{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_36309/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_36309","id":"gutenberg_36309","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36309","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Novels","Chimney sweeps -- Juvenile fiction","Fairy tales -- England"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive/American Libraries.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE WATER-BABIES\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration: _He looked up at the broad yellow moon . . . and thought\nthat she looked at him_\n\n_Page_ 102]\n\n\n\n\nThe Water-Babies\n\nby Charles Kingsley\n\n[Illustration]\n\nIllustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith\n\n          New York\n          Dodd, Mead & Company\n          Publishers\n\n\n\n\n          Copyright, 1916,\n          By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.\n\n          PRINTED IN U. S. A.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n          TO\n          MY YOUNGEST SON\n          GRENVILLE ARTHUR\n          AND\n          TO ALL OTHER GOOD LITTLE BOYS\n\n          _Come read me my riddle, each good little man;\n           If you cannot read it, no grown up folk can._\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\n\"IT was in 1863 that _The Water-Babies_ was written, showing the\nnaturalist in the fulness of his strength, fearlessly, yet tenderly,\nplaying with the tremendous results of advanced science in the\nnineteenth century. . . .\n\n\"The writing of the book was the outcome of a gentle reminder, at\nbreakfast one spring morning, of an old promise, to the effect that as\nthe three elder children had their book--_The Heroes_--the baby, my\nyoungest brother, then four years old, 'must have his.' My father made\nno answer, 'but got up at once and went to his study, locking the door,'\nand in an hour came back with the first chapter of _The Water-Babies_ in\nhis hand. At this pace and with the same ease the whole book was\ncomposed. . . .\n\n\"A visit in 1858 to Mr. W. E. Forster in Wharfedale, and to Mr. Morrison\nat Malham, gave him the local setting of the beautiful opening chapters.\nFor the grandeur of the scenery of Godale Scar and Malham Cove had made\na profound impression on his mind, as did the beauty of the Wharfe below\nDenton Park.\n\n\"Places he had seen, and many more he had read and dreamed of in his\nfather's fine library of voyages and travels, fairies and men of\nscience, fads and foibles, education true and false, Pandora's box and\nsanitary science--a matter always dear to his heart--the ways of beasts\nand birds, fishes and insects, of plant and tree and rock, of river and\ntide, are all interwoven here with the deepest truths of life and\nliving, of morals and religion. So that while the book enchants the\nchild, it gives the wise man food for thought. . . .\n\n\"Happy are the children who get their first ideas of the marvels of\nnature all around them from such a lesson-book as this. . . .\n\n\"And perchance, when they are grown men and women, and like Tom have won\ntheir spurs in the great battle, they may look back with thankful hearts\nto certain pages in _The Water-Babies_; pages which taught them, while\nas little children they read a fairy tale, what a fine thing it is to\nlove truth, mercy, justice, courage, and all things noble and of good\nreport.\"\n\nThus Rose G. Kingsley, in a preface to her father's fairy tale,\ndescribes the impromptu manner in which _The Water-Babies_ was written.\nDashed off for the pleasure of his own little son, this book has charmed\nand entertained thousands of children for more than fifty years, and has\nundoubtedly in many cases taught \"what a fine thing it is to love truth,\nmercy, justice, courage, and all things noble and of good report.\"\n\n                                                  THE EDITOR.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                           PAGE\n          CHAPTER I           1\n          CHAPTER II         37\n          CHAPTER III        67\n          CHAPTER IV        102\n          CHAPTER V         129\n          CHAPTER VI        165\n          CHAPTER VII       194\n          CHAPTER VIII      229\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n  He looked up at the broad yellow moon . . . and\n       thought that she looked at him              _Frontispiece_\n\n                                                          PAGE\n\n  He felt how comfortable it was to have nothing\n       on him but himself                                   68\n\n  \"Oh, don't hurt me!\" cried Tom. \"I only want to\n       look at you; you are so handsome\"                    98\n\n  And Tom sat upon the buoy long days                      110\n\n  He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out\n       quickly, with Tom all entangled in the meshes       124\n\n  Tom reached and clawed down the hole after him           132\n\n  Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid                                    172\n\n  Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby                                258\n\n\n\n\nTHE WATER-BABIES\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nTHE WATER-BABIES\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\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\nhe had never heard. He cried half his time, and laughed the other half.\nHe cried 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 half pennies with the other boys, or playing leap-frog over the\nposts, or bowling stones at the horses' legs as they trotted by, which\nlast was excellent fun, when there was a wall at hand behind which to\nhide. As for chimney-sweeping, and being hungry, and being beaten, he\ntook all that for the way of the world, like the rain and snow and\nthunder, and stood manfully with his back to it till it was over, as his\nold donkey did to a hail-storm; and then shook his ears and was as jolly\nas ever; and thought of the fine times coming, when he would be a man,\nand a master sweep, and sit in the public-house with a quart of beer and\na long pipe, and play cards for silver money, and wear velveteens and\nankle-jacks, and keep a white bull-dog with one gray ear, and carry her\npuppies in his pocket, just like a man. And he would have apprentices,\none, two, three, if he could. How he would bully them, and knock them\nabout, just as his master did to him; and make them carry home the soot\nsacks, while he rode before them on his donkey, with a pipe in his mouth\nand a flower in his buttonhole, like a king at the head of his army.\nYes, there were good times coming.\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's 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's 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's, 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,\ndrab jacket, snow-white tie with a smart pin in it, and clean round\nruddy face, 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\n[Illustration]\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's head aches when he wakes, the more glad he is to turn out, and\nhave a breath of fresh air. And, when he did get up at four the next\nmorning, he knocked Tom down again, in order to teach him (as young\ngentlemen used to be taught at public schools) that he must be an extra\ngood boy that day, as they were going to a very great house, and might\nmake a very good thing of it, if they could but give satisfaction.\n\nAnd Tom thought so likewise, and, indeed, would have done and behaved\nhis best, even without being knocked down. For, of all places upon\nearth, Harthover Place (which he had never seen) was the most wonderful,\nand, of all men on earth, Sir John (whom he had seen, having been sent\nto gaol by him twice) was the most awful.\n\nHarthover Place was really a grand place, even for the rich North\ncountry; with a park full of deer, which Tom believed to be monsters who\nwere in the habit of eating children; with miles of game-preserves, in\nwhich Mr. Grimes and the collier lads poached at times, on which\noccasions Tom saw pheasants, and wondered what they tasted like; with a\nnoble salmon-river, in which Mr. Grimes and his friends would have liked\nto poach; but then they must have got into cold water, and that they did\nnot like at all. In short, Harthover was a grand place, and Sir John a\ngrand old man, whom even Mr. Grimes respected; for not only could he\nsend Mr. Grimes to prison when he deserved it, as he did once or twice\na week; not only did he own all the land about for miles; not only was\nhe a jolly, honest, sensible squire, as ever kept a pack of hounds, who\nwould do what he thought right by his neighbours, as well as get what he\nthought right for himself; but, what was more, he weighed full fifteen\nstone, was nobody knew how many inches round the chest, and could have\nthrashed Mr. Grimes himself in fair fight, which very few folk round\nthere could do, and which 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\nmuch to do. So Mr. Grimes touched his hat to him when he rode through\nthe town.\n\nNow, I dare say, you never got up at three o'clock 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'clock on a midsummer\nmorning is the pleasantest time of all the twenty-four hours, and all\nthe three 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\nmaids), and just ready to get up when the fine gentlemen and ladies were\njust ready to go to bed.\n\nSo he and his master set out; Grimes rode the donkey in front, and Tom\nand the brushes walked behind; out of the court, and up the street, past\nthe closed window-shutters, and the winking weary policemen, and the\nroofs all shining gray in the gray dawn.\n\nThey passed through the pitmen's village, all shut up and silent now,\nand through the turnpike; and then they were out in the real country,\nand plodding along the black dusty road, between black slag walls, with\nno sound but the groaning and thumping of the pit-engine in the next\nfield. But soon the road grew white, and the walls likewise; and at the\nwall's foot grew long grass and gay flowers, all drenched with dew; and\ninstead of the groaning of the pit-engine, they heard the skylark saying\nhis matins high up in the air, and the pit-bird warbling in the sedges,\nas he had 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\nthe cows fast asleep beneath them; nay, the few clouds which were about\nwere fast asleep likewise, and so tired that they had lain down on the\nearth to rest, in long white flakes and bars, among the stems of the\nelm-trees, and along the tops of the alders by the stream, waiting for\nthe sun to bid them rise and go about their day's business in the clear\nblue overhead.\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' 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\nat her 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' fancy so\nmuch, that when he came alongside he called out to her:\n\n\"This is a hard road for a gradely foot like that. Will ye up, lass, and\nride behind me?\"\n\nBut, perhaps, she did not admire Mr. Grimes' look and voice; for she\nanswered quietly:\n\n\"No, thank you: I'd sooner walk with your little lad here.\"\n\n\"You may please yourself,\" 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\nknew no 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\ndays, for the children to bathe and play in it; and many a story more,\ntill Tom longed 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\nbog, among red fly-catchers, and pink bottle-heath, and sweet white\norchis; nor such a one as you may see, too, here, which bubbles up under\nthe warm sandbank in the hollow lane, by the great tuft of lady ferns,\nand makes the sand dance reels at the bottom, day and night, all the\nyear round; not such a spring as either of those; but a real North\ncountry limestone fountain, like one of those in Sicily or Greece, where\nthe old heathen fancied the nymphs sat cooling themselves the hot\nsummer's day, while the shepherds peeped at them from behind the bushes.\nOut of a low cave of rock, at the foot of a limestone crag, the great\nfountain rose, quelling, and bubbling, and gurgling, so clear that you\ncould not tell where the water ended and the air began; and ran away\nunder the road, a stream large enough to turn a mill; among blue\ngeranium, and golden globe-flower, and wild raspberry, and the\nbird-cherry with its tassels of snow.\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\nnight to fly in the meadows. But Grimes was not wondering at all.\nWithout a word, he got off his donkey, and clambered over the low road\nwall, and knelt down, and began dipping his ugly head into the\nspring--and very dirty he made it.\n\n[Illustration]\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\"Why, master, I never saw you do that before.\"\n\n\"Nor will again, most likely. 'Twasn't for cleanliness I did it, but for\ncoolness. I'd be ashamed to want washing every week or so, like any\nsmutty collier lad.\"\n\n\"I wish I might go and dip my head in,\" said poor little Tom. \"It must\nbe as good as putting it under the town-pump; and there is no beadle\nhere to drive a chap away.\"\n\n\"Thou come along,\" said Grimes; \"what dost want with washing thyself?\nThou did not drink half a gallon of beer last night, like me.\"\n\n\"I don't care for you,\" said naughty Tom, and ran down to the stream,\nand began washing his face.\n\nGrimes was very sulky, because the woman preferred Tom's 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' legs, and kicked his shins with all his might.\n\n\"Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes?\" cried the Irishwoman\nover the wall.\n\nGrimes looked up, startled at her knowing his name; but all he answered\nwas, \"No, nor never was yet;\" and went on beating Tom.\n\n\"True for you. If you ever had been ashamed of yourself, you would have\ngone over into Vendale long ago.\"\n\n\"What do you know about Vendale?\" shouted Grimes; but he left off\nbeating Tom.\n\n\"I know about Vendale, and about you, too. I know, for instance, what\nhappened in Aldermire Copse, by night, two years ago come Martinmas.\"\n\n\"You do?\" 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\"Yes; I was there,\" said the Irishwoman quietly.\n\n\"You are no Irishwoman, by your speech,\" said Grimes, after many bad\nwords.\n\n\"Never mind who I am. I saw what I saw; and if you strike that boy\nagain, I can tell what I know.\"\n\nGrimes seemed quite cowed, and got on his donkey without another word.\n\n\"Stop!\" said the Irishwoman. \"I 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.\"\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, \"You come back.\" 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\nAnd now they had gone three miles and more, and came to Sir John's\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's ancestors wore in\nthe Wars of the Roses; and very prudent men they were to wear it, for\nall their enemies must have run for their lives at the very first sight\nof them.\n\nGrimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper on the spot, and opened.\n\n\"I was told to expect thee,\" he said. \"Now thou'lt 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.\"\n\n\"Not if it's in the bottom of the soot-bag,\" quoth Grimes, and at that\nhe laughed; and the keeper laughed and said:\n\n\"If that's thy sort, I may as well walk up with thee to the hall.\"\n\n\"I think thou best had. It's thy business to see after thy game, man,\nand not mine.\"\n\nSo the keeper went with them; and, to Tom's 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\nturned inside 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\nstood up among the ferns. Tom had never seen such enormous trees, and as\nhe looked up he fancied that the blue sky rested on their heads. But he\nwas puzzled very much by a strange murmuring noise, which followed them\nall the way. So much puzzled, that at last he took courage to ask the\nkeeper what it was.\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\"What are bees?\" asked Tom.\n\n\"What make honey.\"\n\n\"What is honey?\" asked Tom.\n\n\"Thou hold thy noise,\" said Grimes.\n\n\"Let the boy be,\" said the keeper. \"He's a civil young chap now, and\nthat's more than he'll be long if he bides with thee.\"\n\nGrimes laughed, for he took that for a compliment.\n\n\"I wish I were a keeper,\" said Tom, \"to live in such a beautiful place,\nand wear green velveteens and have a real dog-whistle at my button,\nlike you.\"\n\nThe keeper laughed; he was a kind-hearted fellow enough.\n\n\"Let well alone, lad, and ill too at times. Thy life's safer than mine\nat all events, eh, Mr. Grimes?\"\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, \"Hast thou anything against me?\"\n\n\"Not now.\"\n\n\"Then don't ask me any questions till thou hast, for I am a man of\nhonour.\"\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's name that built it, and whether he got much money for his\njob?\n\nBut Tom and his master did not go in through the great iron gates, as\nif they had been Dukes or Bishops, but round the back way, and a very\nlong way round it was; and into a little back-door, where the ash-boy\nlet them in, yawning horribly; and then in a passage the housekeeper met\nthem, in such a flowered chintz dressing-gown, that Tom mistook her for\nMy Lady herself, and she gave Grimes solemn orders about \"You will take\ncare of this, and take care of that,\" as if he was going up the\nchimneys, and not Tom. And Grimes listened, and said every now and then,\nunder his voice, \"You'll mind that, you little beggar?\" and Tom did\nmind, all at least that he could. And then the housekeeper turned them\ninto a grand room, all covered up in sheets of brown paper, and bade\nthem begin, in a lofty and tremendous voice; and so after a whimper or\ntwo, and a kick from his master, into the grate Tom went, and up the\nchimney, while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the furniture; to\nwhom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous compliments, but met\nwith very slight encouragement in return.\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--if you would\nonly get up them and look, which perhaps you would not like to do--in\nold country-houses, large and crooked chimneys, which had been altered\nagain and again, till they ran one into another. So Tom fairly lost his\nway in them; not that he cared much for that, though he was in pitchy\ndarkness, for he was as much at home in a chimney as a mole is\nunderground; but at last, coming down as he thought the right chimney,\nhe came down the wrong one, and found himself standing on the hearthrug\nin a room the like of which he had never seen before.\n\nTom had never seen the like. He had never been in gentlefolks' 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,--white 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\nmuch. There were pictures of ladies and gentlemen, and pictures of\nhorses and dogs. The horses he liked; but the dogs he did not care for\nmuch, for there were no bulldogs among them, not even a terrier. But the\ntwo pictures which took his fancy most were, one a man in long garments,\nwith little children and their mothers round him, who was laying his\nhand upon the children's heads. That was a very pretty picture, Tom\nthought, to hang in a lady's room. For he could see that it was a lady's\nroom by the dresses which lay about.\n\n[Illustration]\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? \"Poor man,\" thought Tom, \"and 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.\" 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\nbath full of clean water--what a heap of things all for washing! \"She\nmust be a very dirty lady,\" thought Tom, \"by my master's rule, to want\nas much scrubbing as all that. But she must be very cunning to put the\ndirt out of the way so well afterwards, for I don't see a speck about\nthe room, not even on the very towels.\"\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\nNo. She cannot be dirty. She never could have been dirty, thought Tom to\nhimself. And then he thought, \"And are all people like that when they\nare washed?\" And he looked at his own wrist, and tried to rub the soot\noff, and wondered whether it ever would come off. \"Certainly I should\nlook much prettier then, if I grew at all like her.\"\n\nAnd looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close to him, a little\nugly, black, ragged figure, with bleared eyes and grinning white teeth.\nHe turned on it angrily. What did such a little black ape want in that\nsweet young lady's 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;\nand burst into tears with shame and anger; and turned to sneak up the\nchimney again and hide; and upset the fender and threw the fire-irons\ndown, with a noise as of ten thousand tin kettles tied to ten thousand\nmad dogs' tails.\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\nfender, so fast that she caught him by the jacket.\n\nBut she did not hold him. Tom had been in a policeman's 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\nby an old woman; so he doubled under the good lady's arm, across the\nroom, and out of the window in a moment.\n\nHe did not need to drop out, though he would have done so bravely\nenough. Nor even to let himself down a spout, which would have been an\nold game to him; for once he got up by a spout to the church roof, he\nsaid to take jackdaws' eggs, but the policeman said to steal lead; and,\nwhen he was seen on high, sat there till the sun got too hot; and came\ndown by another spout, leaving the policemen to go back to the\nstationhouse and eat their dinners.\n\nBut all under the window spread a tree, with great leaves and sweet\nwhite flowers, almost as big as his head. It was magnolia, I suppose;\nbut Tom knew nothing about that, and cared less; for down the tree he\nwent, like a cat, and across the garden lawn, and over the iron\nrailings, and up the park towards the wood, leaving the old nurse to\nscream murder and fire at the window.\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\nweek; but 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\nto Tom. A groom cleaning Sir John's hack at the stables let him go\nloose, whereby he kicked himself lame in five minutes; but he ran out\nand gave chase to Tom. Grimes upset the soot-sack in the new-gravelled\nyard, and spoilt it all utterly; but he ran out and gave chase to Tom.\nThe old steward opened the park-gate in such a hurry, that he hung up\nhis pony's chin upon the spikes, and, for aught I know, it hangs there\nstill; but he jumped off, and gave chase to Tom. The ploughman left his\nhorses at the headland, and one jumped over the fence, and pulled the\nother into the ditch, plough and all; but he ran on, and gave chase to\nTom. The keeper, who was taking a stoat out of a trap, let the stoat go,\nand caught his own finger; but he jumped up, and ran after Tom; and\nconsidering what he said, and how he looked, I should have been sorry\nfor Tom if he had caught him. Sir John looked out of his study window\n(for he was an early old gentleman) and up at the nurse, and a marten\ndropped mud in his eye, so that he had at last to send for the doctor;\nand yet he ran out, and gave chase to Tom. The Irishwoman, too, was\nwalking up to the house to beg,--she must have got round by some\nbyway,--but 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\nthe window, her night-wig fell into the garden, and she had to ring up\nher lady's-maid, and send her down for it privately, which quite put her\nout of the running, so that she came in nowhere, and is consequently not\nplaced.