THE WATER BABIES

CHAPTER I

"I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined;In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughtsBring sad thoughts to the mind. 

"To her fair works did Nature linkThe human soul that through me ran;And much it grieved my heart to think, What man has made of man. "

WORDSWORTH. 

Once upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, and his name wasTom. That is a short name, and you have heard it before, so youwill not have much trouble in remembering it. He lived in a greattown in the North country, where there were plenty of chimneys tosweep, and plenty of money for Tom to earn and his master to spend. He could not read nor write, and did not care to do either; and henever washed himself, for there was no water up the court where helived. He had never been taught to say his prayers. He never hadheard of God, or of Christ, except in words which you never haveheard, and which it would have been well if he had never heard. Hecried half his time, and laughed the other half. He cried when hehad to climb the dark flues, rubbing his poor knees and elbows raw;and when the soot got into his eyes, which it did every day in theweek; and when his master beat him, which he did every day in theweek; and when he had not enough to eat, which happened every dayin the week likewise. And he laughed the other half of the day, when he was tossing halfpennies with the other boys, or playingleap-frog over the posts, or bowling stones at the horses' legs asthey trotted by, which last was excellent fun, when there was awall at hand behind which to hide. As for chimney-sweeping, andbeing hungry, and being beaten, he took all that for the way of theworld, like the rain and snow and thunder, and stood manfully withhis back to it till it was over, as his old donkey did to a hail-storm; and then shook his ears and was as jolly as ever; andthought of the fine times coming, when he would be a man, and amaster sweep, and sit in the public-house with a quart of beer anda long pipe, and play cards for silver money, and wear velveteensand ankle-jacks, and keep a white bull-dog with one gray ear, andcarry her puppies in his pocket, just like a man. And he wouldhave apprentices, one, two, three, if he could. How he would bullythem, and knock them about, just as his master did to him; and makethem carry home the soot sacks, while he rode before them on hisdonkey, with a pipe in his mouth and a flower in his button-hole, like a king at the head of his army. Yes, there were good timescoming; and, when his master let him have a pull at the leavings ofhis beer, Tom was the jolliest boy in the whole town. 

One day a smart little groom rode into the court where Tom lived. Tom was just hiding behind a wall, to heave half a brick at hishorse's legs, as is the custom of that country when they welcomestrangers; but the groom saw him, and halloed to him to know whereMr. Grimes, the chimney-sweep, lived. Now, Mr. Grimes was Tom'sown master, and Tom was a good man of business, and always civil tocustomers, so he put the half-brick down quietly behind the wall, and proceeded to take orders. 

Mr. Grimes was to come up next morning to Sir John Harthover's, atthe Place, for his old chimney-sweep was gone to prison, and thechimneys wanted sweeping. And so he rode away, not giving Tom timeto ask what the sweep had gone to prison for, which was a matter ofinterest to Tom, as he had been in prison once or twice himself. Moreover, the groom looked so very neat and clean, with his drabgaiters, drab breeches, drab jacket, snow-white tie with a smartpin in it, and clean round ruddy face, that Tom was offended anddisgusted at his appearance, and considered him a stuck-up fellow, who gave himself airs because he wore smart clothes, and otherpeople paid for them; and went behind the wall to fetch the half-brick after all; but did not, remembering that he had come in theway of business, and was, as it were, under a flag of truce. 

His master was so delighted at his new customer that he knocked Tomdown out of hand, and drank more beer that night than he usuallydid in two, in order to be sure of getting up in time next morning;for the more a man's head aches when he wakes, the more glad he isto turn out, and have a breath of fresh air. And, when he did getup at four the next morning, he knocked Tom down again, in order toteach him (as young gentlemen used to be taught at public schools)that he must be an extra good boy that day, as they were going to avery great house, and might make a very good thing of it, if theycould but give satisfaction. 

And Tom thought so likewise, and, indeed, would have done andbehaved his best, even without being knocked down. For, of allplaces upon earth, Harthover Place (which he had never seen) wasthe most wonderful, and, of all men on earth, Sir John (whom he hadseen, having been sent to gaol by him twice) was the most awful. 

Harthover Place was really a grand place, even for the rich Northcountry; with a house so large that in the frame-breaking riots, which Tom could just remember, the Duke of Wellington, and tenthousand soldiers to match, were easily housed therein; at least, so Tom believed; with a park full of deer, which Tom believed to bemonsters who were in the habit of eating children; with miles ofgame-preserves, in which Mr. Grimes and the collier lads poached attimes, on which occasions Tom saw pheasants, and wondered what theytasted like; with a noble salmon-river, in which Mr. Grimes and hisfriends would have liked to poach; but then they must have got intocold water, and that they did not like at all. In short, Harthoverwas a grand place, and Sir John a grand old man, whom even Mr. Grimes respected; for not only could he send Mr. Grimes to prisonwhen he deserved it, as he did once or twice a week; not only didhe own all the land about for miles; not only was he a jolly, honest, sensible squire, as ever kept a pack of hounds, who woulddo what he thought right by his neighbours, as well as get what hethought right for himself; but, what was more, he weighed fullfifteen stone, was nobody knew how many inches round the chest, andcould have thrashed Mr. Grimes himself in fair fight, which veryfew folk round there could do, and which, my dear little boy, wouldnot have been right for him to do, as a great many things are notwhich one both can do, and would like very much to do. So Mr. Grimes touched his hat to him when he rode through the town, andcalled him a "buirdly awd chap, " and his young ladies "gradelylasses, " which are two high compliments in the North country; andthought that that made up for his poaching Sir John's pheasants;whereby you may perceive that Mr. Grimes had not been to aproperly-inspected Government National School. 

Now, I dare say, you never got up at three o'clock on a midsummermorning. Some people get up then because they want to catchsalmon; and some because they want to climb Alps; and a great manymore because they must, like Tom. But, I assure you, that threeo'clock on a midsummer morning is the pleasantest time of all thetwenty-four hours, and all the three hundred and sixty-five days;and why every one does not get up then, I never could tell, savethat they are all determined to spoil their nerves and theircomplexions by doing all night what they might just as well do allday. But Tom, instead of going out to dinner at half-past eight atnight, and to a ball at ten, and finishing off somewhere betweentwelve and four, went to bed at seven, when his master went to thepublic-house, and slept like a dead pig; for which reason he was aspiert as a game-cock (who always gets up early to wake the maids), and just ready to get up when the fine gentlemen and ladies werejust ready to go to bed. 

