\nAnd what was the song which she sang?  Ah, my little man, I am too old to\nsing that song, and you too young to understand it.  But have patience,\nand keep your eye single, and your hands clean, and you will learn some\nday to sing it yourself, without needing any man to teach you.\n\nAnd as Tom neared the island, there sat upon a rock the most graceful\ncreature that ever was seen, looking down, with her chin upon her hand,\nand paddling with her feet in the water.  And when they came to her she\nlooked up, and behold it was Ellie.\n\n\u201cOh, Miss Ellie,\u201d said he, \u201chow you are grown!\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, Tom,\u201d said she, \u201chow you are grown too!\u201d\n\n                             [Picture: Ellie]\n\nAnd no wonder; they were both quite grown up\u2014he into a tall man, and she\ninto a beautiful woman.\n\n\u201cPerhaps I may be grown,\u201d she said.  \u201cI have had time enough; for I have\nbeen sitting here waiting for you many a hundred years, till I thought\nyou were never coming.\u201d\n\n\u201cMany a hundred years?\u201d thought Tom; but he had seen so much in his\ntravels that he had quite given up being astonished; and, indeed, he\ncould think of nothing but Ellie.  So he stood and looked at Ellie, and\nEllie looked at him; and they liked the employment so much that they\nstood and looked for seven years more, and neither spoke nor stirred.\n\nAt last they heard the fairy say: \u201cAttention, children.  Are you never\ngoing to look at me again?\u201d\n\n\u201cWe have been looking at you all this while,\u201d they said.  And so they\nthought they had been.\n\n\u201cThen look at me once more,\u201d said she.\n\nThey looked\u2014and both of them cried out at once, \u201cOh, who are you, after\nall?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid; but you are grown quite\nbeautiful now!\u201d\n\n\u201cTo you,\u201d said the fairy.  \u201cBut look again.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are Mother Carey,\u201d said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice; for he had\nfound out something which made him very happy, and yet frightened him\nmore than all that he had ever seen.\n\n\u201cBut you are grown quite young again.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo you,\u201d said the fairy.  \u201cLook again.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to Harthover!\u201d\n\nAnd when they looked she was neither of them, and yet all of them at\nonce.\n\n\u201cMy name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there.\u201d\n\nAnd they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, and they changed again\nand again into every hue, as the light changes in a diamond.\n\n\u201cNow read my name,\u201d said she, at last.\n\nAnd her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, blazing light: but\nthe children could not read her name; for they were dazzled, and hid\ntheir faces in their hands.\n\n\u201cNot yet, young things, not yet,\u201d said she, smiling; and then she turned\nto Ellie.\n\n\u201cYou may take him home with you now on Sundays, Ellie.  He has won his\nspurs in the great battle, and become fit to go with you and be a man;\nbecause he has done the thing he did not like.\u201d\n\nSo Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and sometimes on week-days, too;\nand he is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads, and\nsteam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth;\nand knows everything about everything, except why a hen\u2019s egg don\u2019t turn\ninto a crocodile, and two or three other little things which no one will\nknow till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.  And all this from what he\nlearnt when he was a water-baby, underneath the sea.\n\n\u201cAnd of course Tom married Ellie?\u201d\n\nMy dear child, what a silly notion!  Don\u2019t you know that no one ever\nmarries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a prince or a princess?\n\n\u201cAnd Tom\u2019s dog?\u201d\n\nOh, you may see him any clear night in July; for the old dog-star was so\nworn out by the last three hot summers that there have been no dog-days\nsince; so that they had to take him down and put Tom\u2019s dog up in his\nplace.  Therefore, as new brooms sweep clean, we may hope for some warm\nweather this year.  And that is the end of my story.\n\n\n\n\nMORAL.\n\n\n_And now_, _my dear little man_, _what should we learn from this\nparable_?\n\n_We should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things_, _I am not exactly\nsure which_: _but one thing_, _at least_, _we may learn_, _and that is\nthis\u2014when we see efts in the pond_, _never to throw stones at them_, _or\ncatch them with crooked pins_, _or put them into vivariums with\nsticklebacks_, _that the sticklebacks may prick them in their poor little\nstomachs_, _and make them jump out of the glass into somebody\u2019s\nwork-box_, _and so come to a bad end_.  _For these efts are nothing else\nbut the water-babies who are stupid and dirty_, _and will not learn their\nlessons and keep themselves clean_; _and_, _therefore_ (_as comparative\nanatomists will tell you fifty years hence_, _though they are not learned\nenough to tell you now_), _their skulls grow flat_, _their jaws grow\nout_, _and their brains grow small_, _and their tails grow long_, _and\nthey lose all their ribs_ (_which I am sure you would not like to do_),\n_and their skins grow dirty and spotted_, _and they never get into the\nclear rivers_, _much less into the great wide sea_, _but hang about in\ndirty ponds_, _and live in the mud_, _and eat worms_, _as they deserve to\ndo_.\n\n_But that is no reason why you should ill-use them_: _but only why you\nshould pity them_, _and be kind to them_, _and hope that some day they\nwill wake up_, _and be ashamed of their nasty_, _dirty_, _lazy_, _stupid\nlife_, _and try to amend_, _and become something better once more_.\n_For_, _perhaps_, _if they do so_, _then after_ 379,423 _years_, _nine\nmonths_, _thirteen days_, _two hours_, _and twenty-one minutes_ (_for\naught that appears to the contrary_), _if they work very hard and wash\nvery hard all that time_, _their brains may grow bigger_, _and their jaws\ngrow smaller_, _and their ribs come back_, _and their tails wither off_,\n_and they will turn into water-babies again_, _and perhaps after that\ninto land-babies_; _and after that perhaps into grown men_.\n\n_You know they won\u2019t_?  _Very well_, _I daresay you know best_.  _But you\nsee_, _some folks have a great liking for those poor little efts_.  _They\nnever did anybody any harm_, _or could if they tried_; _and their only\nfault is_, _that they do no good\u2014any more than some thousands of their\nbetters_.  _But what with ducks_, _and what with pike_, _and what with\nsticklebacks_, _and what with water-beetles_, _and what with naughty\nboys_, _they are_ \u201c_sae sair hadden doun_,\u201d _as the Scotsmen say_, _that\nit is a wonder how they live_; _and some folks can\u2019t help hoping_, _with\ngood Bishop Butler_, _that they may have another chance_, _to make things\nfair and even_, _somewhere_, _somewhen_, _somehow_.\n\n_Meanwhile_, _do you learn your lessons_, _and thank God that you have\nplenty of cold water to wash in_; _and wash in it too_, _like a true\nEnglishman_.  _And then_, _if my story is not true_, _something better\nis_; _and if I am not quite right_, _still you will be_, _as long as you\nstick to hard work and cold water_.\n\n_But remember always_, _as I told you at first_, _that this is all a\nfairy tale_, _and only fun and pretence_: _and_, _therefore_, _you are\nnot to believe a word of it_, _even if it is true_.\n\n                    [Picture: Water baby riding fish]","title":"The Water-Babies","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":68679}