\n\nIn a word, never was there heard at Hall Place--not even when the fox\nwas killed in the conservatory, among acres of broken glass, and tons of\nsmashed flower-pots--such a noise, row, hubbub, babel, shindy,\nhullabaloo, stramash, charivari, and total contempt of dignity, repose,\nand order, as that day, when Grimes, the gardener, the groom, the\ndairymaid, Sir John, the steward, the ploughman, the keeper, and the\nIrishwoman, all ran up the park, shouting \"Stop thief,\" in the belief\nthat Tom had at least a thousand pounds' worth of jewels in his empty\npockets; and the very magpies and jays followed Tom up, screaking and\nscreaming, as if he were a hunted fox, beginning to droop his brush.\n\nAnd all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with his little bare\nfeet, like a small black gorilla fleeing to the forest. Alas for him!\nthere was no big father gorilla therein to take his part--to scratch out\nthe gardener's inside with one paw, toss the dairymaid into a tree with\nanother, and wrench off Sir John's head with a third, while he cracked\nthe keeper's skull with his teeth as easily as if it had been a cocoanut\nor a paving-stone.\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 stagecoach, if\nthere was the chance of a copper or a cigar-end, and turn coach-wheels\non his hands and feet ten times following, which is more than you can\ndo. Wherefore his pursuers found it very difficult to catch him; and we\nwill hope that they did not catch him at all.\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\nopen. If he had not known that, he would have been foolisher than a\nmouse or a minnow.\n\nBut when he got into the wood, he found it a very different sort of\nplace from what he had fancied. He pushed into a thick cover of\nrhododendrons, and found himself at once caught in a trap. The boughs\nlaid hold of his legs and arms, poked him in his face and his stomach,\nmade him shut his eyes tight (though that was no great loss, for he\ncould not see at best a yard before his nose); and when he got through\nthe rhododendrons, the hassock-grass and sedges tumbled him over, and\ncut his poor little fingers afterwards most spitefully; the birches\nbirched him soundly.\n\n\"I must get out of this,\" thought Tom, \"or I shall stay here till\nsomebody comes to help me--which is just what I don't want.\"\n\nBut how to get out was the difficult matter. And indeed I don't 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\nNow running your head against a wall is not pleasant, especially if it\nis a loose wall, with the stones all set on edge, and a sharp cornered\none hits 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--heather and bog and rock, stretching away and up,\nup to the very sky.\n\nNow, Tom was a cunning little fellow--as 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\nwall, leaving him a mile off on the outside; while Tom heard their\nshouts die away 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. There were rocks and stones\nlying about everywhere, and instead of the moor growing flat as he went\nupwards, it grew more and more broken and hilly, but not so rough but\nthat little Tom could jog along well enough, and find time, too, to\nstare about at the strange place, which was like a new world to him.\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\ncoming, shook them so fast that they became invisible. Then he saw\nlizards, brown and gray and green, and thought they were snakes, and\nwould sting him; but they were as much frightened as he, and shot away\ninto the heath. And then, under a rock, he saw a pretty sight--a great\nbrown, sharp-nosed creature, with a white tag to her brush, and round\nher four or five smutty little cubs, the funniest fellows Tom ever saw.\nShe lay on her back, rolling about, and stretching out her legs and head\nand tail in the bright sunshine; and the cubs jumped over her, and ran\nround her, and nibbled her paws, and lugged her about by the tail; and\nshe seemed to enjoy it mightily. But one selfish little fellow stole\naway from the rest to a dead crow close by, and dragged it off to hide\nit, though it was nearly as big as he was. Whereat all his little\nbrothers set off after him in full cry, and saw Tom; and then all ran\nback, and up jumped Mrs. Vixen, and caught one up in her mouth, and the\nrest toddled after her, and into a dark crack in the rocks; and there\nwas an end of the show.\n\nAnd next he had a fright; for, as he scrambled up a sandy\nbrow--whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock-kick--something went off in his face,\nwith a most horrid noise. He thought the ground had blown up, and the\nend of the 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\"Cur-ru-u-uck, cur-ru-u-uck--murder, thieves, fire--cur-u-uck-cock-kick--the\nend of the world is come--kick-kick-cock-kick.\" 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; though the old grouse-cock was quite certain of it.\n\nSo the old grouse came back to his wife and family an hour afterwards,\nand said solemnly, \"Cock-cock-kick; my dears, the end of the world is\nnot quite come; but I assure you it is coming the day after\nto-morrow--cock.\" But his wife had heard that so often that she knew all\nabout it, and a little more. And, besides, she was the mother of a\nfamily, and had seven little poults to wash and feed every day; and that\nmade her very practical, and a little sharp-tempered; so all she\nanswered was: \"Kick-kick-kick--go and catch spiders, go and catch\nspiders--kick.\"\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\nher, though she saw him.\n\nAnd now he began to get a little hungry, and very thirsty; for he had\nrun a long way, and the sun had risen high in heaven, and the rock was\nas hot as an oven, and the air danced reels over it, as it does over a\nlimekiln, till everything round seemed quivering and melting in the\nglare.\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\nsome dwarf's house underground; and more than once, as he passed, he\ncould hear water falling, trickling, tinkling, many many feet below. How\nhe longed to get down to it, and cool his poor baked lips! But, brave\nlittle chimney-sweep as he was, he dared not climb down such chimneys as\nthose.\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\"Ah!\" he thought, \"where there is a church there will be houses and\npeople; and, perhaps, some one will give me a bit and a sup.\" 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\"Why, what a big place the world is!\"\n\nAnd so it was; for, from the top of the mountain he could see--what\ncould he not see?\n\nBehind him, far below, was Harthover, and the dark woods, and the\nshining salmon river; and on his left, far below, was the town, and the\nsmoking chimneys of the collieries; and far, far away, the river widened\nto the shining sea; and little white specks, which were ships, lay on\nits bosom. Before him lay, spread out like a map, great plains, and\nfarms, and villages, amid dark knots of trees. They all seemed at his\nvery feet; but 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 the\nstream, he saw the roof of a little cottage, and a little garden set out\nin squares and beds. And there was a tiny little red thing moving in the\ngarden, no bigger than a fly. As Tom looked down, he saw that it was a\nwoman in a red petticoat. Ah! perhaps she would give him something to\neat. And there were the church-bells ringing again. Surely there must be\na village down there. Well, nobody would know him, or what had happened\nat the Place. The news could not have got there yet, even if Sir John\nhad set all the policemen in the county after him; and he could get down\nthere 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\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\nchurch-bells rang so loud, he began to think that they must be inside\nhis own head, and the river chimed and tinkled far below; and this was\nthe song which it sang:--\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 weir;\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 dare 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\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nA MILE off, and a thousand feet down.\n\nSo Tom found it; though it seemed as if he could have chucked a pebble\non to 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.\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 limestone 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--\n\nFirst, a little grass slope, covered with the prettiest flowers,\nrockrose and saxifrage, and thyme and basil, and all sorts of sweet\nherbs.\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's 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--oh, 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's garden.\n\nAt last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs; white-beam with its\ngreat silver-backed leaves, and mountain-ash, and oak; and below them\ncliff and crag, cliff and crag, with great beds of crown-ferns and\nwood-sedge; while through the shrubs he could see the stream sparkling,\nand hear it murmur on the white pebbles. He did not know that it was\nthree hundred feet 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\nof a high cliff, instead of sitting down and crying, he said, \"Ah, this\nwill just suit me!\" though he was very tired; and down he went, by stock\nand stone, sedge and ledge, bush and rush, as if he had been born a\njolly little black 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's having blacked the original papa of them all,\njust as he was setting off to be married, with a sky-blue coat and\nscarlet leggings, as smart as a gardener's dog with a polyanthus in his\nmouth.\n\nAt last he got to the bottom. But, behold, it was not the bottom--as\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\nthem full of sweet heath-fern; and before Tom got through them, he was\nout in the bright sunshine again; and then he felt, once for all and\nsuddenly, as 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\nhealthy as you may: and when you are, you will find it a very ugly\nfeeling. I hope that that day you may have a stout staunch friend by you\nwho is not beat; for, if you have not, you had best lie where you are,\nand wait for better 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't 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 when they know that it is going to be scorching\nhot to-morrow--and how they know that I don't know, and you don't know,\nand 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,\ntwelve or 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'clock.\n\nAll the children started at Tom's dirty black figure,--the girls began\nto cry, and the boys began to laugh, and all pointed at him rudely\nenough; but Tom was too tired to care for that.\n\n\"What art thou, and what dost want?\" cried the old dame. \"A\nchimney-sweep! Away with thee! I'll have no sweeps here.\"\n\n\"Water,\" said poor little Tom, quite faint.\n\n\"Water? There's plenty i' the beck,\" she said, quite sharply.\n\n\"But I can't get there; I'm most clemmed with hunger and drought.\" 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, \"He's sick; and a bairn's a bairn,\nsweep or none.\"\n\n\"Water,\" said Tom.\n\n\"God forgive me!\" and she put by her spectacles, and rose, and came to\nTom. \"Water's bad for thee; I'll give thee milk.\" 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\"Where didst come from?\" said the dame.\n\n\"Over Fell, there,\" said Tom, and pointed up into the sky.\n\n\"Over Harthover? and down Lewthwaite Crag? Art sure thou art not lying?\"\n\n\"Why should I?\" said Tom, and leant his head against the post.\n\n\"And how got ye up there?\"\n\n\"I came over from the Place;\" 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\"Bless thy little heart! And thou hast not been stealing, then?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Bless thy little heart! and I'll warrant not. Why, God's 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't\nled him? Why dost not eat thy bread?\"\n\n\"I can't.\"\n\n\"It's good enough, for I made it myself.\"\n\n\"I can't,\" said Tom, and he laid his head on his knees, and then asked--\n\n\"Is it Sunday?\"\n\n\"No, then; why should it be?\"\n\n\"Because I hear the church-bells ringing so.\"\n\n\"Bless thy pretty heart! The bairn's sick. Come wi' me, and I'll hap\nthee up somewhere. If thou wert a bit cleaner I'd put thee in my own\nbed, for the Lord's sake. But come along here.\"\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's time.\n\nAnd so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall fast asleep at once.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nBut Tom did not fall asleep.\n\nInstead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about in the strangest\nway, and felt so hot all over that he longed to get into the river and\ncool himself; and then he fell half asleep, and dreamt that he heard the\nlittle white lady crying to him, \"Oh, you're so dirty; go and be\nwashed;\" and then that he heard the Irishwoman saying, \"Those that wish\nto be clean, clean they will be.\" And then he heard the church-bells\nring so loud, close to him too, that he was sure it must be Sunday, in\nspite of what the old dame had said; and he would go to church, and see\nwhat a church was like inside, for he had never been in one, poor little\nfellow, in all his life. But the people would never let him come in, all\nover soot and dirt like that. He must go to the river and wash first.\nAnd he said out loud again and again, though being half asleep he did\nnot know it, \"I must be clean, I must be clean.\"\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, \"I must be clean, I must be clean.\" 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\nlay down on the grass, and looked into the clear, clear limestone water,\nwith every pebble at the bottom bright and clean, while the little\nsilver trout dashed about in fright at the sight of his black face; and\nhe dipped his hand in and found it so cool, cool, cool; and he said, \"I\nwill be a fish; I will swim in the water; I must be clean, I must be\nclean.\"\n\nSo he pulled off all his clothes in such haste that he tore some of\nthem, which was easy enough with such ragged old things. And he put his\npoor hot sore feet into the water; and then his legs; and the farther he\nwent in, the more the church-bells rang in his head.\n\n\"Ah,\" said Tom, \"I 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.\"\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\nDissenter; ay, even if he were a Turk or a Heathen; and if any man dared\nto turn him out, as long as he behaved quietly, the good old English law\nwould punish that man, as he deserved, for ordering any peaceable person\nout of God's house, which belongs to all alike. But Tom did not know\nthat, any more than he knew a great deal more which people ought to\nknow.\n\nAnd all the while he never saw the Irishwoman, not behind him this time,\nbut before.\n\nFor just before he came to the river side, she had stepped 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\nwater-lilies floated round her head, and the fairies of the stream came\nup from the bottom and bore her away and down upon their arms; for she\nwas the Queen of them all; and perhaps of more besides.\n\n\"Where have you been?\" they asked her.\n\n\"I have been smoothing sick folks' 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's 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.\"\n\nThen all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought that they had a\nlittle brother coming.\n\n\"But 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.\"\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;\nfor he was so hot and thirsty, and longed so to be clean for once, that\nhe tumbled 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. But it is a wide world, and\nplenty of room in it for fairies, without people seeing them; unless, of\ncourse, they look in the right place. The most wonderful and the\nstrongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no\none can see. There is life in you; and it is the life in you which makes\nyou grow, and move, and think: and yet you can't see it. And there is\nsteam in a steam-engine; and that is what makes it move: and yet you\ncan't see it; and so there may be fairies in the world, and they may be\njust what makes the world go round to the old tune of\n\n          \"_C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour\n            Qui fait la monde a la ronde:_\"\n\nand yet no one may be able to see them except those whose hearts are\ngoing round to that same tune. At all events, we will make believe that\nthere are fairies in the world. It will not be the last time by many a\none that we shall have to make believe. And yet, after all, there is no\nneed for that. There must be fairies; for this is a fairy tale: and how\ncan one have a fairy tale if there are no fairies?\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 none.\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\nagain.\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\nhe would bring the boy quietly up to him, without beating him, that he\nmight be sure of the truth. For he took for granted, and Grimes too,\nthat Tom had 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' 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, \"My dear, the boy must have got over into the grouse-moors, and\nlost himself; and he lies very heavily on my conscience, poor little\nlad. But I know what I will do.\"\n\n[Illustration]\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's; 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 underkeeper with the\nbloodhound in a leash--a 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, \"I tell you he is gone\ndown here!\"\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\"Heaven forgive us!\" said Sir John. \"If we find him at all, we shall\nfind him lying at the bottom.\" And he slapped his great hand upon his\ngreat thigh, and said--\n\n\"Who 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!\" And so he\nwould have done, as well as any sweep in the county. Then he said--\n\n\"Twenty pounds to the man who brings me that boy alive!\" 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;\nand he was the same who had ridden up the court, and told Tom to come to\nthe Hall; and he said--\n\n\"Twenty pounds or none, I will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, if it's\nonly for the poor boy's sake. For he was as civil a spoken little chap\nas ever climbed a flue.\"\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\nhe tore his breeches, and he tore his jacket, and he burst his braces,\nand he burst his boots, and he lost his hat, and what was worst of all,\nhe lost his shirt pin, which he prized very much, for it was gold, and\nhe had won it in a raffle at Malton, so it was a really severe loss: but\nhe 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's 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\"Well, dame, and how are you?\" said Sir John.\n\n\"Blessings on you as broad as your back, Harthover,\" says she--she\ndidn't call him Sir John, but only Harthover, for that is the fashion in\nthe North country--\"and welcome into Vendale: but you're no hunting the\nfox this time of the year?\"\n\n\"I am hunting, and strange game too,\" said he.\n\n\"Blessings on your heart, and what makes you look so sad the morn?\"\n\n\"I'm looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep, that is run away.\"\n\n\"Oh, Harthover, Harthover,\" says she, \"ye were always a just man and a\nmerciful; and ye'll no harm the poor little lad if I give you tidings of\nhim?\"\n\n\"Not I, not I, dame. I'm afraid we hunted him out of the house all on a\nmiserable mistake, and the hound has brought him to the top of\nLewthwaite Crag, and----\"\n\nWhereat the old dame broke out crying, without letting him finish his\nstory.\n\n\"So he told me the truth after all, poor little dear! Ah, first thoughts\nare best, and a body's heart'll guide them right, if they will but\nhearken to it.\" And then she told Sir John all.\n\n\"Bring the dog here, and lay him on,\" 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;\nand there, upon an alder stump, they saw Tom's clothes lying. And then\nthey knew 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--children always wake after they have\nslept exactly as long as is good for them--found himself swimming about\nin the stream, being about four inches, or--that I may be\naccurate--3.87902 inches long, and having round the parotid region of\nhis fauces a set of external gills (I hope you understand all the big\nwords) just like those of a sucking eft, which he mistook for a lace\nfrill, till he pulled at them, found he hurt himself, and made up his\nmind that they were part of himself, 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 the\nvery reason why this story was written. There are a great many things\nin 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\"But there are no such things as water-babies.\"\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. And no one has a right to say that no water-babies exist, till\nthey have seen no water-babies existing; which is quite a different\nthing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and a thing nobody ever did,\nor perhaps ever will do.\n\n\"But surely if there were water-babies, somebody would have caught one\nat least?\"\n\nWell. How do you know that somebody has not?\n\n\"But they would have put it into spirits, or into the _Illustrated\nNews_, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing, and\nsent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see what\nthey would each say about it.\"\n\nAh, my dear little man! that does not follow at all, as you will see\nbefore the end of the story.\n\n\"But a water-baby is contrary to nature.\"\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 \"ain't\" and \"can't\" 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\nYou must not say that this cannot be, or that that is contrary to\nnature. You do not know what Nature is, or what she can do; and nobody\nknows. Wise men are afraid to say that there is anything contrary to\nnature, except what is contrary to mathematical truth; for two and two\ncannot make five, and two straight lines cannot join twice, and a part\ncannot be as great as the whole, and so on (at least, so it seems at\npresent): but the wiser men are, the less they talk about \"cannot.\" That\nis a very rash, dangerous word, that \"cannot\"; and if people use it too\noften, the Queen of all the Fairies, who makes the clouds thunder and\nthe fleas bite, and takes just as much trouble about one as about the\nother, is apt to astonish them suddenly by showing them, that though\nthey say she cannot, yet she can, and what is more, will, whether they\napprove 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, \"The thing cannot\nbe; it is contrary to nature.\" And they would have been quite as right\nin saying so, as in saying that most other things cannot be.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nOr suppose again, that you had come a traveller from unknown parts; and\nthat no human being had ever seen or heard of an elephant. And suppose\nthat you described him to people, and said, \"This is the shape, and\nplan, and anatomy of the beast, and of his feet, and of his trunk, and\nof his grinders, and of his tusks, though they are not tusks at all, but\ntwo fore teeth run mad; and this is the section of his skull, more like\na mushroom than a reasonable skull of a reasonable or unreasonable\nbeast; and so forth, and so forth; and though the beast (which I assure\nyou I have seen and shot) is first cousin to the little hairy coney of\nScripture, second cousin to a pig, and (I suspect) thirteenth or\nfourteenth cousin to a rabbit, yet he is the wisest of all beasts, and\ncan do everything save read, write, and cast accounts.