So he and his master set out; Grimes rode the donkey in front, andTom and the brushes walked behind; out of the court, and up thestreet, past the closed window-shutters, and the winking wearypolicemen, and the roofs all shining gray in the gray dawn. 

They passed through the pitmen's village, all shut up and silentnow, and through the turnpike; and then the were out in the realcountry, and plodding along the black dusty road, between blackslag walls, with no sound but the groaning and thumping of the pit-engine in the next field. But soon the road grew white, and thewalls likewise; and at the wall's foot grew long grass and gayflowers, all drenched with dew; and instead of the groaning of thepit-engine, they heard the skylark saying his matins high up in theair, and the pit-bird warbling in the sedges, as he had warbled allnight long. 

All else was silent. For old Mrs. Earth was still fast asleep;and, like many pretty people, she looked still prettier asleep thanawake. The great elm-trees in the gold-green meadows were fastasleep above, and the cows fast asleep beneath them; nay, the fewclouds which were about were fast asleep likewise, and so tiredthat they had lain down on the earth to rest, in long white flakesand bars, among the stems of the elm-trees, and along the tops ofthe alders by the stream, waiting for the sun to bid them rise andgo about their day's business in the clear blue overhead. 

On they went; and Tom looked, and looked, for he never had been sofar into the country before; and longed to get over a gate, andpick buttercups, and look for birds' nests in the hedge; but Mr. Grimes was a man of business, and would not have heard of that. 

Soon they came up with a poor Irishwoman, trudging along with abundle at her back. She had a gray shawl over her head, and acrimson madder petticoat; so you may be sure she came from Galway. She had neither shoes nor stockings, and limped along as if shewere tired and footsore; but she was a very tall handsome woman, with bright gray eyes, and heavy black hair hanging about hercheeks. And she took Mr. Grimes' fancy so much, that when he camealongside he called out to her:

"This is a hard road for a gradely foot like that. Will ye up, lass, and ride behind me?"

But, perhaps, she did not admire Mr. Grimes' look and voice; forshe answered quietly:

"No, thank you: I'd sooner walk with your little lad here. "

"You may please yourself, " growled Grimes, and went on smoking. 

So she walked beside Tom, and talked to him, and asked him where helived, and what he knew, and all about himself, till Tom thought hehad never met such a pleasant-spoken woman. And she asked him, atlast, whether he said his prayers! and seemed sad when he told herthat he knew no prayers to say. 

Then he asked her where she lived, and she said far away by thesea. And Tom asked her about the sea; and she told him how itrolled and roared over the rocks in winter nights, and lay still inthe bright summer days, for the children to bathe and play in it;and many a story more, till Tom longed to go and see the sea, andbathe in it likewise. 

At last, at the bottom of a hill, they came to a spring; not such aspring as you see here, which soaks up out of a white gravel in thebog, among red fly-catchers, and pink bottle-heath, and sweet whiteorchis; nor such a one as you may see, too, here, which bubbles upunder the warm sandbank in the hollow lane by the great tuft oflady ferns, and makes the sand dance reels at the bottom, day andnight, all the year round; not such a spring as either of those;but a real North country limestone fountain, like one of those inSicily or Greece, where the old heathen fancied the nymphs satcooling themselves the hot summer's day, while the shepherds peepedat them from behind the bushes. Out of a low cave of rock, at thefoot of a limestone crag, the great fountain rose, quelling, andbubbling, and gurgling, so clear that you could not tell where thewater ended and the air began; and ran away under the road, astream large enough to turn a mill; among blue geranium, and goldenglobe-flower, and wild raspberry, and the bird-cherry with itstassels of snow. 

And there Grimes stopped, and looked; and Tom looked too. Tom waswondering whether anything lived in that dark cave, and came out atnight to fly in the meadows. But Grimes was not wondering at all. Without a word, he got off his donkey, and clambered over the lowroad wall, and knelt down, and began dipping his ugly head into thespring--and very dirty he made it. 

Tom was picking the flowers as fast as he could. The Irishwomanhelped him, and showed him how to tie them up; and a very prettynosegay they had made between them. But when he saw Grimesactually wash, he stopped, quite astonished; and when Grimes hadfinished, and began shaking his ears to dry them, he said:

"Why, master, I never saw you do that before. "

"Nor will again, most likely. 'Twasn't for cleanliness I did it, but for coolness. I'd be ashamed to want washing every week or so, like any smutty collier lad. "

"I wish I might go and dip my head in, " said poor little Tom. "Itmust be as good as putting it under the town-pump; and there is nobeadle here to drive a chap away. "

"Thou come along, " said Grimes; "what dost want with washingthyself? Thou did not drink half a gallon of beer last night, likeme. "

"I don't care for you, " said naughty Tom, and ran down to thestream, and began washing his face. 

Grimes was very sulky, because the woman preferred Tom's company tohis; so he dashed at him with horrid words, and tore him up fromhis knees, and began beating him. But Tom was accustomed to that, and got his head safe between Mr. Grimes' legs, and kicked hisshins with all his might. 

"Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes?" cried theIrishwoman over the wall. 

Grimes looked up, startled at her knowing his name; but all heanswered was, "No, nor never was yet;" and went on beating Tom. 

"True for you. If you ever had been ashamed of yourself, you wouldhave gone over into Vendale long ago. "

"What do you know about Vendale?" shouted Grimes; but he left offbeating Tom. 

"I know about Vendale, and about you, too. I know, for instance, what happened in Aldermire Copse, by night, two years ago comeMartinmas. "

"You do?" shouted Grimes; and leaving Tom, he climbed up over thewall, and faced the woman. Tom thought he was going to strike her;but she looked him too full and fierce in the face for that. 

"Yes; I was there, " said the Irishwoman quietly. 

"You are no Irishwoman, by your speech, " said Grimes, after manybad words. 

"Never mind who I am. I saw what I saw; and if you strike that boyagain, I can tell what I know. "

Grimes seemed quite cowed, and got on his donkey without anotherword. 