\" People would\nsurely have said, \"Nonsense; your elephant is contrary to nature,\" and\nhave thought you were telling stories--as the French thought of Le\nVaillant when he came back to Paris and said that he had shot a giraffe;\nand as the king of the Cannibal Islands thought of the English sailor,\nwhen he said that in his country water turned to marble, and rain fell\nas feathers. They would tell you, the more they knew of science, \"Your\nelephant is an impossible monster, contrary to the laws of comparative\nanatomy, as far as yet known.\" To which you would answer the less, the\nmore you thought.\n\n[Illustration]\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\nashamed to call them flying dragons, after denying so long that flying\ndragons could exist.\n\nThe truth is, that folks' fancy that such and such things cannot be,\nsimply because they have not seen them is worth no more than a savage's\nfancy that there cannot be such a thing as a locomotive, because he\nnever saw one running wild in the forest. Wise men know that their\nbusiness is to examine what is, and not to settle what is not. They know\nthat there are elephants; they know that there have been flying dragons;\nand the wiser they are, the less inclined they will be to say positively\nthat there 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--then why not\nwater-babies? _Are there not water-rats, water-flies, water-crickets,\nwater-crabs, water-tortoises, water-scorpions, water-tigers and\nwater-hogs, water-cats and water-dogs, sea-lions and sea-bears,\nsea-horses and sea-elephants, sea-mice and sea-urchins, sea-razors and\nsea-pens, sea-combs and sea-fans; and of plants, are there not\nwater-grass, and water-crowfoot, water-milfoil, and so on, without end?_\n\n\"But all these things are only nicknames; the water things are not\nreally akin to the land things.\"\n\nThat's 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?\n\nAm I in earnest? Oh dear no! Don't you know that this is a fairy tale,\nand all fun and pretence; and that you are not to believe one word of\nit, even 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's 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\nas a caperer, on four fawn-coloured wings, with long legs and horns.\nThey are foolish fellows, the caperers, and fly into the candle at\nnight, if you leave the door open. We will hope Tom will be wiser, now\nhe has got safe out of his sooty old shell.\n\nBut good Sir John did not understand all this, not being a fellow of the\nLinnaean 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--nothing but three marbles, and a brass button with a\nstring to it--then Sir John did something as like crying as ever he did\nin his life, and blamed himself more bitterly than he need have done. So\nhe cried, 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\nto Tom 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\nhe drank it all in a week. Sir John sent, far and wide, to find Tom's\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's shell in\nthe little churchyard in Vendale, where the old dalesmen all sleep side\nby side between the limestone 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\nfor that; for it was very sweet, and very sad; and that was enough for\nthem. And these are the words of it:--\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\nThose are the words: but they are only the body of it: the soul of the\nsong was the dear old woman's 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\nnew schoolmistress in Vendale.\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\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nTOM was now quite amphibious. You do not know what that means?\n\nYou had better, then, ask the nearest Government pupil-teacher, who may\npossibly answer you smartly enough, thus--\n\n\"Amphibious. 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\nhippopotamus, can't live on the land, and dies in the water.\"\n\nHowever that may be, Tom was amphibious: and what is better still, he\nwas clean. For the first time in his life, he felt how comfortable it\nwas to have nothing on him but himself. But he only enjoyed it: he did\nnot know it, or think about it; just as you enjoy life and health, and\nyet never think about being alive and healthy; and may it be long before\nyou have to think about it!\n\n[Illustration: _He felt how comfortable it was to have nothing on him\nbut himself_]\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\nGrimes, and 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 never\ntell us 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--\n\n          \"_Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;\n            The soul that rises with us, our life's 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._\"\n\nThere, you can know no more than that. But if I was you, I would believe\nthat. For then you will believe the one true doctrine of this wonderful\nfairy tale; which is, that your soul makes your body, just as a snail\nmakes his shell. For the rest, it is enough for us to be sure that\nwhether or not we lived before, we shall live again; though not, I hope,\nas poor little heathen Tom did. For he went downward into the water: but\nwe, I hope, shall go upward to a very different place.\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\nholidays in the water-world for a long, long time to come. He had\nnothing to do now but enjoy himself, and look at all the pretty things\nwhich are to be seen in the cool clear water-world, where the sun is\nnever too hot, and the frost is never too cold.\n\nAnd what did he live on? Water-cresses, perhaps; or perhaps water-gruel,\nand water-milk; too many land-babies do so likewise. But we do not know\nwhat one-tenth of the water-things eat; so we are not answerable for the\nwater-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;\nor he 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\ndead sticks as greedily as you would eat plum-pudding, and building\ntheir houses with silk and glue. Very fanciful ladies they were; none of\nthem would keep to the same materials for a day. One would begin with\nsome pebbles; then she would stick on a piece of green wood; then she\nfound a shell, and stuck it on too; and the poor shell was alive, and\ndid not like at all being taken to build houses with: but the caddis did\nnot let him have any voice in the matter, being rude and selfish, as\nvain people are apt to be; then she stuck on a piece of rotten wood,\nthen a very smart pink stone, and so on, till she was patched all over\nlike an Irishman's coat. Then she found a long straw, five times as long\nas herself, and said, \"Hurrah! my sister has a tail, and I'll have one\ntoo;\" and she stuck it on her back, and marched about with it quite\nproud, though it was very inconvenient indeed. And, at that, tails\nbecame all the fashion among the caddis-baits in that pool, as they were\nat the end of the Long Pond last May, and they all toddled about with\nlong straws sticking out behind, getting between each other's legs, and\ntumbling over each other, and looking so ridiculous, that Tom laughed at\nthem till he cried, as we did. But they were quite right, you know; for\npeople must always follow the fashion, even if it be spoon-bonnets.\n\nThen sometimes he came to a deep still reach; and there he saw the\nwater-forests. They would have looked to you only little weeds: but Tom,\nyou must remember, was so little that everything looked a hundred times\nas big to him as it does to you, just as things do to a minnow, who sees\nand catches the little water-creatures which you can only see in a\nmicroscope.\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--bells, and stars, and wheels, and flowers, of all beautiful\nshapes and colours; and all alive and busy, just as Tom was. So now he\nfound that there was a great deal more in the world than he had fancied\nat first 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\nthe top of his house-wall, and set to work to make another. Now was not\nhe a clever 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\nsuch a language as ours; but such as horses, and dogs, and cows, and\nbirds talk to each other; and Tom soon learned to understand them and\ntalk to them; so that he might have had very pleasant company if he had\nonly been a good boy. But I am sorry to say, he was too like some other\nlittle boys, very fond of hunting and tormenting creatures for mere\nsport. Some people say that boys cannot help it; that it is nature, and\nonly a proof that we are all originally descended from beasts of prey.\nBut whether it is nature or not, little boys can help it, and must help\nit. For if they have naughty, low, mischievous tricks in their nature,\nas monkeys have, that is no reason why they should give way to those\ntricks like monkeys, who know no better. And therefore they must not\ntorment dumb creatures; for if they do, a certain old lady who is coming\nwill surely give them exactly what they deserve.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nBut Tom did not know that; and he pecked and howked the poor\nwater-things about sadly, till they were all afraid of him, and got out\nof his way, or crept into their shells; so he had no one to speak to or\nplay 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\nbe many a kind heart yearning over them all the while, and longing to\nteach them 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,\nbut pull it open, to see what the poor lady was doing inside. What a\nshame! How should you like to have any one breaking your bedroom-door\nin, to see how you looked when you were in bed? So Tom broke to pieces\nthe door, which was the prettiest little grating of silk, stuck all over\nwith shining bits of crystal; and when he looked in, the caddis poked\nout her head, and it had turned into just the shape of a bird's. But\nwhen Tom spoke to her she could not answer; for her mouth and face were\ntight tied up in a new night-cap of neat pink skin. However, if she\ndidn't answer, all the other caddises did; for they held up their hands\nand shrieked like the cats in Struwelpeter: \"_Oh, you nasty horrid boy;\nthere you are at it again! And she had just laid herself up for a\nfortnight's sleep, and then she would have come out with such beautiful\nwings, and flown about, and laid such lots of eggs: and now you have\nbroken her door, and she can't mend it because her mouth is tied up for\na fortnight, and she will die. Who sent you here to worry us out of our\nlives?_\"\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't 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 the water in their fright. But as Tom chased them,\nhe came close to a great dark hover under an alder root, and out\nfloushed a huge old brown trout ten times as big as he was, and ran\nright against him, and knocked all the breath out of his body; and I\ndon't know which was 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's.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Tom, \"you are an ugly fellow to be sure!\" 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's donkey-face came off in a moment, and\nout popped a long arm with a pair of pincers at the end of it, and\ncaught Tom by the nose. It did not hurt him much; but it held him quite\ntight.\n\n\"Yah, ah! Oh, let me go!\" cried Tom.\n\n\"Then let me go,\" said the creature. \"I want to be quiet. I want to\nsplit.\"\n\nTom promised to let him alone, and he let go. \"Why do you want to\nsplit?\" said Tom.\n\n\"Because my brothers and sisters have all split, and turned into\nbeautiful creatures with wings; and I want to split too. Don't speak to\nme. I am sure I shall split. I will split!\"\n\nTom stood still, and watched him. And he swelled himself, and puffed,\nand stretched himself out stiff, and at last--crack, puff, bang--he\nopened all 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\nfirst time into a ballroom; and then it began walking slowly up a grass\nstem to the 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\nof its back rose four great wings of bright brown gauze; and its eyes\ngrew so large that they filled all its head, and shone like ten thousand\ndiamonds.\n\n\"Oh, you beautiful creature!\" 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\"No!\" it said, \"you 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!\" And he flew away into the air, and began\ncatching gnats.\n\n\"Oh! come back, come back,\" cried Tom, \"you 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.\"\n\n\"I don't care whether you do or not,\" said the dragon-fly; \"for you\ncan't. 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!\"\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\nbefore his nose; any more than a great many other folks, who are not\nhalf as handsome 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\nAnd the trout and he made it up (for trout very soon forget if they have\nbeen frightened and hurt). So Tom used to play with them at hare and\nhounds, and great fun they had; and he used to try to leap out of the\nwater, head over heels, as they did before a shower came on; but somehow\nhe never could manage it. He liked most, though, to see them rising at\nthe flies, as they sailed round and round under the shadow of the great\noak, where the beetles fell flop into the water, and the green\ncaterpillars let themselves down from the boughs by silk ropes for no\nreason at all; and then changed their foolish minds for no reason at all\neither; 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's\ntrick; but why they should take so much trouble about it no one can\ntell.\n\nAnd very often Tom caught them just as they touched the water; and\ncaught the alder-flies, and the caperers, and the cock-tailed duns and\nspinners, yellow, and brown, and claret, and gray, and gave them to his\nfriends the trout. Perhaps he was not quite kind to the flies; but one\nmust do a good turn to one's 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\nduns and feeding the trout, when he saw a new sort, a dark gray little\nfellow with a brown head. He was a very little fellow indeed: but he\nmade the most of himself, as people ought to do. He cocked up his head,\nand he cocked up his wings, and he cocked up his tail, and he cocked up\nthe two whisks at his tail-end, and, in short, he looked the cockiest\nlittle man of all little men. And so he proved to be; for instead of\ngetting away, he hopped upon Tom's finger, and sat there as bold as nine\ntailors; and he cried out in the tiniest, shrillest, squeakiest little\nvoice you ever heard,\n\n\"Much obliged to you, indeed; but I don't want it yet.\"\n\n\"Want what?\" said Tom, quite taken aback by his impudence.\n\n\"Your 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!\" (though the idle little rogue did\nnothing at all, but left his poor wife to lay all the eggs by herself).\n\"When I come back, I shall be glad of it, if you'll be so good as to\nkeep it sticking out just so;\" 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--\"Ah, you were tired waiting?\nWell, your other leg will do as well.\"\n\nAnd he popped himself down on Tom's knee, and began chatting away in his\nsqueaking voice.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\"So you live under the water? It's a low place. I lived there for some\ntime; and was very shabby and dirty. But I didn't choose that that\nshould last. So I turned respectable, and came up to the top, and put on\nthis gray suit. It's a very business-like suit, you think, don't you?\"\n\n\"Very neat and quiet indeed,\" said Tom.\n\n\"Yes, 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'm tired of it,\nthat's the truth. I've 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't one be jolly if one can?\"\n\n\"And what will become of your wife?\"\n\n\"Oh! she is a very plain stupid creature, and that's the truth; and\nthinks about nothing but eggs. If she chooses to come, why she may; and\nif not, why I go without her;--and here I go.\"\n\nAnd, as he spoke, he turned quite pale, and then quite white.\n\n\"Why, you're ill!\" said Tom. But he did not answer.\n\n\"You're dead,\" said Tom, looking at him as he stood on his knee as white\nas a ghost.\n\n\"No, I ain't!\" answered a little squeaking voice over his head. \"This is\nme up here, in my ball-dress; and that's my skin. Ha, ha! you could not\ndo such a trick as that!\"\n\nAnd no more Tom could, nor all the conjurors in the world. For the\nlittle rogue had jumped clean out of his own skin, and left it standing\non Tom's knee, eyes, wings, legs, tail, exactly as if it had been alive.\n\n\"Ha, ha!\" he said, and he jerked and skipped up and down, never stopping\nan instant, just as if he had St. Vitus's dance. \"Ain't I a pretty\nfellow now?\"\n\nAnd so he was; for his body was white, and his tail orange, and his eyes\nall the colours of a peacock's 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\"Ah!\" said he, \"now I will see the gay world. My living won't 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.\"\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\nit, as a good many fine gentlemen are, and began flirting and flipping\nup and down, and singing--\n\n          \"_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._\"\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--\n\n          \"_To drive dull care away-ay-ay!_\"\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' 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\ntimes when 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\nnoise; a great ball rolling over and over down the stream, seeming one\nmoment of soft brown fur, and the next of shining glass: and yet it was\nnot a ball; for sometimes it broke up and streamed away in pieces, and\nthen it joined again; and all the while the noise came out of it louder\nand louder.\n\nTom asked the dragon-fly what it could be: but, of course, with his\nshort sight, he could not even see it, though it was not ten yards away.\nSo he took the neatest little header into the water, and started off to\nsee for himself; and, when he came near, the ball turned out to be four\nor five beautiful creatures, many times larger than Tom, who were\nswimming about, and rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling,\nand cuddling, and kissing, and biting, and scratching, in the most\ncharming fashion that ever was seen. And if you don't believe me, you\nmay go to the Zoological Gardens (for I am afraid that you won't see it\nnearer, unless, perhaps, you get up at five in the morning, and go down\nto Cordery's Moor, and watch by the great withy pollard which hangs over\nthe backwater, where the otters breed sometimes), and then say, if\notters at play in the water are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest\ncreatures 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, \"Quick, children, here is\nsomething to eat, indeed!\" 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\"Come out,\" said the wicked old otter, \"or it will be worse for you.\"\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\"Come away, children,\" said the otter in disgust, \"it is not worth\neating, after all. It is only a nasty eft, which nothing eats, not even\nthose vulgar pike in the pond.\"\n\n\"I am not an eft!\" said Tom; \"efts have tails.\"\n\n\"You are an eft,\" said the otter, very positively; \"I see your two hands\nquite plain, and I know you have a tail.\"\n\n\"I tell you I have not,\" said Tom. \"Look here!\" 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\nstood to it, right or wrong; so she answered:\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\"I say you are an eft, and therefore you are, and not fit food for\ngentlefolk like me and my children. You may stay here 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;\" and the otter\nlaughed such a wicked cruel laugh--as you may hear them do sometimes;\nand the first time that you hear it you will probably think it is\nbogies.\n\n\"What are salmon?\" asked Tom.\n\n\"Fish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat. They are the lords of the\nfish, and we are lords of the salmon;\" and she laughed again. \"We 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--Oh, so good!\"--(and she licked her\nwicked lips)--\"and 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 freshet, and salmon, and plenty of\neating all day long.\"\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\"And where do they come from?\" asked Tom, who kept himself very close,\nfor he was considerably frightened.\n\n\"Out 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.\"\n\n\"What are men?\" asked Tom; but somehow he seemed to know before he\nasked.\n\n\"Two-legged things, eft: and, now I come to look at you, they are\nactually something like you, if you had not a tail\" (she was determined\nthat Tom should have a tail), \"only a great deal bigger, worse luck for\nus; and they catch the fish with hooks and lines, which get into our\nfeet sometimes, and set pots along the rocks to catch lobsters. They\nspeared my poor dear husband as he went out to find something for me to\neat. I was laid up among the crags then, and we were very low in the\nworld, for the sea was so rough that no fish would come in shore. But\nthey speared him, poor fellow, and I saw them carrying him away upon a\npole. Ah, he lost his life for your sakes, my children, poor dear\nobedient creature that he was.\"\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 dogs, 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\ngreat river and the broad sea. And, as he thought, he longed to go and\nsee them. He could not tell why; but the more he thought, the more he\ngrew discontented with the narrow little stream in which he lived, and\nall his companions there; and wanted to get out into the wide wide\nworld, and enjoy all the wonderful sights of which he was sure it was\nfull.\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\nthere was no water left to keep under. So the sun burned his back and\nmade him sick; and he went back again and lay quiet in the pool for a\nwhole week more.\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\nnot move an inch to take a fly, though there were thousands on the\nwater, but lay dozing at the bottom under the shade of the stones; and\nTom lay dozing too, and was glad to cuddle their smooth cool sides, for\nthe water was 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\nthe very rocks in the stream seemed to shake: and Tom looked up at it\nthrough the water, and thought it the finest thing he ever saw in his\nlife.\n\nBut out of the water he dared not put his head; for the rain came down\nby bucketsful, and the hail hammered like shot on the stream, and\nchurned it into foam; and soon the stream rose, and rushed down, higher\nand higher, and fouler and fouler, full of beetles, and sticks; and\nstraws, and worms, and addle-eggs, and wood-lice, and leeches, and odds\nand ends, and omnium-gatherums, and this, that, and the other, enough to\nfill nine museums.\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--all 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, \"We must run, we must run. What a jolly thunderstorm! Down to the\nsea, down to the sea!\"\n\nAnd then the otter came by with all her brood, twining and sweeping\nalong as fast as the eels themselves; and she spied Tom as she came by,\nand said:\n\n\"Now 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!\"\n\nThen came a flash brighter than all the rest, and by the light of it--in\nthe thousandth part of a second they were gone again--but he had seen\nthem, he was certain of it--three beautiful little white girls, with\ntheir arms twined round each other's necks, floating down the torrent,\nas they sang, \"Down to the sea, down to the sea!\"\n\n\"Oh stay! Wait for me!\" 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, \"Down to the sea!\"\n\n\"Down to the sea?\" said Tom; \"everything is going to the sea, and I will\ngo too. Good-bye, trout.