"Stop!" said the Irishwoman. "I have one more word for you both;for you will both see me again before all is over. Those that wishto be clean, clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be. Remember. "

And she turned away, and through a gate into the meadow. Grimesstood still a moment, like a man who had been stunned. Then herushed after her, shouting, "You come back. " But when he got intothe meadow, the woman was not there. 

Had she hidden away? There was no place to hide in. But Grimeslooked about, and Tom also, for he was as puzzled as Grimes himselfat her disappearing so suddenly; but look where they would, she wasnot there. 

Grimes came back again, as silent as a post, for he was a littlefrightened; and, getting on his donkey, filled a fresh pipe, andsmoked away, leaving Tom in peace. 

And now they had gone three miles and more, and came to Sir John'slodge-gates. 

Very grand lodges they were, with very grand iron gates and stonegate-posts, and on the top of each a most dreadful bogy, all teeth, horns, and tail, which was the crest which Sir John's ancestorswore in the Wars of the Roses; and very prudent men they were towear it, for all their enemies must have run for their lives at thevery first sight of them. 

Grimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper on the spot, andopened. 

"I was told to expect thee, " he said. "Now thou'lt be so good asto keep to the main avenue, and not let me find a hare or a rabbiton thee when thou comest back. I shall look sharp for one, I tellthee. "

"Not if it's in the bottom of the soot-bag, " quoth Grimes, and atthat he laughed; and the keeper laughed and said:

"If that's thy sort, I may as well walk up with thee to the hall. "

"I think thou best had. It's thy business to see after thy game, man, and not mine. "

So the keeper went with them; and, to Tom's surprise, he and Grimeschatted together all the way quite pleasantly. He did not knowthat a keeper is only a poacher turned outside in, and a poacher akeeper turned inside out. 

They walked up a great lime avenue, a full mile long, and betweentheir stems Tom peeped trembling at the horns of the sleeping deer, which stood up among the ferns. Tom had never seen such enormoustrees, and as he looked up he fancied that the blue sky rested ontheir heads. But he was puzzled very much by a strange murmuringnoise, which followed them all the way. So much puzzled, that atlast he took courage to ask the keeper what it was. 

He spoke very civilly, and called him Sir, for he was horriblyafraid of him, which pleased the keeper, and he told him that theywere the bees about the lime flowers. 

"What are bees?" asked Tom. 

"What make honey. "

"What is honey?" asked Tom. 

"Thou hold thy noise, " said Grimes. 

"Let the boy be, " said the keeper. "He's a civil young chap now, and that's more than he'll be long if he bides with thee. "

Grimes laughed, for he took that for a compliment. 

"I wish I were a keeper, " said Tom, "to live in such a beautifulplace, and wear green velveteens, and have a real dog-whistle at mybutton, like you. "

The keeper laughed; he was a kind-hearted fellow enough. 

"Let well alone, lad, and ill too at times. Thy life's safer thanmine at all events, eh, Mr. Grimes?"

And Grimes laughed again, and then the two men began talking, quitelow. Tom could hear, though, that it was about some poachingfight; and at last Grimes said surlily, "Hast thou anything againstme?"

"Not now. "

"Then don't ask me any questions till thou hast, for I am a man ofhonour. "

And at that they both laughed again, and thought it a very goodjoke. 

And by this time they were come up to the great iron gates in frontof the house; and Tom stared through them at the rhododendrons andazaleas, which were all in flower; and then at the house itself, and wondered how many chimneys there were in it, and how long agoit was built, and what was the man's name that built it, andwhether he got much money for his job?

These last were very difficult questions to answer. For Harthoverhad been built at ninety different times, and in nineteen differentstyles, and looked as if somebody had built a whole street ofhouses of every imaginable shape, and then stirred them togetherwith a spoon. 

For the attics were Anglo-Saxon. The third door Norman. The second Cinque-cento. The first-floor Elizabethan. The right wing Pure Doric. The centre Early English, with a huge portico copied from theParthenon. The left wing pure Boeotian, which the country folk admired most ofall, became it was just like the new barracks in the town, onlythree times as big. The grand staircase was copied from the Catacombs at Rome. The back staircase from the Tajmahal at Agra. This was built bySir John's great-great-great-uncle, who won, in Lord Clive's IndianWars, plenty of money, plenty of wounds, and no more taste than hisbetters. The cellars were copied from the caves of Elephanta. The offices from the Pavilion at Brighton. 

And the rest from nothing in heaven, or earth, or under the earth. 

So that Harthover House was a great puzzle to antiquarians, and athorough Naboth's vineyard to critics, and architects, and allpersons who like meddling with other men's business, and spendingother men's money. So they were all setting upon poor Sir John, year after year, and trying to talk him into spending a hundredthousand pounds or so, in building, to please them and not himself. But he always put them off, like a canny North-countryman as hewas. One wanted him to build a Gothic house, but he said he was noGoth; and another to build an Elizabethan, but he said he livedunder good Queen Victoria, and not good Queen Bess; and another wasbold enough to tell him that his house was ugly, but he said helived inside it, and not outside; and another, that there was nounity in it, but he said that that was just why he liked the oldplace. For he liked to see how each Sir John, and Sir Hugh, andSir Ralph, and Sir Randal, had left his mark upon the place, eachafter his own taste; and he had no more notion of disturbing hisancestors' work than of disturbing their graves. For now the houselooked like a real live house, that had a history, and had grownand grown as the world grew; and that it was only an upstart fellowwho did not know who his own grandfather was, who would change itfor some spick and span new Gothic or Elizabethan thing, whichlooked as if it bad been all spawned in a night, as mushrooms are. From which you may collect (if you have wit enough) that Sir Johnwas a very sound-headed, sound-hearted squire, and just the man tokeep the country side in order, and show good sport with hishounds. 

But Tom and his master did not go in through the great iron gates, as if they had been Dukes or Bishops, but round the back way, and avery long way round it was; and into a little back-door, where theash-boy let them in, yawning horribly; and then in a passage thehousekeeper met them, in such a flowered chintz dressing-gown, thatTom mistook her for My Lady herself, and she gave Grimes solemnorders about "You will take care of this, and take care of that, "as if he was going up the chimneys, and not Tom. And Grimeslistened, and said every now and then, under his voice, "You'llmind that, you little beggar?" and Tom did mind, all at least thathe could. And then the housekeeper turned them into a grand room, all covered up in sheets of brown paper, and bade them begin, in alofty and tremendous voice; and so after a whimper or two, and akick from his master, into the grate Tom went, and up the chimney, while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the furniture; towhom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous compliments, butmet with very slight encouragement in return. 

How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say; but he swept so many thathe got quite tired, and puzzled too, for they were not like thetown flues to which he was accustomed, but such as you would find--if you would only get up them and look, which perhaps you would notlike to do--in old country-houses, large and crooked chimneys, which had been altered again and again, till they ran one intoanother, anastomosing (as Professor Owen would say) considerably. So Tom fairly lost his way in them; not that he cared much forthat, though he was in pitchy darkness, for he was as much at homein a chimney as a mole is underground; but at last, coming down ashe thought the right chimney, he came down the wrong one, and foundhimself standing on the hearthrug in a room the like of which hehad never seen before. 

Tom had never seen the like. He had never been in gentlefolks'rooms but when the carpets were all up, and the curtains down, andthe furniture huddled together under a cloth, and the picturescovered with aprons and dusters; and he had often enough wonderedwhat the rooms were like when they were all ready for the qualityto sit in. And now he saw, and he thought the sight very pretty. 

The room was all dressed in white, --white window-curtains, whitebed-curtains, white furniture, and white walls, with just a fewlines of pink here and there. The carpet was all over gay littleflowers; and the walls were hung with pictures in gilt frames, which amused Tom very much. There were pictures of ladies andgentlemen, and pictures of horses and dogs. The horses he liked;but the dogs he did not care for much, for there were no bull-dogsamong them, not even a terrier. But the two pictures which tookhis fancy most were, one a man in long garments, with littlechildren and their mothers round him, who was laying his hand uponthe children's heads. That was a very pretty picture, Tom thought, to hang in a lady's room. For he could see that it was a lady'sroom by the dresses which lay about. 

The other picture was that of a man nailed to a cross, whichsurprised Tom much. He fancied that he had seen something like itin a shop-window. But why was it there? "Poor man, " thought Tom, "and he looks so kind and quiet. But why should the lady have sucha sad picture as that in her room? Perhaps it was some kinsman ofhers, who had been murdered by the savages in foreign parts, andshe kept it there for a remembrance. " And Tom felt sad, and awed, and turned to look at something else. 

The next thing he saw, and that too puzzled him, was a washing-stand, with ewers and basins, and soap and brushes, and towels, anda large bath full of clean water--what a heap of things all forwashing! "She must be a very dirty lady, " thought Tom, "by mymaster's rule, to want as much scrubbing as all that. But she mustbe very cunning to put the dirt out of the way so well afterwards, for I don't see a speck about the room, not even on the verytowels. "

And then, looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty lady, and heldhis breath with astonishment. 

Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white pillow, lay themost beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen. Her cheeks werealmost as white as the pillow, and her hair was like threads ofgold spread all about over the bed. She might have been as old asTom, or maybe a year or two older; but Tom did not think of that. He thought only of her delicate skin and golden hair, and wonderedwhether she was a real live person, or one of the wax dolls he hadseen in the shops. But when he saw her breathe, he made up hismind that she was alive, and stood staring at her, as if she hadbeen an angel out of heaven. 

No. She cannot be dirty. She never could have been dirty, thoughtTom to himself. And then he thought, "And are all people like thatwhen they are washed?" And he looked at his own wrist, and triedto rub the soot off, and wondered whether it ever would come off. "Certainly I should look much prettier then, if I grew at all likeher. "

And looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close to him, a littleugly, black, ragged figure, with bleared eyes and grinning whiteteeth. He turned on it angrily. What did such a little black apewant in that sweet young lady's room? And behold, it was himself, reflected in a great mirror, the like of which Tom had never seenbefore. 

And Tom, for the first time in his life, found out that he wasdirty; and burst into tears with shame and anger; and turned tosneak up the chimney again and hide; and upset the fender and threwthe fire-irons down, with a noise as of ten thousand tin kettlestied to ten thousand mad dogs' tails. 

Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, seeing Tom, screamed as shrill as any peacock. In rushed a stout old nursefrom the next room, and seeing Tom likewise, made up her mind thathe had come to rob, plunder, destroy, and burn; and dashed at him, as he lay over the fender, so fast that she caught him by thejacket. 

But she did not hold him. Tom had been in a policeman's hands manya time, and out of them too, what is more; and he would have beenashamed to face his friends for ever if he had been stupid enoughto be caught by an old woman; so he doubled under the good lady'sarm, across the room, and out of the window in a moment. 

He did not need to drop out, though he would have done so bravelyenough. Nor even to let himself down a spout, which would havebeen an old game to him; for once he got up by a spout to thechurch roof, he said to take jackdaws' eggs, but the policeman saidto steal lead; and, when he was seen on high, sat there till thesun got too hot, and came down by another spout, leaving thepolicemen to go back to the stationhouse and eat their dinners. 

But all under the window spread a tree, with great leaves and sweetwhite flowers, almost as big as his head. It was magnolia, Isuppose; but Tom knew nothing about that, and cared less; for downthe tree he went, like a cat, and across the garden lawn, and overthe iron railings and up the park towards the wood, leaving the oldnurse to scream murder and fire at the window. 