\" But the trout were so busy gobbling worms that\nthey 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\nclear as day, and the next were dark as night; past dark hovers under\nswirling banks, from which great trout rushed out on Tom, thinking him\nto be good to eat, and turned back sulkily, for the fairies sent them\nhome again with a tremendous scolding, for daring to meddle with a\nwater-baby; on through narrow strids and roaring cataracts, where Tom\nwas deafened and blinded for a moment by the rushing waters; along deep\nreaches, where the white water-lilies tossed and flapped beneath the\nwind and hail; past sleeping villages; under dark bridge-arches, and\naway and away to the sea. And Tom could not stop, and did not care to\nstop; he would see the great world below, and the salmon, and the\nbreakers, and the wide wide sea.\n\nAnd when the daylight came, Tom found himself out in the salmon river.\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. \"This must be the\nsea,\" he thought. \"What 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.\"\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's\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\n[Illustration]\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\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,\nand stopped, and looked back, and seemed very anxious and busy. And Tom\nsaw that he was helping another salmon, an especially handsome one, who\nhad not a single spot upon it, but was clothed in pure silver from nose\nto tail.\n\n\"My dear,\" said the great fish to his companion, \"you really look\ndreadfully tired, and you must not over-exert yourself at first. Do rest\nyourself behind this rock;\" and he shoved her gently with his nose, to\nthe rock where Tom sat.\n\n[Illustration: \"_Oh, don't hurt me!\" cried Tom. \"I only want to look at\nyou; you are so handsome_\"]\n\nYou must know that this was the salmon's 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\nwas going to bite him.\n\n\"What do you want here?\" he said, very fiercely.\n\n\"Oh, don't hurt me!\" cried Tom. \"I only want to look at you; you are so\nhandsome.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said the salmon, very stately but very civilly. \"I 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.\"\n\nWhat a well-bred old salmon he was!\n\n\"So you have seen things like me before?\" asked Tom.\n\n\"Several times, my dear. Indeed, it was only last night that one at the\nriver's mouth came and warned me and my wife of some new stake-nets\nwhich had got into the stream, I cannot tell how, since last winter, and\nshowed us the way round them, in the most charmingly obliging way.\"\n\n\"So there are babies in the sea?\" cried Tom, and clapped his little\nhands. \"Then I shall have some one to play with there? How delightful!\"\n\n\"Were there no babies up this stream?\" asked the lady salmon.\n\n\"No! 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.\"\n\n\"Ugh!\" cried the lady, \"what low company!\"\n\n\"My dear, if he has been in low company, he has certainly not learnt\ntheir low manners,\" said the salmon.\n\n\"No, 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\nknows what they are.\" Whereon she curled up her lip, and looked\ndreadfully scornful, while her husband curled up his too, till he\nlooked as proud as Alcibiades.\n\n\"Why do you dislike the trout so?\" asked Tom.\n\n\"My 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.\"\n\n\"And then they pretend to scrape acquaintance with us again,\" said the\nlady. \"Why, I have actually known one of them propose to a lady salmon,\nthe impudent little creature.\"\n\n\"I should hope,\" said the gentleman, \"that there are very few ladies of\nour race who would degrade themselves by listening to such a creature\nfor an instant. If I saw such a thing happen, I should consider it my\nduty to put them both to death upon the spot.\" So the old salmon said,\nlike an old blue-blooded hidalgo of Spain; and what is more, he would\nhave done it too. For you must know, no enemies are so bitter against\neach other as those who are of the same race; and a salmon looks on a\ntrout as some great folks look on some little folks, as something just\ntoo much like himself to be tolerated.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nSO the salmon went up, after Tom had warned them of the wicked old\notter; and Tom went down, but slowly and cautiously, coasting along the\nshore. He was many days about it, for it was many miles down to the sea;\nand perhaps he would never have found his way, if the fairies had not\nguided him, without his seeing their fair faces, or feeling their gentle\nhands.\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's hoot, and the snipe's bleat, and the\nfox's bark, and the otter's 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\nthe least 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\nup at the flame with their great goggle eyes, and wagging their tails,\nas if they 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\"There was a fish rose.\"\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\nand sputtering, and another a long pole. And he knew that they were men,\nand was frightened, and crept into a hole in the rock, from which he\ncould see what went on.\n\nThe man with the torch bent down over the water, and looked earnestly\nin; and then he said:\n\n\"Tak' that muckle fellow, lad; he's ower fifteen punds; and haud your\nhand steady.\"\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\npoor salmon 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\nhave heard before; and he shuddered and turned sick at them now, for he\nfelt somehow that they were strange, and ugly, and wrong, and horrible.\nAnd it all began to come back to him. They were men; and they were\nfighting; savage, desperate, up-and-down fighting, such as Tom had seen\ntoo many times 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\nhorrid dirty men, with foul clothes on their backs, and foul words on\ntheir lips; but he dared not stir out of his hole: while the rock shook\nover his 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,\nand a 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\nlooking for him; but he drifted down into the deep hole below, and there\nlay quite 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. \"Perhaps,\" he thought, \"the water has made him fall asleep, as it\ndid me.\"\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; so\nhe swam round and round him, closer and closer; and, as he did not stir,\nat 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\"Oh dear me!\" he thought, \"now 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.\"\n\nSo he went up the river again a little way, and lay there the rest of\nthe night under an alder root; but, when morning came, he longed to go\ndown again 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 till\nhe had found out what had become of Mr. Grimes. But this time Mr. Grimes\nwas 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\nturn into 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\ninto the 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\nfor twenty-four hours like Grimes.\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,\nand mills, and tall smoking chimneys, and ships which rode at anchor in\nthe stream; and now and then he ran against their hawsers, and wondered\nwhat they were, and peeped out, and saw the sailors lounging on board\nsmoking their pipes; and ducked under again, for he was terribly afraid\nof being caught by man and turned into a chimney-sweep once more. He did\nnot know that the fairies were close to him always, shutting the\nsailors' eyes lest they should see him, and turning him aside from\nmillraces, and sewer-mouths, and all foul and dangerous things. Poor\nlittle fellow, it was a dreary journey for him; and more than once he\nlonged to be back in Vendale, playing with the trout in the bright\nsummer sun. But it could not be. What has been once can never come over\nagain. And people can be little babies, even water-babies, only once in\ntheir 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\nyet not enough; and sown their wild oats, without having the advantage\nof reaping 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\nsurprise, the 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 strong,\nand light, and fresh, as if his veins had run champagne; and gave, he\ndid not know why, three skips out of the water, a yard high, and head\nover heels, just as the salmon do when they first touch the noble rich\nsalt water, which, as some wise men tell us, is the mother of all living\nthings.\n\n[Illustration]\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\nhe went. He passed great shoals of bass and mullet, leaping and rushing\nin after 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, \"How d'ye do, sir; what a beautiful\nplace the sea is!\" And the old seal, instead of trying to bite him,\nlooked at him with his soft sleepy winking eyes, and said, \"Good tide to\nyou, my little man; are you looking for your brothers and sisters? I\npassed them all at play outside.\"\n\n[Illustration: _And Tom sat upon the buoy long days_]\n\n\"Oh, then,\" said Tom, \"I shall have playfellows at last,\" 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\nseen.\n\nThe sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and blew the fog away; and\nthe little waves danced for joy around the buoy, and the old buoy danced\nwith them. The shadows of the clouds ran races over the bright blue bay,\nand yet never caught each other up; and the breakers plunged merrily\nupon the wide white sands, and jumped up over the rocks, to see what the\ngreen fields inside were like, and tumbled down and broke themselves\nall to pieces, and never minded it a bit, but mended themselves and\njumped up again. And the terns hovered over Tom like huge white\ndragon-flies with black heads, and the gulls laughed like girls at play,\nand the sea-pies, with their red bills and legs, flew to and fro from\nshore to shore, and whistled sweet and wild. And Tom looked and looked,\nand listened; and he would have been very happy, if he could only have\nseen the water-babies. Then when the tide turned, he left the buoy, and\nswam round and round in search of them: but in vain. Sometimes he\nthought 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, \"Don't hide; I do want some one\nto play with so much!\" 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\nfor it 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\ncame.\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 \"Yes,\" 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, \"Where do you come from,\nyou pretty creatures? and have you seen the water-babies?\"\n\nAnd the sea-snails answered, \"Whence 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.\" 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\nhalf; and 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's mouth, no bigger than Tom's; and, when Tom\nquestioned him, he answered in a little squeaky feeble voice:\n\n\"I'm sure I don't know; I've lost my way. I meant to go to the\nChesapeake, and I'm afraid I've got wrong somehow. Dear me! it was all\nby following that pleasant warm water. I'm sure I've lost my way.\"\n\nAnd, when Tom asked him again, he could only answer, \"I've lost my way.\nDon't talk to me; I want to think.\"\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's work of\nit. But of course Tom did not know that.\n\nThen there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling as they went--papas,\nand mammas, and little children--and all quite smooth and shiny, because\nthe fairies French-polish them every morning; and they sighed so softly\nas they came by, that Tom took courage to speak to them: but all they\nanswered was, \"Hush, hush, hush;\" for that was all they had learned to\nsay.\n\nAnd then there came a shoal of basking sharks, 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\nhold his nose tight as long as they were there.\n\nAnd then there came by a beautiful creature, like a ribbon of pure\nsilver with a sharp head and very long teeth; but it seemed very sick\nand sad. Sometimes it rolled helpless on its side; and then it dashed\naway glittering like white fire; and then it lay sick again and\nmotionless.\n\n\"Where do you come from?\" asked Tom. \"And why are _you_ so sick and\nsad?\"\n\n\"I 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.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" cried Tom. \"And you have seen water-babies? Have you seen any near\nhere?\"\n\n\"Yes; they helped me again last night, or I should have been eaten by a\ngreat black porpoise.\"\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--like the forsaken Merman in Mr.\nArnold's beautiful, beautiful poem, which you must learn by heart some\nday--and sit upon a point of rock, among the shining seaweeds, in the\nlow October tides, and cry and call for the water-babies; but he never\nheard a voice call in return. And at last, with his fretting and crying,\nhe grew quite lean and thin.\n\nBut one day among the rocks he found a play-fellow. 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\ngood conscience or the Victoria Cross.\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\nhad ever seen; and there he was not far wrong; for all the ingenious\nmen, and all the scientific men, and all the fanciful men, in the world,\nwith all the old German bogy-painters into the bargain, could never\ninvent, if all their wits were boiled into one, anything so curious, and\nso ridiculous, as 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--snap! like\nthe leap-frogs which you make out of a goose's 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!--and away he went, pop into the hole; and peeped out and twiddled\nhis whiskers, as much as to say, \"You couldn't do that.\"\n\nTom asked him about water-babies. \"Yes,\" 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--so 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\ndarling, as she always was, and always will be. For it befell in the\npleasant short December days, when the wind always blows from the\nsouth-west, till Old Father Christmas comes and spreads the great white\ntable-cloth, ready for little boys and girls to give the birds their\nChristmas dinner of crumbs--it befell (to go on) in the pleasant\nDecember days, that Sir John was so busy hunting that nobody at home\ncould get a word out of him. Four days a week he hunted, and very good\nsport he had; and the other two he went to the bench and the board of\nguardians, and very good justice he did.\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\na song out of a dead nightingale, determined to go off and leave him,\nand the doctor, and Captain Swinger the agent, to snore in concert every\nevening to their hearts' content. So she started for the seaside with\nall the children, in order to put herself and them into condition by\nmild applications of iodine. She might as well have stayed at home and\nused Parry's liquid horse-blister, for there was plenty of it in the\nstables; and then she would have saved her money, and saved the chance,\nalso, of making all the children ill instead of well (as hundreds are\nmade), by taking them to some nasty smelling undrained lodging, and then\nwondering how they caught scarlatina and diphtheria: but people won't be\nwise enough to understand that till they are dead of bad smells, and\nthen it will be too late; besides, you see, Sir John did certainly snore\nvery loud.\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' eggs; for,\nthough there are thousands, ay, millions, of both of them in the world,\nyet there is not one too many.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nNow it befell that, on the very shore, and over the very rocks, where\nTom was sitting with his friend the lobster, there walked one day the\nlittle white lady, Ellie herself, and with her a very wise man\nindeed--Professor Ptthmllnsprts.\n\nHe was, as I said, a very great naturalist; a very worthy, kind,\ngood-natured little old gentleman; and very fond of children; 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--that, when any one else found a curious worm, he\nwould hop round them, and peck them, and set up his tail, and bristle up\nhis feathers, just as a cock-robin would; and declare that he found the\nworm first; and that it was his worm; and, if not, that then it was not\na worm at all.\n\nHe had met Sir John at Scarborough, or Fleetwood, or somewhere or other\n(if you don't care where, nobody else does), and had made acquaintance\nwith him, and become very fond of his children. Now, Sir John know\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, \"I don't\ncare about all these things, because they can't 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.\"\n\n\"Children in the water, you strange little duck?\" said the professor.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Ellie. \"I 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\n'The Triumph of Galatea;' and there is a burning mountain in the\npicture behind. It hangs on the great staircase, and I have looked at it\never since I was a baby, and dreamt about it a hundred times; and it is\nso beautiful that it must be true.\"\n\nBut the professor had not the least notion of allowing that things were\ntrue, merely because people thought them beautiful.\n\nNow little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; for she only\nasked the same question over again.\n\n\"But why are there not water-babies?\"\n\nI trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at that moment\non the edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt one of his corns sadly,\nthat he answered quite sharply, forgetting that he was a scientific man,\nand therefore ought to have known that he couldn't know; and that he was\na logician, and therefore ought to have known that he could not prove a\nuniversal negative--I say, I trust and hope it was because the mussel\nhurt his corn, that the professor answered quite sharply:\n\n\"Because there ain't.\"\n\nWhich was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as you must\nknow, the professor ought to have said, if he was so angry as to say\nanything of the kind--Because there are not: or are none: or are none of\nthem; or because they do not exist.\n\n[Illustration: _He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly,\nwith Tom all entangled in the meshes_]\n\nAnd he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, that, as it\nbefell, he caught poor little Tom. He felt the net very heavy; and\nlifted it out quickly, with Tom all entangled in the meshes.\n\n\"Dear me!\" he cried. \"What a large pink Holothurian; with hands, too! It\nmust be connected with Synapta.\"\n\nAnd he took him out.\n\n\"It has actually eyes!\" he cried. \"Why, it must be a Cephalopod! This is\nmost extraordinary!\"\n\n\"No, I ain't!\" cried Tom, as loud as he could; for he did not like to be\ncalled bad names.\n\n\"It is a water-baby!\" cried Ellie; and of course it was.\n\n\"Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!\" 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 him\nalive, 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.\n\nThere was a wise old heathen once, who said, \"Maxima debetur pueris\nreverentia\"--The 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.--But some people, and I am afraid\nthe professor was one of them, interpret that in a strange, curious,\none-sided, left-handed, topsy-turvy, inside-out-behind-before fashion;\nfor they make it mean, that you must show your respect for children, by\nnever confessing yourself in the wrong to them, even if you know that\nyou are so, lest they should lose confidence in their elders.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nNow, if the professor had said to Ellie, \"Yes, 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' 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's 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;\"--I\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\nof him. So he turned away and poked Tom with his finger, for want of\nanything better to do; and said carelessly, \"My dear little maid, you\nmust have dreamt of water-babies last night, your head is so full of\nthem.\" Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable fright all\nthe while; 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\nif a man with clothes on caught him, he might put clothes on him too,\nand make a dirty black chimney-sweep of him again. But, when the\nprofessor poked him, it was more than he could bear; and, between fright\nand rage, he turned to bay as valiantly as a mouse in a corner, and bit\nthe professor's finger till it bled.\n\n\"Oh! ah! yah!\" 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\nin a moment.\n\n\"But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak!\" cried Ellie. \"Ah, it is\ngone!\" And she jumped down off the rock to try and catch Tom before he\nslipped into the sea.\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\nthe window and brought her such a pretty pair of wings that she could\nnot help putting them on; and she flew with them out of the window, and\nover the land, and over the sea, and up through the clouds, and nobody\nheard or saw anything of her for a very long while.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\nBUT 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\ntimes larger 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\nWaterproof 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\"What, have you been naughty, and have they put you in the lock-up?\"\nasked Tom.\n\nThe lobster felt a little indignant at such a notion, but he was too\nmuch depressed in spirits to argue; so he only said, \"I can't get out.\"\n\n\"Why did you get in?\"\n\n\"After that nasty piece of dead fish.\" 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\"Where did you get in?\"\n\n\"Through that round hole at the top.\"\n\n\"Then why don't you get out through it?\"\n\n\"Because I can't:\" and the lobster twiddled his horns more fiercely\nthan ever, but he was forced to confess.\n\n\"I have jumped upwards, downwards, backwards, and sideways, at least\nfour thousand times; and I can't get out: I always get up underneath\nthere, and can't find the hole.\"\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\"Stop a bit,\" said Tom. \"Turn your tail up to me, and I'll pull you\nthrough hind-foremost, and then you won't stick in the spikes.\"\n\nBut the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he couldn't hit the hole.\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\"Hullo! here is a pretty business,\" said Tom. \"Now take your great\nclaws, and break the points off those spikes, and then we shall both get\nout easily.\"\n\n\"Dear me, I never thought of that,\" said the lobster; \"and after all the\nexperience of life that I have had!\"\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\n[Illustration: _Tom reached and clawed down the hole after him_]\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. \"Yar!\" said she, \"you little\nmeddlesome wretch, I have you now! I will serve you out for telling the\nsalmon where I was!\" And she crawled all over the pot to get in.\n\nTom was horribly frightened, and still more frightened when she found\nthe hole in the top, and squeezed herself right down through it, all\neyes and teeth. But no sooner was her head inside than valiant Mr.\nLobster caught her by the nose and held on.\n\nAnd there they were all three in the pot, rolling over and over, and\nvery tight packing it was. And the lobster tore at the otter, and the\notter tore at the lobster, and both squeezed and thumped poor Tom till\nhe had no breath left in his body; and I don't know what would have\nhappened to him if he had not at last got on the otter's back, and safe\nout of the hole.