The under gardener, mowing, saw Tom, and threw down his scythe;caught his leg in it, and cut his shin open, whereby he kept hisbed for a week; but in his hurry he never knew it, and gave chaseto poor Tom. The dairymaid heard the noise, got the churn betweenher knees, and tumbled over it, spilling all the cream; and yet shejumped up, and gave chase to Tom. A groom cleaning Sir John's hackat the stables let him go loose, whereby he kicked himself lame infive minutes; but he ran out and gave chase to Tom. Grimes upsetthe soot-sack in the new-gravelled yard, and spoilt it all utterly;but he ran out and gave chase to Tom. The old steward opened thepark-gate in such a hurry, that he hung up his pony's chin upon thespikes, and, for aught I know, it hangs there still; but he jumpedoff, and gave chase to Tom. The ploughman left his horses at theheadland, and one jumped over the fence, and pulled the other intothe ditch, plough and all; but he ran on, and gave chase to Tom. The keeper, who was taking a stoat out of a trap, let the stoat go, and caught his own finger; but he jumped up, and ran after Tom; andconsidering what he said, and how he looked, I should have beensorry for Tom if he had caught him. Sir John looked out of hisstudy window (for he was an early old gentleman) and up at thenurse, and a marten dropped mud in his eye, so that he had at lastto send for the doctor; and yet he ran out, and gave chase to Tom. The Irishwoman, too, was walking up to the house to beg, --she musthave got round by some byway--but she threw away her bundle, andgave chase to Tom likewise. Only my Lady did not give chase; forwhen she had put her head out of the window, her night-wig fellinto the garden, and she had to ring up her lady's-maid, and sendher down for it privately, which quite put her out of the running, so that she came in nowhere, and is consequently not placed. 

In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place--not even when thefox was killed in the conservatory, among acres of broken glass, and tons of smashed flower-pots--such a noise, row, hubbub, babel, shindy, hullabaloo, stramash, charivari, and total contempt ofdignity, repose, and order, as that day, when Grimes, gardener, thegroom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the steward, the ploughman, thekeeper, and the Irishwoman, all ran up the park, shouting, "Stopthief, " in the belief that Tom had at least a thousand pounds'worth of jewels in his empty pockets; and the very magpies and jaysfollowed Tom up, screaking and screaming, as if he were a huntedfox, beginning to droop his brush. 

And all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with his little barefeet, like a small black gorilla fleeing to the forest. Alas forhim! there was no big father gorilla therein to take his part--toscratch out the gardener's inside with one paw, toss the dairymaidinto a tree with another, and wrench off Sir John's head with athird, while he cracked the keeper's skull with his teeth as easilyas if it had been a cocoa-nut or a paving-stone. 

However, Tom did not remember ever having had a father; so he didnot look for one, and expected to have to take care of himself;while as for running, he could keep up for a couple of miles withany stage-coach, if there was the chance of a copper or a cigar-end, and turn coach-wheels on his hands and feet ten timesfollowing, which is more than you can do. Wherefore his pursuersfound it very difficult to catch him; and we will hope that theydid not catch him at all. 

Tom, of course, made for the woods. He had never been in a wood inhis life; but he was sharp enough to know that he might hide in abush, or swarm up a tree, and, altogether, had more chance therethan in the open. If he had not known that, he would have beenfoolisher than a mouse or a minnow. 

But when he got into the wood, he found it a very different sort ofplace from what he had fancied. He pushed into a thick cover ofrhododendrons, and found himself at once caught in a trap. Theboughs laid hold of his legs and arms, poked him in his face andhis stomach, made him shut his eyes tight (though that was no greatloss, for he could not see at best a yard before his nose); andwhen he got through the rhododendrons, the hassock-grass and sedgestumbled him over, and cut his poor little fingers afterwards mostspitefully; the birches birched him as soundly as if he had been anobleman at Eton, and over the face too (which is not fair swishingas all brave boys will agree); and the lawyers tripped him up, andtore his shins as if they had sharks' teeth--which lawyers arelikely enough to have. 

"I must get out of this, " thought Tom, "or I shall stay here tillsomebody comes to help me--which is just what I don't want. "

But how to get out was the difficult matter. And indeed I don'tthink he would ever have got out at all, but have stayed there tillthe cock-robins covered him with leaves, if he had not suddenly runhis head against a wall. 

Now running your head against a wall is not pleasant, especially ifit is a loose wall, with the stones all set on edge, and a sharpcornered one hits you between the eyes and makes you see all mannerof beautiful stars. The stars are very beautiful, certainly; butunfortunately they go in the twenty-thousandth part of a splitsecond, and the pain which comes after them does not. And so Tomhurt his head; but he was a brave boy, and did not mind that apenny. He guessed that over the wall the cover would end; and upit he went, and over like a squirrel. 

And there he was, out on the great grouse-moors, which the countryfolk called Harthover Fell--heather and bog and rock, stretchingaway and up, up to the very sky. 

Now, Tom was a cunning little fellow--as cunning as an old Exmoorstag. Why not? Though he was but ten years old, he had livedlonger than most stags, and had more wits to start with into thebargain. 

He knew as well as a stag, that if he backed he might throw thehounds out. So the first thing he did when he was over the wallwas to make the neatest double sharp to his right, and run alongunder the wall for nearly half a mile. 

Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the steward, and thegardener, and the ploughman, and the dairymaid, and all the hue-and-cry together, went on ahead half a mile in the very oppositedirection, and inside the wall, leaving him a mile off on theoutside; while Tom heard their shouts die away in the woods andchuckled to himself merrily. 

At last he came to a dip in the land, and went to the bottom of it, and then he turned bravely away from the wall and up the moor; forhe knew that he had put a hill between him and his enemies, andcould go on without their seeing him. 

But the Irishwoman, alone of them all, had seen which way Tom went. She had kept ahead of every one the whole time; and yet she neitherwalked nor ran. She went along quite smoothly and gracefully, while her feet twinkled past each other so fast that you could notsee which was foremost; till every one asked the other who thestrange woman was; and all agreed, for want of anything better tosay, that she must be in league with Tom. 

But when she came to the plantation, they lost sight of her; andthey could do no less. For she went quietly over the wall afterTom, and followed him wherever he went. Sir John and the rest sawno more of her; and out of sight was out of mind. 

And now Tom was right away into the heather, over just such a mooras those in which you have been bred, except that there were rocksand stones lying about everywhere, and that, instead of the moorgrowing flat as he went upwards, it grew more and more broken andhilly, but not so rough but that little Tom could jog along wellenough, and find time, too, to stare about at the strange place, which was like a new world to him. 

He saw great spiders there, with crowns and crosses marked on theirbacks, who sat in the middle of their webs, and when they saw Tomcoming, shook them so fast that they became invisible. Then he sawlizards, brown and gray and green, and thought they were snakes, and would sting him; but they were as much frightened as he, andshot away into the heath. And then, under a rock, he saw a prettysight--a great brown, sharp-nosed creature, with a white tag to herbrush, and round her four or five smutty little cubs, the funniestfellows Tom ever saw. She lay on her back, rolling about, andstretching out her legs and head and tail in the bright sunshine;and the cubs jumped over her, and ran round her, and nibbled herpaws, and lugged her about by the tail; and she seemed to enjoy itmightily. But one selfish little fellow stole away from the restto a dead crow close by, and dragged it off to hide it, though itwas nearly as big as he was. Whereat all his little brothers setoff after him in full cry, and saw Tom; and then all ran back, andup jumped Mrs. Vixen, and caught one up in her mouth, and the resttoddled after her, and into a dark crack in the rocks; and therewas an end of the show. 

And next he had a fright; for, as he scrambled up a sandy brow--whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock-kick--something went off in his face, with a most horrid noise. He thought the ground had blown up, andthe end of the world come. 

And when he opened his eyes (for he shut them very tight) it wasonly an old cock-grouse, who had been washing himself in sand, likean Arab, for want of water; and who, when Tom had all but troddenon him, jumped up with a noise like the express train, leaving hiswife and children to shift for themselves, like an old coward, andwent off, screaming "Cur-ru-u-uck, cur-ru-u-uck--murder, thieves, fire--cur-u-uck-cock-kick--the end of the world is come--kick-kick-cock-kick. " He was always fancying that the end of the world wascome, when anything happened which was farther off than the end ofhis own nose. But the end of the world was not come, any more thanthe twelfth of August was; though the old grouse-cock was quitecertain of it. 

So the old grouse came back to his wife and family an hourafterwards, and said solemnly, "Cock-cock-kick; my dears, the endof the world is not quite come; but I assure you it is coming theday after to-morrow--cock. " But his wife had heard that so oftenthat she knew all about it, and a little more. And, besides, shewas the mother of a family, and had seven little poults to wash andfeed every day; and that made her very practical, and a littlesharp-tempered; so all she answered was: "Kick-kick-kick--go andcatch spiders, go and catch spiders--kick. "

So Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why; but he liked the greatwide strange place, and the cool fresh bracing air. But he wentmore and more slowly as he got higher up the hill; for now theground grew very bad indeed. Instead of soft turf and springyheather, he met great patches of flat limestone rock, just likeill-made pavements, with deep cracks between the stones and ledges, filled with ferns; so he had to hop from stone to stone, and nowand then he slipped in between, and hurt his little bare toes, though they were tolerably tough ones; but still he would go on andup, he could not tell why. 

What would Tom have said if he had seen, walking over the moorbehind him, the very same Irishwoman who had taken his part uponthe road? But whether it was that he looked too little behind him, or whether it was that she kept out of sight behind the rocks andknolls, he never saw her, though she saw him. 

And now he began to get a little hungry, and very thirsty; for hehad run a long way, and the sun had risen high in heaven, and therock was as hot as an oven, and the air danced reels over it, as itdoes over a limekiln, till everything round seemed quivering andmelting in the glare. 

But he could see nothing to eat anywhere, and still less to drink. 

The heath was full of bilberries and whimberries; but they wereonly in flower yet, for it was June. And as for water; who canfind that on the top of a limestone rock? Now and then he passedby a deep dark swallow-hole, going down into the earth, as if itwas the chimney of some dwarfs house underground; and more thanonce, as he passed, he could hear water falling, trickling, tinkling, many many feet below. How he longed to get down to it, and cool his poor baked lips! But, brave little chimney-sweep ashe was, he dared not climb down such chimneys as those. 

So he went on and on, till his head spun round with the heat, andhe thought he heard church-bells ringing a long way off. 

"Ah!" he thought, "where there is a church there will be houses andpeople; and, perhaps, some one will give me a bit and a sup. " Sohe set off again, to look for the church; for he was sure that heheard the bells quite plain. 

And in a minute more, when he looked round, he stopped again, andsaid, "Why, what a big place the world is!"

And so it was; for, from the top of the mountain he could see--whatcould he not see?

Behind him, far below, was Harthover, and the dark woods, and theshining salmon river; and on his left, far below, was the town, andthe smoking chimneys of the collieries; and far, far away, theriver widened to the shining sea; and little white specks, whichwere ships, lay on its bosom. Before him lay, spread out like amap, great plains, and farms, and villages, amid dark knots oftrees. They all seemed at his very feet; but he had sense to seethat they were long miles away. 

And to his right rose moor after moor, hill after hill, till theyfaded away, blue into blue sky. But between him and those moors, and really at his very feet, lay something, to which, as soon asTom saw it, he determined to go, for that was the place for him. 

A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow, and filled withwood; but through the wood, hundreds of feet below him, he couldsee a clear stream glance. Oh, if he could but get down to thatstream! Then, by the stream, he saw the roof of a little cottage, and a little garden set out in squares and beds. And there was atiny little red thing moving in the garden, no bigger than a fly. As Tom looked down, he saw that it was a woman in a red petticoat. Ah! perhaps she would give him something to eat. And there werethe church-bells ringing again. Surely there must be a villagedown there. Well, nobody would know him, or what had happened atthe Place. The news could not have got there yet, even if Sir Johnhad set all the policemen in the county after him; and he could getdown there in five minutes. 

Tom was quite right about the hue-and-cry not having got thither;for he had come without knowing it, the best part of ten miles fromHarthover; but he was wrong about getting down in five minutes, forthe cottage was more than a mile off, and a good thousand feetbelow. 

However, down he went; like a brave little man as he was, though hewas very footsore, and tired, and hungry, and thirsty; while thechurch-bells rang so loud, he began to think that they must beinside his own head, and the river chimed and tinkled far below;and this was the song which it sang:-

Clear and cool, clear and cool, By laughing shallow, and dreaming pool;Cool and clear, cool and clear, By shining shingle, and foaming wear;Under the crag where the ouzel sings, And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings, Undefiled, for the undefiled;Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. 

Dank and foul, dank and foul, By the smoky town in its murky cowl;Foul and dank, foul and dank, By wharf and sewer and slimy bank;Darker and darker the farther I go, Baser and baser the richer I grow;Who dares sport with the sin-defiled?Shrink from me, turn from me, mother and child. 