\n\nHe was right glad when he got out: but he would not desert his friend\nwho had saved him; and the first time he saw his tail uppermost he\ncaught hold of it, and pulled with all his might.\n\nBut the lobster would not let go.\n\n\"Come along,\" said Tom; \"don't you see she is dead?\" 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\"Come along, you stupid old stick-in-the-mud,\" cried Tom, \"or the\nfisherman will catch you!\" And that was true, for Tom felt some one\nabove beginning to haul up the pot.\n\nBut the lobster would not let go.\n\nTom saw the fisherman haul him up to the boat-side, and thought it was\nall up with him. But when Mr. Lobster saw the fisherman, he gave such a\nfurious and tremendous snap, that he snapped out of his hand, and out of\nthe pot, and safe into the sea. But he left his knobbed claw behind him;\nfor it never came into his stupid head to let go after all, so he just\nshook his claw off as the easier method.\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--eight or nine\nhundred years ago, of course; for if it had happened lately it would be\npersonal to 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, \"What shall we do with the drunken\nsailor, so early in the morning?\" and answering them each exactly alike:\n\n\"Put him in the round house till he gets sober, so early in the\nmorning\"--\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: \"It is a low spring-tide; I\nshall go out this afternoon and cut my capers.\"\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\nwith cutting them, and who stuck upon one of the bastions a notice, \"No\none allowed to cut capers here but me,\" which greatly edified the\nmidshipmen in port, and the Maltese on the Nix Mangiare stairs. But all\nthat the mayor meant was that he would go and have an afternoon's fun,\nlike any schoolboy, and catch lobsters with an iron hook.\n\nSo to the Mewstone he went, and for lobsters he looked. And when he\ncame to 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,\nand caught him by the finger, and held on.\n\n\"Yah!\" 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\nthan the 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\ndo it with--courage 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's 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 cocoanut, 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\ncould. So somehow or other the Jacktars got the lobster out, and set the\nmayor free, and put him ashore at the Barbican. He never went\nlobster-catching again; and we will hope he put no more salt in the\ntobacco, not even to sell his brother's beer.\n\nAnd that is the story of the Mayor of Plymouth, which has two\nadvantages--first, that of being quite true; and second, that of having\n(as folks say all good stories ought to have) no moral whatsoever: no\nmore, indeed, has any part of this book, because it is a fairy tale, you\nknow.\n\n[Illustration]\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, \"Why, you are not one of us. You are a new baby! Oh, how\ndelightful!\"\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, \"Oh, where have you been all this while? I have been\nlooking for you so long, and I have been so lonely.\"\n\n\"We 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?\"\n\nTom looked at the baby again, and then he said:\n\n\"Well, 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.\"\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.\n\n\"Now,\" said the baby, \"come and help me, or I shall not have finished\nbefore my brothers and sisters come, and it is time to go home.\"\n\n\"What shall I help you at?\"\n\n\"At this poor dear little rock; a great clumsy boulder came rolling by\nin the 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.\"\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. And\nthen 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\"Now then,\" they cried all at once, \"we must come away home, we must\ncome away home, or the tide will leave us dry. We have mended all the\nbroken seaweed, and put all the rock-pools in order, and planted all the\nshells again in the sand, and nobody will see where the ugly storm swept\nin last week.\"\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' heads and dead dog-fish, or any other refuse,\ninto the water; or in any way make a mess upon the clean shore--there\nthe water-babies will not come, sometimes not for hundreds of years (for\nthey cannot abide anything smelly or foul), but leave the sea-anemones\nand the crabs to clear away everything, till the good tidy sea has\ncovered up all the dirt in soft mud and clean sand, where the\nwater-babies can plant live cockles and whelks and razor-shells and\nsea-cucumbers and golden-combs, and make a pretty live garden again,\nafter man's dirt is cleared away. And that, I suppose, is the reason\nwhy there are no water-babies at any watering-place which I have ever\nseen.\n\nAnd where is the home of the water-babies? In St. Brandan's 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,\ntill they were weary and longed to rest? For the wild Irish would not\nlisten to them, or come to confession and to mass, but liked better to\nbrew potheen, and dance the pater o'pee, and knock each other over the\nhead with shillelaghs, and shoot each other from behind turf-dykes, and\nsteal each other's cattle, and burn each other's homes; till St. Brandan\nand his friends were weary of them, for they would not learn to be\npeaceable Christians 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--\"Ah that I had wings as a dove!\" And\nfar away, before the setting sun, he saw a blue fairy sea, and golden\nfairy islands, and he said, \"Those are the islands of the blest.\" Then\nhe and his friends got into a hooker, and sailed away and away to the\nwestward, and were never heard of more. But the people who would not\nhear him were changed into gorillas, and gorillas they are until this\nday.\n\n[Illustration]\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\nmight have tumbled down. And at last he and the five hermits fell fast\nasleep under the cedar-shades, and there they sleep unto this day. But\nthe fairies 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's fairy isle.\n\nBut whether men can see it or not, St. Brandan's Isle once actually\nstood there; a great land out in the ocean, which has sunk and sunk\nbeneath the waves. Old Plato called it Atlantis, and told strange tales\nof the wise men who lived therein, and of the wars they fought in the\nold times. And from off that island came strange flowers, which linger\nstill about this land:--the Cornish heath, and Cornish moneywort, and\nthe delicate Venus's hair, and the London-pride which covers the Kerry\nmountains, and the little pink butterwort of Devon, and the great blue\nbutterwort of Ireland, and the Connemara heath, and the bristle-fern of\nthe Turk waterfall, and many a strange plant more; all fairy tokens\nleft for wise men and good children from off St. Brandan's 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\nthat an old gentleman named Fourier used to say that we ought to do the\nsame by chimney-sweeps and dustmen, and honour them instead of despising\nthem; and he was a very clever old gentleman: but, unfortunately for him\nand the world, as mad as a March hare.\n\nAnd, instead of watchmen and policemen to keep out nasty things at\nnight, there were thousands and thousands of water-snakes, and most\nwonderful creatures they were. They were all named after the Nereids,\nthe sea-fairies who took care of them, Eunice and Polynoe, Phyllodoce\nand Psamathe, and all the rest of the pretty darlings who swim round\ntheir Queen Amphitrite, and her car of cameo shell. They were dressed in\ngreen velvet, and black velvet, and purple velvet; and were all jointed\nin rings; 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\nof their hundreds of feet there sprang a whole cutler's 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_,      _Gimlets_,\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 Linnaean Society.\n\nAnd there were the water-babies in thousands, more than Tom, or you\neither, could count.--All 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,\nor to fall into the fire; all the little children in alleys and courts,\nand tumble-down cottages, who die by fever, and cholera, and measles,\nand scarlatina, and nasty complaints which no one has any business to\nhave, and which no one will have some day, when folks have common sense;\nand all the little children who have been killed by cruel masters and\nwicked soldiers; they were all there, except, of course, the babes of\nBethlehem who were killed by wicked King Herod; for they were taken\nstraight to heaven long ago, as everybody knows, and we call them the\nHoly 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\nof their eyes; and put stones into the anemones' mouths, to make them\nfancy that their dinner was coming.\n\nThe other children warned him, and said, \"Take care what you are at.\nMrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is coming.\" But Tom never heeded them, being\nquite riotous with high spirits and good luck, till, one Friday morning\nearly, Mrs. 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--sea-cakes, sea-apples, sea-oranges, sea-bullseyes,\nsea-toffee; and to the very best of all she gave sea-ices, made out of\nsea-cows' cream, which never melt under water.\n\nAnd, if you don't quite believe me, then just think--What 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 \"frutta di mare.\" And, perhaps, that is\nthe very reason why the place is called Nice, because there are so many\nnice things in the sea there: at least, if it is not, it ought to be.\n\nNow little Tom watched all these sweet things given away, till his mouth\nwatered, and his eyes grew as round as an owl's. For he hoped that his\nturn would come at last; and so it did. For the lady called him up, and\nheld out her fingers with something in them, and popped it into his\nmouth; and, lo and behold, it was a nasty cold hard pebble.\n\n\"You are a very cruel woman,\" said he, and began to whimper.\n\n\"And you are a very cruel boy; who puts pebbles into the sea-anemones'\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.\"\n\n\"Who told you that?\" said Tom.\n\n\"You did yourself, this very minute.\"\n\nTom had never opened his lips; so he was very much taken aback indeed.\n\n\"Yes; 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'.\"\n\n\"I did not know there was any harm in it,\" said Tom.\n\n\"Then you know now. People continually say that to me: but I tell them,\nif you don't know that fire burns, that is no reason that it should not\nburn you; and if you don't know that dirt breeds fever, that is no\nreason why the fevers should not kill you. The lobster did not know that\nthere was any harm in getting into the lobster-pot; but it caught him\nall the same.\"\n\n\"Dear me,\" thought Tom, \"she knows everything!\" And so she did, indeed.\n\n\"And 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\" (and the lady looked very kindly, after all), \"as if you did\nknow.\"\n\n\"Well, you are a little hard on a poor lad,\" said Tom.\n\n\"Not 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.\"\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\"Was it long ago since they wound you up?\" asked Tom. For he thought,\nthe cunning little fellow, \"She 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.\"\n\n\"I was wound up once and for all, so long ago, that I forget all about\nit.\"\n\n\"Dear me,\" said Tom, \"you must have been made a long time!\"\n\n\"I 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.\"\n\nAnd there came over the lady's face a very curious expression--very\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's hearts\nto them 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\"Yes. You thought me very ugly just now, did you not?\"\n\nTom hung down his head, and got very red about the ears.\n\n\"And 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\"Now, 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.\"\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's\ninside is much like a Scotch grenadier's), and she set them all in a\nrow; and very 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's 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\nwhen they said not at all, she let them go: because they had only done\nit out of foolish fashion, fancying it was for their children's good, as\nif wasps' waists and pigs' toes could be pretty, or wholesome, or of any\nuse to 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\na mill-wheel. And mind--when you hear a rumbling at the bottom of the\nsea, sailors will tell you that it is a ground-swell: but now you know\nbetter. It 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--whole 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's 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\n(good man and true though he was, when he meddled with things which he\ndid understand), teaching children to sing their fa-fa-mi-fa with a\ncat-o'-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\nmanage children: and they first brought into England, in the old\nAnglo-Saxon times, the fashion of treating free boys, and girls too,\nworse than you would treat a dog or a horse: but Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid\nhas caught them all long ago; and given them many a taste of their own\nrods; and much good may it do them.\n\nAnd she boxed their ears, and thumped them over the head with rulers,\nand pandied their hands with canes, and told them that they told\nstories, and were this and that bad sort of people; and the more they\nwere very indignant, and stood upon their honour, and declared they told\nthe truth, the more she declared they were not, and that they were only\ntelling lies; and at last she birched them all round soundly with her\ngreat birch-rod and set them each an imposition of three hundred\nthousand lines of Hebrew to learn by heart before she came back next\nFriday. And at that they all cried and howled so, that their breaths\ncame all up through the sea like bubbles out of soda-water; and that is\none reason of the bubbles in the sea. There are others: but that is the\none which principally concerns little boys. And by that time she was so\ntired that she was glad to stop; and, indeed, she had done a very good\nday's work.\n\nTom did not quite dislike the old lady: but he could not help thinking\nher a little spiteful--and no wonder if she was, poor old soul; for if\nshe has to wait to grow handsome till people do as they would be done\nby, she will have to wait a very long time.\n\n[Illustration]\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: \"Pray, ma'am, may I ask you a\nquestion?\"\n\n\"Certainly, my little dear.\"\n\n\"Why don't you bring all the bad masters here and serve them out too?\nThe butties that knock about the poor collier-boys; and the nailers\nthat file off their lads' noses and hammer their fingers; and all the\nmaster sweeps, like my master Grimes? I saw him fall into the water long\nago; so I surely expected he would have been here. I'm sure he was bad\nenough to me.\"\n\nThen the old lady looked so very stern that Tom was quite frightened,\nand sorry that he had been so bold. But she was not angry with him. She\nonly answered, \"I 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.\"\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\"But these people,\" she went on, \"did 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.\" 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\na very good boy all Saturday; and he was; for he never frightened one\ncrab, nor tickled any live corals, nor put stones into the sea anemones'\nmouths, to make them fancy they had got a dinner; and when Sunday\nmorning came, sure enough, Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came too. Whereat\nall the little children began dancing and clapping their hands, and Tom\ndanced too with all his might.\n\nAnd as for the pretty lady, I cannot tell you what the colour of her\nhair was, or of her eyes: no more could Tom; for, when any one looks at\nher, all they can think of is, that she has the sweetest, kindest,\ntenderest, funniest, merriest face they ever saw, or want to see. But\nTom saw that she was a very tall woman, as tall as her sister: but\ninstead of being gnarly and horny, and scaly, and prickly, like her,\nshe was the most nice, soft, fat, smooth, pussy, cuddly, delicious\ncreature who ever nursed a baby; and she understood babies thoroughly,\nfor she had plenty of her own, whole rows and regiments of them, and has\nto this day. And all her delight was, whenever she had a spare moment,\nto play with babies, in which she showed herself a woman of sense; for\nbabies are the best company, and the pleasantest playfellows, in the\nworld; at least, so all the wise people in the world think. And\ntherefore when the children saw her, they naturally all caught hold of\nher, and pulled her till she sat down on a stone, and climbed into her\nlap, and clung round her neck, and caught hold of her hands; and then\nthey all put their thumbs into their mouths, and began cuddling and\npurring like so many kittens, as they ought to have done. While those\nwho could get nowhere else sat down on the sand, and cuddled her\nfeet--for no one, you know, wears shoes in the water, except horrid old\nbathing-women, who are afraid of the water-babies pinching their horny\ntoes. And Tom stood staring at them; for he could not understand what it\nwas all about.\n\n\"And who are you, you little darling?\" she said.\n\n\"Oh, that is the new baby!\" they all cried, pulling their thumbs out of\ntheir mouths; \"and he never had any mother,\" and they all put their\nthumbs back again, for they did not wish to lose any time.\n\n\"Then I will be his mother, and he shall have the very best place; so\nget out, all of you, this moment.\"\n\nAnd she took up two great armfuls of babies--nine hundred under one arm,\nand thirteen hundred under the other--and threw them away, right and\nleft, into the water. But they minded it no more than the naughty boys\nin Struwelpeter minded when St. Nicholas dipped them in his inkstand;\nand did not even take their thumbs out of their mouths, but came\npaddling and wriggling back to her like so many tadpoles, till you could\nsee nothing of 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,\nsuch things as he had never heard before in his life; and Tom looked up\ninto her eyes, and loved her, and loved, till he fell fast asleep from\npure love.\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\nChristmas Eve, and yet never ends at all for ever and ever; and, as she\nwent on, the children took their thumbs out of their mouths and listened\nquite seriously; but not sadly at all; for she never told them anything\nsad; and Tom listened too, and never grew tired of listening. And he\nlistened so long that he fell fast asleep again, and, when he woke, the\nlady was nursing him still.\n\n\"Don't go away,\" said little Tom. \"This is so nice. I never had any one\nto cuddle me before.\"\n\n\"Don't go away,\" said all the children; \"you have not sung us one song.\"\n\n\"Well, I have time for only one. So what shall it be?\"\n\n\"The doll you lost! The doll you lost!\" cried all the babies at once.\n\nSo the strange fairy sang:--\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           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' 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's\nArguments in the sea-land down below.\n\n\"Now,\" said the fairy to Tom, \"will you be a good boy for my sake, and\ntorment no more sea-beasts till I come back?\"\n\n\"And you will cuddle me again?\" said poor little Tom.\n\n\"Of course I will, you little duck. I should like to take you with me\nand cuddle you all the way, only I must not;\" 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\ncuddle them and tell them stories; and how afraid they ought to be of\ngrowing naughty, and bringing tears into their mammas' pretty eyes!\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nHERE I come to the very saddest part of all my story. I know some people\nwill only laugh at it, and call it much ado about nothing. But I know\none man who would not; and he was an officer with a pair of gray\nmoustaches as long as your arm, who said once in company that two of the\nmost heartrending sights in the world, which moved him most to tears,\nwhich he would do anything to prevent or remedy, were a child over a\nbroken 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\nso forth, all but one dear little old Quaker lady with a soul as white\nas her cap, who was not, of course, generally partial to soldiers; and\nshe said very quietly, like a Quaker:\n\n\"Friends, it is borne upon my mind that that is a truly brave man.\"\n\nNow you may fancy that Tom was quite good, when he had everything that\nhe could 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 made the people in the\nBible, who waxed fat and kicked, like horses overfed and underworked.\nAnd I am very sorry to say that this happened to little Tom. For he grew\nso fond of the sea-bullseyes and sea-lollipops that his foolish little\nhead could think of nothing else: and he was always longing for more,\nand wondering when the strange lady would come again and give him some,\nand what she would give him, and how much, and whether she would give\nhim more than the others. And he thought of nothing but lollipops by\nday, and dreamt of nothing else by night--and 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\nfound out that she kept them in a beautiful mother-of-pearl cabinet away\nin a deep 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.--It 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 did.\n\nBut all she said was:\n\n\"Ah, you poor little dear! you are just like all the rest.\"\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\nfind yourself very much mistaken, as many a man does every year and\nevery 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's of old, against every man, and every man's 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 enough\nif you know where to look for her: but you will never see her do that.\nFor, if she had, she would have tempted him to tell lies in his fright;\nand that would have been worse for him, if possible, than even becoming\na 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--which is so cruel and unfair that no judge on the\nbench dare do it to the wickedest thief or murderer, for the good\nBritish law forbids it--ay, and even punish them to make them confess,\nwhich is so detestable a crime that it is never committed now, save by\nInquisitors, and Kings of Naples, and a few other wretched people of\nwhom the world is weary. And then they say, \"We have trained up the\nchild in the way he should go, and when he grew up he has departed from\nit. Why then did Solomon say that he would not depart from it?\" But\nperhaps the way of beating, and hurrying, and frightening, and\nquestioning, was not the way that the child should go; for it is not\neven the way in which a colt should go if you want to break it in and\nmake it a quiet serviceable horse.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nSome folks may say, \"Ah! but the Fairy does not need to do that if she\nknows everything already.\" True. But, if she did not know, she would not\nsurely 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\nshould suspect him. He was dreadfully afraid, too, lest there should be\nno sweets--as was to be expected, he having eaten them all--and lest\nthen the fairy should inquire who had taken them. But, behold! she\npulled out just as many as ever, which astonished Tom, and frightened\nhim still more.\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\nwithin himself 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\nafter.\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[Illustration: _Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid_]\n\nAnd when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, he wanted to be cuddled like\nthe rest; but she said very seriously:\n\n\"I should like to cuddle you; but I cannot, you are so horny and\nprickly.\"\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's\nsouls make their bodies just as a snail makes its shell (I am not\njoking, my little man; I am in serious, solemn earnest). And therefore,\nwhen Tom's soul grew all prickly with naughty tempers, his body could\nnot help growing prickly too, so that nobody would cuddle him, or play\nwith him, or 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, \"No, I don't want any: I can't bear them now,\" and then burst\nout crying, poor little man, and told Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid every word\nas it happened.\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\"I will forgive you, little man,\" she said. \"I always forgive every one\nthe moment they tell me the truth of their own accord.\"\n\n\"Then you will take away all these nasty prickles?\"\n\n\"That is a very different matter. You put them there yourself, and only\nyou can take them away.\"\n\n\"But how can I do that?\" asked Tom, crying afresh.\n\n\"Well, I think it is time for you to go to school; so I shall fetch you\na schoolmistress, who will teach you how to get rid of your prickles.\"\nAnd so she went away. Tom was frightened at the notion of a\nschoolmistress; for he thought she would certainly come with a birch-rod\nor a cane; but he comforted himself, at last, that she might be\nsomething like the old woman in Vendale--which she was not in the\nleast; for, when the fairy brought her, she was the most beautiful\nlittle girl that ever was seen, with long curls floating behind her like\na golden cloud, and long robes floating all round her like a silver one.\n\n\"There he is,\" said the fairy; \"and you must teach him to be good,\nwhether you like or not.\"\n\n\"I know,\" 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\nwould never have begun at all if poor Tom had not burst out crying, and\nbegged her to teach him to be good and help him to cure his prickles;\nand at that she grew so tender-hearted that she began teaching him as\nprettily as 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's\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\nthose lessons all rise clear and pure out of the everlasting ground of\nall 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\"Dear me!\" said the little girl; \"why, I know you now. You are the very\nsame little chimney-sweep who came into my bedroom.\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" cried Tom. \"And I know you, too, now. You are the very little\nwhite lady whom I saw in bed.\" And he jumped at her, and longed to hug\nand kiss her; but did not, remembering that she was a lady born; so he\nonly jumped round and round her till he was quite tired.\n\nAnd then they began telling each other all their story--how 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\nbegan over again, and I can't 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\nyears; but the truth is, he was not. He had always one thing on his\nmind, and that was--where little Ellie went, when she went home on\nSundays.\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\neven nearest to it, can say least about it, and make people understand\nleast what 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;\nbut, as 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;\nand quite 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\"Miss Ellie,\" he said at last, \"I will know why I cannot go with you\nwhen you go home on Sundays, or I shall have no peace, and give you none\neither.\"\n\n\"You must ask the fairies that.\"\n\nSo when the fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, came next, Tom asked her.\n\n\"Little boys who are only fit to play with sea-beasts cannot go there,\"\nshe said. \"Those 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.\"\n\n\"Why, did Ellie do that?\"\n\n\"Ask her.\"\n\nAnd Ellie blushed, and said, \"Yes, 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--because----\"\n\n\"Because I was all over prickles? But I am not prickly now, am I, Miss\nEllie?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Ellie. \"I like you very much now; and I like coming here,\ntoo.\"\n\n\"And perhaps,\" said the fairy, \"you will learn to like going where you\ndon't like, and helping some one that you don't like, as Ellie has.\"\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't 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,\nand in 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's\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\n[Illustration]\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\nwent to; so that he began not to care for his playmates, or for the\nsea-palace or anything else. But perhaps that made matters all the\neasier for him; for he grew so discontented with everything round him\nthat he did not care to stay, and did not care where he went.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, at last, \"I am so miserable here, I'll go; if only you\nwill go with me?\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Ellie, \"I wish I might; but the worst of it is, that the\nfairy says that you must go alone if you go at all. Now don't poke that\npoor crab about, Tom\" (for he was feeling very naughty and mischievous),\n\"or the fairy will have to punish you.\"\n\nTom was very nearly saying, \"I don't care if she does;\" but he stopped\nhimself in time.\n\n\"I know what she wants me to do,\" he said, whining most dolefully. \"She\nwants me to go after that horrid old Grimes. I don't like him, that's\ncertain. And if I find him, he will turn me into a chimney-sweep again,\nI know. That's what I have been afraid of all along.\"\n\n\"No, he won't--I know as much as that. Nobody can turn water-babies into\nsweeps, or hurt them at all, as long as they are good.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said naughty Tom, \"I 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.\"\n\nLittle Ellie opened her eyes very wide at that, and they were all\nbrimming over with tears.\n\n\"Oh, Tom, Tom!\" she said, very mournfully--and then she cried, \"Oh, Tom!\nwhere are you?\"\n\nAnd Tom cried, \"Oh, Ellie, where are you?\"\n\nFor neither of them could see each other--not 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--which perhaps was the best thing to do--for she came\nin a moment.\n\n\"Oh!\" said Tom. \"Oh, dear, oh dear! I have been naughty to Ellie, and I\nhave killed her--I know I have killed her.\"\n\n\"Not quite that,\" said the fairy; \"but I have sent her away home, and\nshe will not come back again for I do not know how long.\"\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.\n\n\"How cruel of you to send Ellie away!\" sobbed Tom. \"However, I will find\nher again, if I go to the world's end to look for her.\"\n\nThe fairy did not slap Tom, and tell him to hold his tongue: but she\ntook him on her lap very kindly, just as her sister would have done; and\nput him in mind how it was not her fault, because she was wound up\ninside, like watches, and could not help doing things whether she liked\nor not. And then she told him how he had been in the nursery long\nenough, and must go out now and see the world, if he intended ever to be\na man; and how he must go all alone by himself, as every one else that\never was born has to go, and see with his own eyes, and smell with his\nown nose, and make his own bed and lie on it, and burn his own fingers\nif he put them into the fire. And then she told him how many fine things\nthere were to be seen in the world, and what an odd, curious, pleasant,\norderly, respectable, well-managed, and, on the whole, successful (as,\nindeed, might have been expected) sort of a place it was, if people\nwould only be tolerably brave and honest and good in it; and then she\ntold him not to be afraid of anything he met, for nothing would harm him\nif he remembered all his lessons, and did what he knew was right. And at\nlast she comforted poor little Tom so much that he was quite eager to\ngo, and wanted to set out that minute. \"Only,\" he said, \"if I might see\nEllie once before I went!\"\n\n\"Why do you want that?\"\n\n\"Because--because I should be so much happier if I thought she had\nforgiven me.\"\n\nAnd in the twinkling of an eye there stood Ellie, smiling, and looking\nso happy that Tom longed to kiss her; but was still afraid it would not\nbe respectful, because she was a lady born.\n\n\"I am going, Ellie!\" said Tom. \"I am going, if it is to the world's end.\nBut I don't like going at all, and that's the truth.\"\n\n\"Pooh! pooh! pooh!\" said the fairy. \"You will like it very well indeed,\nyou little rogue, and you know that at the bottom of your heart. But if\nyou don't, I will make you like it. Come here, and see what happens to\npeople who do only what is pleasant.\"\n\nAnd she took out of one of her cupboards (she had all sorts of\nmysterious cupboards in the cracks of the rocks) the most wonderful\nwaterproof book, full of such photographs as never were seen. For she\nhad found out photography (and this is a fact) more than 13,598,000\nyears before anybody was born; and, what is more, her photographs did\nnot merely represent light and shade, as ours do, but color also, and\nall colors, as you may see if you look at a blackcock's tail, or a\nbutterfly's wing, or indeed most things that are or can be, so to speak.\nAnd therefore her photographs were very curious and famous, and the\nchildren looked with great delight for the opening of the book.\n\nAnd on the title-page was written, \"The 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' harp all day long.\"\n\n[Illustration]\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\nto be 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' 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\nAnd they sat under the flapdoodle-trees, and let the flapdoodle drop\ninto their mouths; and under the vines, and squeezed the grape-juice\ndown their throats; and, if any little pigs ran about ready roasted,\ncrying, \"Come and eat me,\" as was their fashion in that country, they\nwaited till the pigs ran against their mouths, and then took a bite, and\nwere content, 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\"Well, that is a jolly life,\" said Tom.\n\n\"You think so?\" said the fairy. \"Do you see that great peaked mountain\nthere behind,\" said the fairy, \"with smoke coming out of its top?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And do you see all those ashes, and slag, and cinders lying about?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then turn over the next five hundred years, and you will see what\nhappens next.\"\n\nAnd behold the mountain had blown up like a barrel of gunpowder, and\nthen boiled over like a kettle; whereby one-third of the Doasyoulikes\nwere blown into the air, and another third were smothered in ashes; so\nthat there was only one-third left.\n\n\"You see,\" said the fairy, \"what comes of living on a burning mountain.\"\n\n\"Oh, why did you not warn them?\" said little Ellie.\n\n\"I 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\nof that kind. And, when folks are in that humour, I cannot teach them,\nsave by the good old birch-rod.\"\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\nup once, that is all the more reason that it should not blow up again.\nAnd they were few in number: but they only said, The more the merrier,\nbut the fewer the better fare. However, that was not quite true; for all\nthe flapdoodle-trees were killed by the volcano, and they had eaten all\nthe roast pigs, who, of course, could not be expected to have little\nones. So they had to live very hard, on nuts and roots which they\nscratched out of the ground with sticks. Some of them talked of sowing\ncorn, as their ancestors used to do, before they came into the land of\nReadymade; but they had forgotten how to make ploughs (they had\nforgotten even how to make Jews' harps by this time), and had eaten all\nthe seed-corn which they brought out of the land of Hardwork years\nsince; and of course it was too much trouble to go away and find more.\nSo they lived miserably on roots and nuts, and all the weakly little\nchildren had great stomachaches, and then died.\n\n\"Why,\" said Tom, \"they are growing no better than savages.\"\n\n\"And look how ugly they are all getting,\" said Ellie.\n\n\"Yes; when people live on poor vegetables instead of roast beef and\nplum-pudding, their jaws grow large, and their lips grow coarse, like\nthe poor Paddies who eat potatoes.\"\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\"Why,\" said Ellie, \"the lions seem to have eaten a good many of them,\nfor there are very few left now.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the fairy; \"you see it was only the strongest and most\nactive ones who could climb the trees, and so escape.\"\n\n\"But what great, hulking, broad-shouldered chaps they are,\" said Tom;\n\"they are a rough lot as ever I saw.\"\n\n\"Yes, they are getting very strong now; for the ladies will not marry\nany but the very strongest and fiercest gentlemen, who can help them up\nthe trees out of the lions' way.\"\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\"Yes, and no,\" she said, smiling. \"It 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\nthe rest; and those who are left keep up a regular breed of\ntoe-thumb-men, as a breed of short-horns, or skye-terriers, or fancy\npigeons is kept up.\"\n\n\"But there is a hairy one among them,\" said Ellie.\n\n\"Ah!\" said the fairy, \"that will be a great man in his time, and chief\nof all the tribe.\"\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\nhairy ones could live: all the rest coughed and sneezed, and had sore\nthroats, and went into consumptions, before they could grow up to be men\nand women.\n\nThen the fairy turned over the next five hundred years. And they were\nfewer still.\n\n\"Why, there is one on the ground picking up roots,\" said Ellie, \"and he\ncannot walk upright.\"\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\"Why,\" cried Tom, \"I declare they are all apes.\"\n\n\"Something fearfully like it, poor foolish creatures,\" said the fairy.\n\"They 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 has not wits enough to make\nfresh words for itself. Besides, they are grown so fierce and suspicious\nand brutal that they keep out of each other's way, and mope and sulk in\nthe dark forests, never hearing each other's 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.\"\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, \"Am I not a man and a brother?\" 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 \"Ubboboo!\" and died.\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\nsad and solemn; and they had good reason so to do, for they really\nfancied that the men were apes, and never thought, in their simplicity,\nof asking whether the creatures had hippopotamus majors in their brains\nor not; in which case, as you have been told already, they could not\npossibly have been apes, though they were more apish than the apes of\nall aperies.\n\n\"But could you not have saved them from becoming apes?\" said little\nEllie, at last.\n\n\"At 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.\"\n\n\"And where are they all now?\" asked Ellie.\n\n\"Exactly where they ought to be, my dear.\"\n\n\"Yes!\" said the fairy, solemnly, half to herself, as she closed the\nwonderful book. \"Folks say now that I can make beasts into men, by\ncircumstances, 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 circumstances,\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.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear me!\" said Tom; \"sooner than that, and be all over slime, I'll\ngo this minute, if it is to the world's end.\"\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\n\"NOW,\" said Tom, \"I am ready to be off, if it's to the world's end.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said the fairy, \"that is a brave, good boy. But you must go\nfarther than the world's 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's Haven, where the good whales go when they die. And\nthere Mother Carey will tell you the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere,\nand there you will find Mr. Grimes.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear!\" said Tom. \"But I do not know my way to Shiny Wall, or where\nit is at all.\"\n\n\"Little boys must take the trouble to find out things for themselves,\nor they will never grow to be men; so that you must ask all the beasts\nin the sea and the birds in the air, and if you have been good to them,\nsome of them will tell you the way to Shiny Wall.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Tom, \"it 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.\"\n\n\"I know you must,\" said Ellie; \"but you will not forget me, Tom. I shall\nwait here till you come.\"\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\nhis head 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--a 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\nthought it time to move. Then he watched the sailors upon deck, and the\nladies, with their bonnets and parasols: but none of them could see him,\nbecause their eyes were not opened--as, indeed, most people's eyes are\nnot.\n\nAt last there came out into the quarter-gallery a very pretty lady, in\ndeep black widow's weeds, and in her arms a baby. She leaned over the\nquarter-gallery, and looked back and back toward England far away; and\nas she looked she sang:\n\n\nI.\n\n            \"_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\nII.\n\n            \"_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._\"\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's wake, lo! and behold, the baby saw Tom.\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\"What do you see, my darling?\" said the lady; and her eyes followed the\nbaby's 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\"Babies in the sea? Well, perhaps it is the happiest place for them;\"\nand waved her hand to Tom, and cried, \"Wait a little, darling, only a\nlittle: and perhaps we shall go with you and be at rest.\"\n\n[Illustration]\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[Illustration]\n\n\"If 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't, as ladies of old houses are likely to do.\"\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\nhe was horribly ugly, and strangely bedizened too, like the old dandies\nwho lounge in the club-house windows.\n\nBut just as Tom had thanked him and set off, he called after him: \"Hi! I\nsay, can you fly?\"\n\n\"I never tried,\" says Tom. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Because, if you can, I should advise you to say nothing to the old lady\nabout it. There; take a hint. Good-bye.\"\n\nAnd away Tom went for seven days and seven nights due north-west, till\nhe came 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\nAnd there he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing up on the\nAllalonestone, 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\nhigh bridge to her nose (which is a sure mark of high breeding), and a\nlarge pair of white spectacles on it, which made her look rather odd:\nbut it was 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--\n\n          \"_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          \"_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._\"\n\nIt was \"flew\" away, properly, and not \"swam\" 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\nshe said was--\n\n\"Have you wings? Can you fly?\"\n\n\"Oh, dear, no, ma'am; I should not think of such a thing,\" said cunning\nlittle Tom.\n\n\"Then 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.\"\n\nAnd so she was running on, while Tom tried to get in a word edgeways;\nand at last he did, when the old lady got out of breath, and began\nfanning herself again; and then he asked if she knew the way to Shiny\nWall.\n\n\"Shiny Wall? Who should know better than I? We all came from Shiny Wall,\nthousands of years ago, when it was decently cold, and the climate was\nfit 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's hunting is all spoilt, and one really cannot get one's\nliving, or hardly venture off the rock for fear of being flown against\nby some creature that would not have dared to come within a mile of one\na thousand years ago--what 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--why, 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\ndrive us along the plank by hundreds, till we tumbled down into the\nship's waist in heaps; and then, I suppose, they ate us, the nasty\nfellows! Well--but--what was I saying? At last, there were none of us\nleft, except on the old Gairfowlskerry, just off the Iceland coast, up\nwhich no man could climb. Even there we had no peace; for one day, when\nI was quite a young girl, the land rocked, and the sea boiled, and the\nsky grew dark, and all the air was filled with smoke and dust, and down\ntumbled the old Gairfowlskerry into the sea. The dovekies and marrocks,\nof course, all flew away; but we were too proud to do that. Some of us\nwere dashed to pieces, and some drowned; and those who were left got\naway to Eldey, and the dovekies tell me they are all dead now, and that\nanother Gairfowlskerry has risen out of the sea close to the old one,\nbut that it is such a poor flat place that it is not safe to live on:\nand so here I am left alone.\"\n\nThis was the Gairfowl's story, and, strange as it may seem, it is every\nword of it true.\n\n\"If you only had had wings!\" said Tom; \"then you might all have flown\naway too.\"\n\n\"Yes, young gentleman: and if people are not gentlemen and ladies, and\nforget that _noblesse oblige_, they will find it as easy to get on in\nthe world as other people who don't care what they do. Why, if I had not\nrecollected that _noblesse oblige_, I should not have been all alone\nnow.\" And the poor old lady sighed.\n\n\"How was that, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Why, my dear, a gentleman came hither with me, and after we had been\nhere some time, he wanted to marry--in fact, he actually proposed to me.\nWell, I can't blame him; I was young, and very handsome then, I don't\ndeny: but, you see, I could not hear of such a thing, because he was my\ndeceased sister's husband, you see?\"\n\n\"Of course not, ma'am,\" said Tom; though, of course, he knew nothing\nabout it. \"She was very much diseased, I suppose?\"\n\n\"You 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,\nand--really, it was very unfortunate, but it was not my fault--a shark\ncoming by saw him flapping, and snapped him up. And since then I have\nlived all alone----\n\n          '_With a fal-lal-la-lady._'\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.\"\n\n\"But, please, which is the way to Shiny Wall?\" said Tom.\n\n\"Oh, you must go, my little dear--you must go. Let me see--I am\nsure--that is--really, my poor old brains are getting quite puzzled. Do\nyou know, my little dear, I am afraid, if you want to know, you must ask\nsome of these vulgar birds about, for I have quite forgotten.\"\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's end\nwhom to ask.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nBut by there came a flock of petrels, who are Mother Carey's 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\"Shiny Wall? Do you want Shiny Wall? Then come with us, and we will show\nyou. We are Mother Carey's own chickens, and she sends us out over all\nthe seas, to show the good birds the way home.