Strong and free, strong and free, The floodgates are open, away to the sea, Free and strong, free and strong, Cleansing my streams as I hurry along, To the golden sands, and the leaping bar, And the taintless tide that awaits me afar. As I lose myself in the infinite main, Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again. Undefiled, for the undefiled;Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. 

So Tom went down; and all the while he never saw the Irishwomangoing down behind him. 

CHAPTER II

"And is there care in heaven? and is there loveIn heavenly spirits to these creatures baseThat may compassion of their evils move?There is:- else much more wretched were the caseOf men than beasts: But oh! the exceeding graceOf Highest God that loves His creatures so, And all His works with mercy doth embrace, That blessed Angels He sends to and fro, To serve to wicked man, to serve His wicked foe!"

SPENSER. 

A mile off, and a thousand feet down. 

So Tom found it; though it seemed as if he could have chucked apebble on to the back of the woman in the red petticoat who wasweeding in the garden, or even across the dale to the rocks beyond. For the bottom of the valley was just one field broad, and on theother side ran the stream; and above it, gray crag, gray down, graystair, gray moor walled up to heaven. 

A quiet, silent, rich, happy place; a narrow crack cut deep intothe earth; so deep, and so out of the way, that the bad bogies canhardly find it out. The name of the place is Vendale; and if youwant to see it for yourself, you must go up into the High Craven, and search from Bolland Forest north by Ingleborough, to the NineStandards and Cross Fell; and if you have not found it, you mustturn south, and search the Lake Mountains, down to Scaw Fell andthe sea; and then, if you have not found it, you must go northwardagain by merry Carlisle, and search the Cheviots all across, fromAnnan Water to Berwick Law; and then, whether you have foundVendale or not, you will have found such a country, and such apeople, as ought to make you proud of being a British boy. 

So Tom went to go down; and first he went down three hundred feetof steep heather, mixed up with loose brown grindstone, as rough asa file; which was not pleasant to his poor little heels, as he camebump, stump, jump, down the steep. And still he thought he couldthrow a stone into the garden. 

Then he went down three hundred feet of lime-stone terraces, onebelow the other, as straight as if a carpenter had ruled them withhis ruler and then cut them out with his chisel. There was noheath there, but -

First, a little grass slope, covered with the prettiest flowers, rockrose and saxifrage, and thyme and basil, and all sorts of sweetherbs. 

Then bump down a two-foot step of limestone. 

Then another bit of grass and flowers. 

Then bump down a one-foot step. 

Then another bit of grass and flowers for fifty yards, as steep asthe house-roof, where he had to slide down on his dear little tail. 

Then another step of stone, ten feet high; and there he had to stophimself, and crawl along the edge to find a crack; for if he hadrolled over, he would have rolled right into the old woman'sgarden, and frightened her out of her wits. 

Then, when he had found a dark narrow crack, full of green-stalkedfern, such as hangs in the basket in the drawing-room, and hadcrawled down through it, with knees and elbows, as he would down achimney, there was another grass slope, and another step, and soon, till--oh, dear me! I wish it was all over; and so did he. Andyet he thought he could throw a stone into the old woman's garden. 

At last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs; white-beam with itsgreat silver-backed leaves, and mountain-ash, and oak; and belowthem cliff and crag, cliff and crag, with great beds of crown-fernsand wood-sedge; while through the shrubs he could see the streamsparkling, and hear it murmur on the white pebbles. He did notknow that it was three hundred feet below. 

You would have been giddy, perhaps, at looking down: but Tom wasnot. He was a brave little chimney-sweep; and when he foundhimself on the top of a high cliff, instead of sitting down andcrying for his baba (though he never had had any baba to cry for), he said, "Ah, this will just suit me!" though he was very tired;and down he went, by stock and stone, sedge and ledge, bush andrush, as if he had been born a jolly little black ape, with fourhands instead of two. 

And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman coming down behindhim. 

But he was getting terribly tired now. The burning sun on thefells had sucked him up; but the damp heat of the woody crag suckedhim up still more; and the perspiration ran out of the ends of hisfingers and toes, and washed him cleaner than he had been for awhole year. But, of course, he dirtied everything, terribly as hewent. There has been a great black smudge all down the crag eversince. And there have been more black beetles in Vendale sincethan ever were known before; all, of course, owing to Tom's havingblacked the original papa of them all, just as he was setting offto be married, with a sky-blue coat and scarlet leggins, as smartas a gardener's dog with a polyanthus in his mouth. 

At last he got to the bottom. But, behold, it was not the bottom--as people usually find when they are coming down a mountain. Forat the foot of the crag were heaps and heaps of fallen limestone ofevery size from that of your head to that of a stage-waggon, withholes between them full of sweet heath-fern; and before Tom gotthrough them, he was out in the bright sunshine again; and then hefelt, once for all and suddenly, as people generally do, that hewas b-e-a-t, beat. 

You must expect to be beat a few times in your life, little man, ifyou live such a life as a man ought to live, let you be as strongand healthy as you may: and when you are, you will find it a veryugly feeling. I hope that that day you may have a stout staunchfriend by you who is not beat; for, if you have not, you had bestlie where you are, and wait for better times, as poor Tom did. 

He could not get on. The sun was burning, and yet he felt chillall over. He was quite empty, and yet he felt quite sick. Therewas but two hundred yards of smooth pasture between him and thecottage, and yet he could not walk down it. He could hear thestream murmuring only one field beyond it, and yet it seemed to himas if it was a hundred miles off. 

He lay down on the grass till the beetles ran over him, and theflies settled on his nose. I don't know when he would have got upagain, if the gnats and the midges had not taken compassion on him. But the gnats blew their trumpets so loud in his ear, and themidges nibbled so at his hands and face wherever they could find aplace free from soot, that at last he woke up, and stumbled away, down over a low wall, and into a narrow road, and up to thecottage-door. 

And a neat pretty cottage it was, with clipped yew hedges all roundthe garden, and yews inside too, cut into peacocks and trumpets andteapots and all kinds of queer shapes. And out of the open doorcame a noise like that of the frogs on the Great-A, when they knowthat it is going to be scorching hot to-morrow--and how they knowthat I don't know, and you don't know, and nobody knows. 