\"\n\nTom was delighted, and swam off to them, after he had made his bow to\nthe Gairfowl. But she would not return his bow: but held herself bolt\nupright, and wept tears of oil as she sang:\n\n          \"_And so the poor stone was left all alone;\n                With a fal-lal-la-lady._\"\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\nher place; and when Tom comes he will see the fishing-smacks anchored\nthere in hundreds, from Scotland, and from Ireland, and from the\nOrkneys, and the Shetlands, and from all the Northern ports, full of\nthe children of the old Norse Vikings, the masters of the sea. And the\nmen will be hauling in the great cod by thousands, till their hands are\nsore from the lines; and they will be making cod-liver oil and guano,\nand salting down the fish; and there will be a man-of-war steamer there\nto protect them, and a lighthouse to show them the way; and you and I,\nperhaps, shall go some day to the Allalonestone to the great summer\nsea-fair, and dredge strange creatures such as man never saw before; and\nwe shall hear the sailors boast that it is not the worst jewel in Queen\nVictoria's crown, for there are eighty miles of codbank, and food for\nall the poor folk in the land. That is what Tom will see, and perhaps\nyou and I shall see it too. And then we shall not be sorry, because we\ncannot get a Gairfowl to stuff, much less find Gairfowl enough to drive\nthem into stone pens and slaughter them, as the old Norsemen did, or\ndrive them on board along a plank till the ship was victualled with\nthem, as the old English and French rovers used to do, of whom dear old\nHakluyt tells: but we shall remember what Mr. Tennyson says how\n\n          \"_The old order changeth, giving place to the new,\n            And God fulfils himself in many ways._\"\n\nAnd now Tom was all agog to start for Shiny Wall; but the petrels said\nnot. 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\nthere and shoot the birds, and stuff them, and put them into stupid\nmuseums, instead of leaving them to play and breed and work in Mother\nCarey's water-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\nCambridgeshire. And they made such a noise, that Tom came on shore and\nwent up to see what was the matter.\n\nAnd there he found them holding their great caucus, which they hold\nevery year in the North; and all their stump-orators were speechifying;\nand for a tribune, the speaker stood on an old sheep's skull.\n\nAnd they cawed and cawed, and boasted of all the clever things they had\ndone; how many lambs' 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's particularly clever\nfeat, of which he is as proud as a gipsy is of doing the hokanybaro; and\nwhat that is, I won't 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\nno grouse-eggs, and had actually dared to say that she would not steal\nany. So she was to be tried publicly by their laws (for the hoodies\nalways try some offenders in their great yearly parliament). And there\nshe stood in the middle, in her black gown and gray hood, looking as\nmeek and as neat as a Quakeress, and they all bawled at her at once--\n\nAnd it was in vain that she pleaded--\n\n  _That she did not like grouse eggs;\n   That she could get her living very well without them;\n   That she was afraid to eat them, for fear of the gamekeepers;\n   That she had not the heart to eat them, because the grouse\n          were such pretty, kind, jolly birds;\n   And a dozen reasons more._\n\nFor all the other scaul-crows set upon her, and pecked her to death\nthere and then, before Tom could come to help her; and then flew away,\nvery proud 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?--on\nwhich they all set to work, pecking and gobbling and cawing and\nquarrelling to their hearts' 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 gamekeeper\nin a dream, to fill the dead dog full of strychnine; and so he did.\n\nAnd after a while the birds began to gather at Allfowlsness, in\nthousands and tens of thousands, blackening all the air; swans and brant\ngeese, harlequins and eiders, harolds and garganeys, smews and\ngossanders, divers and loons, grebes and dovekies, auks and razor-bills,\ngannets and petrels, skuas and terns, with gulls beyond all naming or\nnumbering; and they paddled and washed and splashed and combed and\nbrushed themselves on the sand, till the shore was white with feathers;\nand they quacked and clucked and gabbled and chattered and screamed and\nwhooped as they talked over matters with their friends, and settled\nwhere they were to go and breed that summer, till you might have heard\nthem ten miles off; and lucky it was for them that there was no one to\nhear them but the old keeper, who lived all alone upon the Ness, in a\nturf hut thatched with heather and fringed round with great stones slung\nacross the roof by bent-ropes, lest the winter gales should blow the\nhut right away. But he never minded the birds nor hurt them, because\nthey were not in season; indeed, he minded but two things in the whole\nworld and those were his Bible and his grouse; for he was as good an old\nScotchman as ever knit stockings on a winter's night: only, when all the\nbirds were going, he toddled out, and took off his cap to them, and\nwished them a merry journey and a safe return; and then gathered up all\nthe feathers which they had left, and cleaned them to sell down south,\nand make feather-beds for stuffy people to lie on.\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\nIceland, and 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's 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\nsky; and their cry was like ten thousand packs of hounds, and ten\nthousand peals of bells. Only the puffins stayed behind, and killed the\nyoung rabbits 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\nsteam; and now the steam was coming, as much in an hour as ought to have\ncome in a week, puffing and roaring and swishing and swirling, till you\ncould not see where the sky ended and the sea began. But Tom and the\npetrels never cared, for the gale was right abaft, and away they went\nover the crests of the billows, as merry as so many flying-fish.\n\nAnd at last they saw an ugly sight--the black side of a great ship,\nwater-logged 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's arms.\n\n[Illustration]\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's 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\nwanted to help the baby, and did not want to throw the poor dog\noverboard: but as they were struggling, there came a tall green sea, and\nwalked in over the weather side of the ship, and swept them all into the\nwaves.\n\n\"Oh, the baby, the baby!\" 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\nup from below, and carry baby and cradle gently down in their soft arms;\nand then he knew it was all right, and that there would be a new\nwater-baby in St. Brandan's Isle.\n\nAnd the poor little 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's\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\"These are the fellows to show you the way,\" said Mother Carey's\nchickens; \"we cannot help you farther north. We don't like to get among\nthe ice pack, for fear it should nip our toes: but the mollys dare fly\nanywhere.\"\n\nSo the petrels called to the mollys: but they were so busy and greedy,\ngobbling and pecking and spluttering and fighting over the blubber,\nthat they did not take the least notice.\n\n\"Come, come,\" said the petrels, \"you lazy greedy lubbers, this young\ngentleman is going to Mother Carey, and if you don't attend on him, you\nwon't earn your discharge from her, you know.\"\n\n\"Greedy we are,\" says a great fat old molly, \"but lazy we ain't; and, as\nfor lubbers, we're no more lubbers than you. Let's have a look at the\nlad.\"\n\nAnd he flapped right into Tom's face, and stared at him in the most\nimpudent way (for the mollys are audacious fellows, as all whalers\nknow), and then asked him where he hailed from, and what land he sighted\nlast.\n\nAnd, when Tom told him, he seemed pleased, and said he was a good\nplucked one to have got so far.\n\n\"Come along, lads,\" he said to the rest, \"and give this little chap a\ncast over the pack, for Mother Carey's sake. We've eaten blubber enough\nfor today, and we'll e'en work out a bit of our time by helping the\nlad.\"\n\nSo the mollys took Tom up on their backs, and flew off with him,\nlaughing and joking--and oh, how they did smell of train oil!\n\n\"Who are you, you jolly birds?\" asked Tom.\n\n\"We 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's blubber all our days. But lubbers we are\nnone, and could sail a ship now against any man in the North seas,\nthough we don't hold with this new-fangled steam. And it's a shame of\nthose black imps of petrels to call us so; but because they're her\ngrace's pets, they think they may say anything they like.\"\n\n\"And who are you?\" asked Tom of him, for he saw that he was the king of\nall the birds.\n\n\"My name is Hendrick Hudson, and a right good skipper was I; and my name\nwill last to the world's end, in spite of all the wrong I did. For I\ndiscovered Hudson River and I named Hudson's 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's 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'm the king of all mollys,\ntill I've worked out my time.\"\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,\nand leapt upon each other's backs, and ground each other to powder, so\nthat Tom was afraid to venture among them, lest he should be ground to\npowder too. And he was the more afraid, when he saw lying among the ice\npack the 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\nover the pack and the roaring ice giants, and set them down at the foot\nof Shiny Wall.\n\n\"And where is the gate?\" asked Tom.\n\n\"There is no gate,\" said the mollys.\n\n\"No gate?\" cried Tom, aghast.\n\n\"None; never a crack of one, and that's the whole of the secret, as\nbetter fellows, lad, than you have found to their cost; and if there had\nbeen, they'd have killed by now every right whale that swims the seas.\"\n\n\"What am I to do, then?\"\n\n\"Dive under the floe, to be sure, if you have pluck.\"\n\n\"I've not come so far to turn now,\" said Tom; \"so here goes for a\nheader.\"\n\n\"A lucky voyage to you, lad,\" said the mollys; \"we knew you were one of\nthe right sort. So good-bye.\"\n\n\"Why don't you come too?\" asked Tom.\n\nBut the mollys only wailed sadly, \"We can't go yet, we can't go yet,\"\nand flew 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? He\nwas 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\nround his head. There were moths with pink heads and wings and opal\nbodies, that flapped about slowly; moths with brown wings that flapped\nabout quickly; yellow shrimps that hopped and skipped most quickly of\nall; and jellies of all the colours in the world, that neither hopped\nnor skipped, but only dawdled and yawned, and would not get out of his\nway. The dog snapped at them till his jaws were tired; but Tom hardly\nminded them at all, he was so eager to get to the top of the water, and\nsee the pool where 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 stones and galleries, in which\nthe ice-fairies live, and drive away the storms and clouds, that Mother\nCarey's pool may lie calm from year's end to year's 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's 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\nno more 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\nthere they butt each other with their ugly noses, day and night from\nyear's end to year's end.\n\n[Illustration]\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\nharpoon and lance them. They were quite safe and happy there; and all\nthey had to do was to wait quietly in Peacepool, till Mother Carey sent\nfor them to 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\"There she sits in the middle,\" 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\"That's Mother Carey,\" said the whale, \"as you will find when you get to\nher. There she sits making old beasts into new all the year round.\"\n\n\"How does she do that?\"\n\n\"That's her concern, not mine,\" 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' heads, a string of salpae 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 Caesar.\n\n\"I suppose,\" said Tom, \"she cuts up a great whale like you into a whole\nshoal of porpoises?\"\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--a white marble lady, sitting on a white marble throne.\nAnd from the foot of the throne there swum away, out and out into the\nsea, millions of new-born creatures, of more shapes and colours than man\never dreamed. And they were Mother Carey's children, whom she makes out\nof the sea-water all day long.\n\nHe expected, of course--like some grown people who ought to know\nbetter--to find her snipping, piecing, fitting, stitching, cobbling,\nbasting, filing, planing, hammering, turning, polishing, moulding,\nmeasuring, chiselling, clipping, and so forth, as men do when they go to\nwork to make 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--for she was very very\nold--in 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\"What do you want, my little man? It is long since I have seen a\nwater-baby here.\"\n\nTom told her his errand, and asked the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.\n\n\"You ought to know yourself, for you have been there already.\"\n\n\"Have I, ma'am? I'm sure I forget all about it.\"\n\n\"Then look at me.\" And, as Tom looked into her great blue eyes, he\nrecollected the way perfectly.\n\nNow, was not that strange?\n\n\"Thank you, ma'am,\" said Tom. \"Then I won't trouble your ladyship any\nmore; I hear you are very busy.\"\n\n\"I am never more busy than I am now,\" she said, without stirring a\nfinger.\n\n\"I heard, ma'am, that you were always making new beasts out of old.\"\n\n\"So people fancy. But I am not going to trouble myself to make things,\nmy little dear. I sit here and make them make themselves.\"\n\n\"You are a clever fairy, indeed,\" thought Tom. And he was quite right.\n\nThat is a grand trick of good old Mother Carey's, 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't mean sham ones; no: but real live\nones, which would fly, and eat, and lay eggs, and do everything that\nthey ought; and she was so proud of her skill that she went flying\nstraight off to the North Pole, to boast to Mother Carey how she could\nmake butterflies.\n\nBut Mother Carey laughed.\n\n\"Know, silly child,\" she said, \"that 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.\"\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\"And now, my pretty little man,\" said Mother Carey, \"you are sure you\nknow the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere?\"\n\nTom thought; and behold, he had forgotten it utterly.\n\n\"That is because you took your eyes off me.\"\n\nTom looked at her again, and recollected; and then looked away, and\nforgot in an instant.\n\n\"But what am I to do, ma'am? For I can't keep looking at you when I am\nsomewhere else.\"\n\n\"You 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.\"\n\n\"Backward!\" cried Tom. \"Then I shall not be able to see my way.\"\n\n\"On 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't go wrong, then you will\nknow what is coming next, as plainly as if you saw it in a\nlooking-glass.\"\n\nTom was very much astonished: but he obeyed her, for he had learnt\nalways to believe what the fairies told him.\n\nHe was very sorely tried; for though, by keeping the dog to heels (or\nrather to toes, for he had to walk backward), he could see pretty well\nwhich way the dog was hunting, yet it was much slower work to go\nbackwards than to go forwards. But, what was more trying still, no\nsooner had he got out of Peacepool, than there came running to him all\nthe conjurors, fortune-tellers, astrologers, prophesiers, projectors,\nprestigiators, as many as were in those parts (and there are too many of\nthem everywhere), all bawling and screaming at him, \"Look a-head, only\nlook a-head; and we will show you what man never saw before, and right\naway to the end of the world!\"\n\nBut I am proud to say that Tom was such a little dogged, hard, gnarly,\nfoursquare brick of an English boy, that he never turned his head round\nonce all the way from Peacepool to the Other-end-of-Nowhere: but kept\nhis eye on the dog, and let him pick out the scent, hot or cold,\nstraight or crooked, wet or dry, up hill or down dale; by which means he\nnever made a single mistake, and saw all the wonderful and hitherto\nby-no-mortal-man-imagined things, which it is my duty to relate to you\nin the next chapter.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII AND LAST\n\n\nHERE begins the never-to-be-too-much-studied account of the\nnine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth part of the wonderful things which Tom saw\non his journey to the Other-end-of-Nowhere; which all good little\nchildren 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\nbake, till it has risen and hardened into mountain-loaves and\nisland-cakes.\n\nAnd there Tom was very near being kneaded up in the world-pap, and\nturned into a fossil water-baby; which would have astonished the\nGeological Society of New Zealand some hundreds of thousands of years\nhence.\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,\nand whales, 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\nthe world at once; so clear, indeed, that it was quite light at moments;\nand Tom could see almost up to the top of the water above, and down\nbelow into 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\nrushed up, rasped away the sides of the hole, and hurled it up into the\nsea in a shower of mud and gravel and ashes; and then it spread all\naround, and sank again and covered in the dead fish so fast, that before\nTom had stood there five minutes he was buried in silt up to his ankles,\nand began to be afraid that he should have been buried alive.\n\nAnd perhaps he would have been, but that while he was thinking, the\nwhole piece of ground on which he stood was torn off and blown upwards,\nand away flew Tom a mile up through the sea, wondering what was coming\nnext.\n\nAt last he stopped--thump! and found himself tight in the legs of the\nmost wonderful bogy which he had ever seen.\n\nIt had I don't 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\nmadre-poriform 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\"What do you want here,\" it cried quite peevishly, \"getting in my way?\"\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\"I am too old to be taken in in that way. You are come after gold--I\nknow you are.\"\n\n\"Gold! What is gold?\" 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\nsilver, and from another copper, and from another tin, and from another\nlead, and so on, and sank into the soft mud, into veins and cracks, and\nhardened there. Whereby it comes to pass that the rocks are full of\nmetal.\n\nBut, all of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam below, and the hole\nwas left empty in an instant: and then down rushed the water into the\nhole, in such a whirlpool that the bogy spun round and round as fast as\na teetotum. But that was all in his day's work, like a fair fall with\nthe hounds; so all he did was to say to Tom--\n\n\"Now is your time, youngster, to get down, if you are in earnest, which\nI don't believe.\"\n\n\"You'll soon see,\" 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\nin the 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\nbooks out of bad ones, and thrashing chaff to save the dust of it; and a\nvery good 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, and full of deep cracks and holes choked with wind-fallen\nfruit, and green goose-berries, and sloes, and crabs, and whinberries,\nand hips and haws, and all the nasty things which little children will\neat, if they can get them. But the fairies hide them out of the way in\nthat country as fast as they can, and very hard work they have, and of\nvery little use it is. For as fast as they hide away the old trash,\nfoolish and wicked people make fresh trash full of lime and poisonous\npaints, and actually go and steal receipts out of old Madame Science's\nbig book to invent poisons for little children, and sell them at wakes\nand fairs and tuck-shops. Very well. Let them go on. Dr. Letheby and Dr.\nHassall cannot catch them, though they are setting traps for them all\nday long. But the Fairy with the birch-rod will catch them all in time,\nand make them begin at one corner of their shops, and eat their way out\nat the other: by which time they will have got such stomachaches as will\ncure them of poisoning little children.\n\nThen came Tom to the great land of Hearsay.\n\nWhen 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't know what: only the land being an\nisland, and they having a dislike to the water (being a musty lot for\nthe most part), they ran round and round the shore for ever, which was\nhard work.\n\n[Illustration]\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\nwith wire and Canada balsam; and smelt strongly of spirits, though he\nnever drank anything but water: but spirits he used somehow, there was\nno denying. 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,--\n\n\"What? who are you? And you actually don't run away, like all the rest?\"\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\"No, no, no!\" said Tom, \"I've not been round the world, and through the\nworld, and up to Mother Carey's haven, beside being caught in a net and\ncalled a Holothurian and a Cephalopod, to be bottled up by any old giant\nlike you.\"\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\"Ah, you lucky little dog!\" said he at last, quite simply--for he was\nthe simplest, pleasantest, honestest, kindliest old Dominie Sampson of a\ngiant that ever turned the world upside down without intending it--\"ah,\nyou lucky little dog! If I had only been where you have been, to see\nwhat you have seen!\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Tom, \"if 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.\"\n\n\"Turn 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't; I can't be a little child again; and I suppose if I could,\nit would be no use, because then I should know nothing about what was\nhappening to me. Ah, you lucky little dog!\" said the poor old giant.\n\n\"But why do you run after all these poor people?\" said Tom, who liked\nthe giant very much.\n\n\"My dear, it's 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--goodness only\nknows what they mean, for I never read poetry--and hunting me round and\nround--though catch me they can't, 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: only\nsomehow they are so strangely afraid of hearing it. But, I suppose I am\nnot a man of the world, and have no tact.\"\n\n\"But why don't you turn round and tell them so?\"\n\n\"Because I can't. You see, I must go backwards, if I am to go at all.\"\n\n\"But why don't you stop, and let them come up to you?\"\n\n\"Why, 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't intend\nto do that, my dear; for I have a destiny before me, they say: though\nwhat it is I don't know, and don't care.\"\n\n\"Don't care?\" said Tom.\n\n\"No. 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.\"\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\ncried--\n\n\"An entirely new Oniscus, and three obscure Podurellae! Besides a moth\nwhich M. le Roi des Papillons (though he, like all Frenchmen, is given\nto hasty inductions) says is confined to the limits of the Glacial\nDrift. This is most important!\"\n\nAnd down he sat on the nave of the temple (not being a man of the world)\nto examine his Podurellae. 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\"Dear me! This is even more important! Here is a cognate species to that\nwhich Macgilliwaukie Brown insists is confined to the Buddhist temples\nof Little Thibet; and now when I look at it, it may be only a variety\nproduced by difference of climate!\"\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\"Well,\" thought Tom, \"this is a very pretty quarrel, with a good deal to\nbe said on both sides. But it is no business of mine.\"\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\nlittle children. And then, as Shakespeare says (and therefore it must be\ntrue)--\n\n          \"_Jack shall have Gill\n            Nought shall go ill\n            The man shall have his mare again, and all go well._\"\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' ears, or drowning kittens:\nbut when he came nearer still, he began to hear words among the noise;\nwhich was the Tomtoddies' song which they sing morning and evening, and\nall night too, to their great idol Examination--\n\n          \"_I can't learn my lessons: the examiner's coming!_\"\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, \"Playthings not allowed here;\" 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\nof them. Those which were left began crying to Tom, in half a dozen\ndifferent languages at once, and all of them badly spoken, \"I can't\nlearn my lesson; do come and help me!\"\n\n\"And what good on earth will it do you if I did tell you?\" quoth Tom.\n\nWell, they didn't 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, \"Can\nyou tell me anything at all about anything you like?\"\n\n\"About what?\" says Tom.\n\n\"About 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.\"\n\nTom told him that he did not know general information: but he could tell\nhim a great many strange things which he had seen in his travels.\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\n[Illustration]\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\nstreamed down all over with juice, and split and shrank till nothing was\nleft of him but rind and water; whereat Tom ran away in a fright, for he\nthought he might be taken up for killing the turnip.\n\nBut, on the contrary, the turnip's parents were highly delighted, and\nconsidered him a saint and a martyr, and put up a long inscription over\nhis tomb about his wonderful talents, early development, and\nunparalleled precocity. Were they not a foolish couple? But there was a\nstill more foolish couple next to them, who were beating a wretched\nlittle radish, no bigger than my thumb, for sullenness and obstinacy and\nwilful stupidity, and never knew that the reason why it couldn't learn\nor hardly even speak was, that there was a great worm inside it eating\nout all its brains. But even they are no foolisher than some hundred\nscore of papas and mammas, who fetch the rod when they ought to fetch a\nnew toy, and send to the dark cupboard instead of to the doctor.\n\nTom was so puzzled and frightened with all he saw, that he was longing\nto ask 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\"You see,\" said the stick, \"there were as pretty little children once as\nyou could wish to see, and might have been so still if they had been\nonly left to grow up like human beings, and then handed over to me; but\ntheir foolish fathers and mothers, instead of letting them pick flowers,\nand make dirt-pies, and get birds' 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--till 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.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Tom, \"if 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.\"\n\n\"It would be no use,\" said the stick. \"They can't play now, if they\ntried. Don't 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\ninto the 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's\nchamber, examining all little boys, and the little boys' tutors\nlikewise. But when he is thrashed--so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has promised\nme--I shall have the thrashing of him: and if I don't lay it on with a\nwill it's a pity.\"\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's shoulders, like the Scribes and Pharisees of\nold, and not touching the same with one of his fingers; for he had\nplenty of money, and a fine house to live in, and so forth; which was\nmore than the 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\nbe blown into the air, dog and all.\n\nAs he went down to the shore he passed the poor turnip's 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:--\n\n          \"_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._\"\n\nSo Tom jumped into the sea, and swam on his way.\n\nAnd next he came to Oldwivesfabledom, where the folks were all heathens,\nand worshipped a howling ape.\n\nAnd there he found a little boy sitting in the middle of the road, and\ncrying bitterly.\n\n\"What are you crying for?\" said Tom.\n\n\"Because I am not as frightened as I could wish to be.\"\n\n\"Not frightened? You are a queer little chap: but, if you want to be\nfrightened, here goes--Boo!\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said the little boy, \"that is very kind of you; but I don't feel\nthat it has made any impression.\"\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\nproper to use himself; and cried on till his papa and mamma came, and\nsent off for the Powwow man immediately. And a very good-natured\ngentleman and lady they were, though they were heathens; and talked\nquite pleasantly to Tom about his travels, till the Powwow man arrived,\nwith his thunderbox under his arm.\n\nAnd a well-fed, ill-favoured gentleman he was. Tom was a little\nfrightened at first; for he thought it was Grimes. But he soon saw his\nmistake: for Grimes always looked a man in the face; and this fellow\nnever did. And when he spoke, it was fire and smoke; and when he\nsneezed, it was squibs and crackers; and when he cried (which he did\nwhenever it paid him), it was boiling pitch; and some of it was sure to\nstick.\n\n\"Here we are again!\" cried he, like the clown in a pantomime. \"So you\ncan't feel frightened, my little dear--eh? I'll do that for you. I'll\nmake an impression on you! Yah! Boo! Whirroo! Hullabaloo!\"\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\nwore two swords and a blue button; and the mother was as pretty a lady\nas ever had pinched feet like a Chinese. But, you see, they had chosen\nto do a foolish 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't you wish that some one would go and convert those poor\nheathens, and teach them not to frighten their little children into\nfits?\n\n\"Now, then,\" said the Powwow man to Tom, \"wouldn't you like to be\nfrightened, my little dear? For I can see plainly that you are a very\nwicked, naughty, graceless, reprobate boy.\"\n\n\"You're another,\" quoth Tom, very sturdily. And when the man ran at him,\nand cried \"Boo!\" Tom ran at him in return, and cried \"Boo!\" 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 \"Woof!\" like an old sow on the common; and ran for his life,\nscreaming, \"Help! 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\nthunder-showers in the land. Help! help! help!\"\n\n[Illustration]\n\nAt which the papa and mamma and all the people of Oldwivesfabledom flew\nat Tom, shouting, \"Oh, the wicked, impudent, hard-hearted, graceless\nboy! Beat him, kick him, shoot him, drown him, hang him, burn him!\" and\nso forth: but luckily they had nothing to shoot, hang, or burn him with,\nfor the fairies had hid all the killing-tackle out of the way a little\nwhile before; so they could only pelt him with stones; and some of the\nstones went clean through him, and came out the other side. But he did\nnot mind that a bit; for the holes closed up again as fast as they were\nmade, because he was a water-baby. However, he was very glad when he was\nsafe out 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\nup in their own Crystal Palace for any one to buy who could afford it;\nwhile the good old sea never grudged, for she knew they would pay her\nback honestly. So the sun span, and the wind wove, and all went well\nwith the great steam-loom; as is likely, considering--and\nconsidering--and considering--\n\nAnd at last, after innumerable adventures, each more wonderful than the\nlast, he saw before him a huge building.\n\nTom walked towards this great building, wondering what it was, and\nhaving a strange fancy that he might find Mr. Grimes inside it, till he\nsaw running toward him, and shouting \"Stop!\" three or four people, who,\nwhen they came nearer, were nothing else than policemen's truncheons,\nrunning along without legs or arms.\n\nTom was not astonished. He was long past that. Besides, he had seen the\nnaviculae 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's pass; and the truncheon looked at it\nin the oddest fashion; for he had one eye in the middle of his upper\nend, so that when he looked at anything, being quite stiff, he had to\nslope himself, and poke himself, till it was a wonder why he did not\ntumble over; but, being quite full of the spirit of justice (as all\npolicemen, and their truncheons, ought to be), he was always in a\nposition of stable equilibrium, whichever way he put himself.\n\n\"All right--pass on,\" said he at last. And then he added: \"I had better\ngo with you, young man.\" And Tom had no objection, for such company was\nboth respectable and safe; so the truncheon coiled its thong neatly\nround its handle, to prevent tripping itself up--for the thong had got\nloose in running--and marched on by Tom's side.\n\n\"Why have you no policeman to carry you?\" asked Tom, after a while.\n\n\"Because 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.\"\n\n\"Then why have you a thong to your handle?\" asked Tom.\n\n\"To hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are off duty.\"\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\"What case is this?\" he asked in a deep voice, out of his broad bell\nmouth.\n\n\"If you please, sir, it is no case; only a young gentleman from her\nladyship, who wants to see Grimes, the master-sweep.\"\n\n\"Grimes?\" said the blunderbuss. And he pulled in his muzzle, perhaps to\nlook over his prison-lists.\n\n\"Grimes is up chimney No. 345,\" he said from inside. \"So the young\ngentleman had better go on to the roof.\"\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\nto the truncheon, it settled the matter in a moment. For it whisked\nround, and gave him such a shove behind as sent him up to the roof in no\ntime, with 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\"Very good,\" it said. \"Come 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.\"\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\nbleared, and ugly, that Tom could hardly bear to look at him. And in\nhis mouth was a pipe; but it was not alight; though he was pulling at it\nwith all his might.\n\n\"Attention, Mr. Grimes,\" said the truncheon, \"here is a gentleman come\nto see you.\"\n\nBut Mr. Grimes only said bad words; and kept grumbling, \"My pipe won't\ndraw. My pipe won't draw.\"\n\n\"Keep a civil tongue, and attend!\" said the truncheon; and popped up\njust like Punch, hitting Grimes such a crack over the head with itself,\nthat his brains rattled inside like a dried walnut in its shell. He\ntried to get his hands out, and rub the place: but he could not, for\nthey were stuck fast in the chimney. Now he was forced to attend.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\"Hey!\" he said, \"why, it's Tom! I suppose you have come here to laugh at\nme, you spiteful little atomy?\"\n\nTom assured him he had not, but only wanted to help him.\n\n\"I don't want anything except beer, and that I can't get; and a light\nto this bothering pipe, and that I can't get either.\"\n\n\"I'll get you one,\" said Tom; and he took up a live coal (there were\nplenty lying about) and put it to Grimes' pipe: but it went out\ninstantly.\n\n\"It's no use,\" said the truncheon, leaning itself up against the chimney\nand looking on. \"I 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.\"\n\n\"Oh, of course, it's my fault. Everything's always my fault,\" said\nGrimes. \"Now don't go to hit me again\" (for the truncheon started\nupright, and looked very wicked); \"you know, if my arms were only free,\nyou daren't hit me then.\"\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\"But can't I help you in any other way? Can't I help you to get out of\nthis chimney?\" said Tom.\n\n\"No,\" interposed the truncheon; \"he has come to the place where\neverybody must help themselves; and he will find it out, I hope, before\nhe has done with me.\"\n\n[Illustration: _Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby_]\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Grimes, \"of course it's 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\nshamefully clogged up with soot? Did I ask to stay here--I don't know\nhow long--a hundred years, I do believe, and never get my pipe, nor my\nbeer, nor nothing fit for a beast, let alone a man?\"\n\n\"No,\" answered a solemn voice behind. \"No more did Tom, when you behaved\nto him in the very same way.\"\n\nIt was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. And, when the truncheon saw her, it\nstarted bolt upright--Attention!--and made such a low bow, that if it\nhad not been full of the spirit of justice, it must have trembled on its\nend, and probably hurt its one eye. And Tom made his bow too.\n\n\"Oh, ma'am,\" he said, \"don't think about me; that's all past and gone,\nand good times and bad times and all times pass over. But may not I help\npoor Mr. Grimes? Mayn't I try and get some of these bricks away, that he\nmay move his arms?\"\n\n\"You may try, of course,\" she said.\n\nSo Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks: but he could not move one.\nAnd then he tried to wipe Mr. Grimes' face: but the soot would not come\noff.\n\n\"Oh, dear!\" he said. \"I have come all this way, through all these\nterrible places, to help you, and now I am of no use at all.\"\n\n\"You had best leave me alone,\" said Grimes; \"you are a good-natured\nforgiving little chap, and that's truth; but you'd best be off. The\nhail's coming on soon, and it will beat the eyes out of your little\nhead.\"\n\n\"What hail?\"\n\n\"Why, hail that falls every evening here; and, till it comes close to\nme, it's like so much warm rain: but then it turns to hail over my head,\nand knocks me about like small shot.\"\n\n\"That hail will never come any more,\" said the strange lady. \"I have\ntold you before what it was. It was your mother's tears, those which she\nshed when she prayed for you by her bedside; but your cold heart froze\nit into hail. But she is gone to heaven now, and will weep no more for\nher graceless son.\"\n\nThen Grimes was silent awhile; and then he looked very sad.\n\n\"So my old mother's 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't been for me and my bad ways.\"\n\n\"Did she keep the school in Vendale?\" 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\"Ah!\" said Grimes, \"good 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\nnow it's too late--too late!\" 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\"Oh, 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's too late now. So you go along, you kind little chap, and\ndon't stand to look at a man crying, that's old enough to be your\nfather, and never feared the face of man, nor of worse neither. But I'm\nbeat now, and beat I must be. I've made my bed, and I must lie on it.\nFoul I would be, and foul I am, as an Irishwoman said to me once; and\nlittle I heeded it. It's all my own fault: but it's too late.\" And he\ncried so bitterly that Tom began crying too.\n\n\"Never too late,\" 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's could not do, and Tom's could not do,\nand nobody's on earth could do for him; for they washed the soot off his\nface and off his clothes; and then they washed the mortar away from\nbetween the bricks; and the chimney crumbled down; and Grimes began to\nget out of it.\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\"Will you obey me if I give you a chance?\"\n\n\"As you please, ma'am. You're stronger than me--that I know too well,\nand wiser than me, I know too well also. And, as for being my own\nmaster, I've fared ill enough with that as yet. So whatever your\nladyship pleases to order me; for I'm beat, and that's the truth.\"\n\n\"Be it so then--you may come out. But remember, disobey me again, and\ninto a worse place still you go.\"\n\n\"I beg pardon, ma'am, 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.\"\n\n\"Never saw me? Who said to you, Those that will be foul, foul they will\nbe?\"\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\nHarthover. \"I gave you your warning then: but you gave it yourself a\nthousand times before and since. Every bad word that you said--every\ncruel and mean thing that you did--every time that you got tipsy--every\nday that you went dirty--you were disobeying me, whether you knew it or\nnot.\"\n\n\"If I'd only known, ma'am----\"\n\n\"You 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 be\nyour last.\"\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\"Take him away,\" said she to the truncheon, \"and give him his\nticket-of-leave.\"\n\n\"And what is he to do, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Get 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.\"\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\"And now,\" said the fairy to Tom, \"your work here is done. You may as\nwell go back again.\"\n\n\"I should be glad enough to go,\" said Tom, \"but how am I to get up that\ngreat hole again, now the steam has stopped blowing?\"\n\n\"I will take you up the backstairs: but I must bandage your eyes first;\nfor I never allow anybody to see those backstairs of mine.\"\n\nSo she tied the bandage on his eyes with one hand, and with the other\nshe took it off.\n\n\"Now,\" she said, \"you are safe up the stairs.\" 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\nto tell you, for the plain reason that no man knows.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThe first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, high and sharp\nagainst the rosy dawn; and St. Brandan's Isle reflected double in the\nstill broad silver sea. The wind sang softly in the cedars, and the\nwater sang among the caves; the sea-birds sang as they streamed out into\nthe ocean, and the land-birds as they built among the boughs; and the\nair was so full of song that it stirred St. Brandan and his hermits, as\nthey slumbered in the shade; and they moved their good old lips, and\nsang their morning hymn amid their dreams. But among all the songs one\ncame across the water more sweet and clear than all; for it was the song\nof a young girl's 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\"Oh, Miss Ellie,\" said he, \"how you are grown!\"\n\n\"Oh, Tom,\" said she, \"how you are grown too!\"\n\nAnd no wonder; they were both quite grown up--he into a tall man, and\nshe into a beautiful woman.\n\n\"Perhaps I may be grown,\" she said. \"I have had time enough; for I have\nbeen sitting here waiting for you many a hundred years, till I thought\nyou were never coming.\"\n\n\"Many a hundred years?\" 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: \"Attention, children. Are you never\ngoing to look at me again?\"\n\n\"We have been looking at you all this while,\" they said. And so they\nthought they had been.\n\n\"Then look at me once more,\" said she.\n\nThey looked--and both of them cried out at once, \"Oh, who are you, after\nall?\"\n\n\"You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.\"\n\n\"No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid; but you are grown quite\nbeautiful now!\"\n\n\"To you,\" said the fairy, \"but look again.\"\n\n\"You are Mother Carey,\" said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice; for he\nhad found out something which made him very happy, and yet frightened\nhim more than all that he had ever seen.\n\n\"But you are grown quite young again.\"\n\n\"To you,\" said the fairy. \"Look again.\"\n\n\"You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to Harthover!\"\n\nAnd when they looked she was neither of them, and yet all of them at\nonce.\n\n\"My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there.\"\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\"Now read my name,\" 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\"Not yet, young things, not yet,\" said she, smiling; and then she turned\nto Ellie.\n\n\"You 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.\"\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's egg don't 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\"And of course Tom married Ellie?\"\n\nMy dear child, what a silly notion! Don't you know that no one ever\nmarries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a prince or a princess?\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nMORAL\n\n\n_And now, my dear little man, what should we learn from this parable?_\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--when 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's work-box,\nand so come to a bad end. For these efts are nothing else but the\nwater-babies who are stupid and dirty, and will not learn their lessons\nand keep themselves clean; and, therefore (as comparative anatomists\nwill tell you fifty years hence, though they are not learned enough to\ntell you now), their skulls grow fat, their jaws grow out, and their\nbrains grow small, and their tails grow long, and they lose all their\nribs (which I am sure you would not like to do), and their skins grow\ndirty and spotted, and they never get into the clear rivers, much less\ninto the great wide sea, but hang about in dirty ponds, and live in the\nmud, and eat worms, as they deserve to do._\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 will\nwake up, and be ashamed of their nasty, dirty, lazy, stupid life, and\ntry to amend, and become something better once more. For, perhaps, if\nthey do so, then after 379,423 years, nine months, thirteen days, two\nhours, and twenty-one minutes (for aught that appears to the contrary),\nif they work very hard and wash very hard all that time, their brains\nmay grow bigger, and their jaws grow smaller, and their ribs come back,\nand their tails wither off, and they will turn into water-babies again,\nand perhaps after that into land-babies; and after that perhaps into\ngrown men._\n\n_You know they won't? Very well, I daresay you know best. But you see,\nsome folks have a great liking for those poor little efts. They never\ndid anybody any harm, or could if they tried; and their only fault is,\nthat they do no good--any more than some thousands of their betters. But\nwhat with ducks, and what with pike, and what with sticklebacks, and\nwhat with water-beetles, and what with naughty boys, they are \"sae sair\nhadden doun,\" as the Scotsmen say, that it is a wonder how they live;\nand some folks can't help hoping, with good Bishop Butler, that they may\nhave another chance, to make things fair and even, somewhere, somewhen,\nsomehow._\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. And then, if my\nstory is not true, something better is; and if I am not quite right,\nstill you will be, as long as you stick to hard work and cold water._\n\n_But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all a fairy\ntale, and only fun and pretence: and, therefore, you are not to believe\na word of it, even if it is true._\n\n[Illustration]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\nPage 29, \"they they\" changed to \"that they\" (that they became invisible)\n\nPage 66, \"prety\" changed to \"pretty\" (with a pretty little)\n\nPage 208, \"gairfowl\" changed to \"Gairfowl\" to match rest of usage (find\nGairfowl enough)\n\nPage 237, paragraph break was introduced after (you have seen!\")\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"The Water-Babies","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":58300}