He came slowly up to the open door, which was all hung round withclematis and roses; and then peeped in, half afraid. 

And there sat by the empty fireplace, which was filled with a potof sweet herbs, the nicest old woman that ever was seen, in her redpetticoat, and short dimity bedgown, and clean white cap, with ablack silk handkerchief over it, tied under her chin. At her feetsat the grandfather of all the cats; and opposite her sat, on twobenches, twelve or fourteen neat, rosy, chubby little children, learning their Chris-cross-row; and gabble enough they made aboutit. 

Such a pleasant cottage it was, with a shiny clean stone floor, andcurious old prints on the walls, and an old black oak sideboardfull of bright pewter and brass dishes, and a cuckoo clock in thecorner, which began shouting as soon as Tom appeared: not that itwas frightened at Tom, but that it was just eleven o'clock. 

All the children started at Tom's dirty black figure, --the girlsbegan to cry, and the boys began to laugh, and all pointed at himrudely enough; but Tom was too tired to care for that. 

"What art thou, and what dost want?" cried the old dame. "Achimney-sweep! Away with thee! I'll have no sweeps here. "

"Water, " said poor little Tom, quite faint. 

"Water? There's plenty i' the beck, " she said, quite sharply. 

"But I can't get there; I'm most clemmed with hunger and drought. "And Tom sank down upon the door-step, and laid his head against thepost. 

And the old dame looked at him through her spectacles one minute, and two, and three; and then she said, "He's sick; and a bairn's abairn, sweep or none. "

"Water, " said Tom. 

"God forgive me!" and she put by her spectacles, and rose, and cameto Tom. "Water's bad for thee; I'll give thee milk. " And shetoddled off into the next room, and brought a cup of milk and a bitof bread. 

Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then looked up, revived. 

"Where didst come from?" said the dame. 

"Over Fell, there, " said Tom, and pointed up into the sky. 

"Over Harthover? and down Lewthwaite Crag? Art sure thou art notlying?"

"Why should I?" said Tom, and leant his head against the post. 

"And how got ye up there?"

"I came over from the Place;" and Tom was so tired and desperate hehad no heart or time to think of a story, so he told all the truthin a few words. 

"Bless thy little heart! And thou hast not been stealing, then?"

"No. "

"Bless thy little heart! and I'll warrant not. Why, God's guidedthe bairn, because he was innocent! Away from the Place, and overHarthover Fell, and down Lewthwaite Crag! Who ever heard the like, if God hadn't led him? Why dost not eat thy bread?"

"I can't. "

"It's good enough, for I made it myself. "

"I can't, " said Tom, and he laid his head on his knees, and thenasked -

"Is it Sunday?"

"No, then; why should it be?"

"Because I hear the church-bells ringing so. "

"Bless thy pretty heart! The bairn's sick. Come wi' me, and I'llhap thee up somewhere. If thou wert a bit cleaner I'd put thee inmy own bed, for the Lord's sake. But come along here. "

But when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired and giddy that shehad to help him and lead him. 

She put him in an outhouse upon soft sweet hay and an old rug, andbade him sleep off his walk, and she would come to him when schoolwas over, in an hour's time. 

And so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall fast asleep atonce. 

But Tom did not fall asleep. 

Instead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about in thestrangest way, and felt so hot all over that he longed to get intothe river and cool himself; and then he fell half asleep, anddreamt that he heard the little white lady crying to him, "Oh, you're so dirty; go and be washed;" and then that he heard theIrishwoman saying, "Those that wish to be clean, clean they willbe. " And then he heard the church-bells ring so loud, close to himtoo, that he was sure it must be Sunday, in spite of what the olddame had said; and he would go to church, and see what a church waslike inside, for he had never been in one, poor little fellow, inall his life. But the people would never let him come in, all oversoot and dirt like that. He must go to the river and wash first. And he said out loud again and again, though being half asleep hedid not know it, "I must be clean, I must be clean. "

And all of a sudden he found himself, not in the outhouse on thehay, but in the middle of a meadow, over the road, with the streamjust before him, saying continually, "I must be clean, I must beclean. " He had got there on his own legs, between sleep and awake, as children will often get out of bed, and go about the room, whenthey are not quite well. But he was not a bit surprised, and wenton to the bank of the brook, and lay down on the grass, and lookedinto the clear, clear limestone water, with every pebble at thebottom bright and clean, while the little silver trout dashed aboutin fright at the sight of his black face; and he dipped his hand inand found it so cool, cool, cool; and he said, "I will be a fish; Iwill swim in the water; I must be clean, I must be clean. "

So he pulled off all his clothes in such haste that he tore some ofthem, which was easy enough with such ragged old things. And heput his poor hot sore feet into the water; and then his legs; andthe farther he went in, the more the church-bells rang in his head. 

"Ah, " said Tom, "I must be quick and wash myself; the bells areringing quite loud now; and they will stop soon, and then the doorwill be shut, and I shall never be able to get in at all. "

Tom was mistaken: for in England the church doors are left openall service time, for everybody who likes to come in, Churchman orDissenter; ay, even if he were a Turk or a Heathen; and if any mandared to turn him out, as long as he behaved quietly, the good oldEnglish law would punish that man, as he deserved, for ordering anypeaceable person out of God's house, which belongs to all alike. But Tom did not know that, any more than he knew a great deal morewhich people ought to know. 

And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman, not behind him thistime, but before. 

For just before he came to the river side, she had stept down intothe cool clear water; and her shawl and her petticoat floated offher, and the green water-weeds floated round her sides, and thewhite water-lilies floated round her head, and the fairies of thestream came up from the bottom and bore her away and down upontheir arms; for she was the Queen of them all; and perhaps of morebesides. 

"Where have you been?" they asked her. 

"I have been smoothing sick folks' pillows, and whispering sweetdreams into their ears; opening cottage casements, to let out thestifling air; coaxing little children away from gutters, and foulpools where fever breeds; turning women from the gin-shop door, andstaying men's hands as they were going to strike their wives; doingall I can to help those who will not help themselves: and littleenough that is, and weary work for me. But I have brought you anew little brother, and watched him safe all the way here. "

Then all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought that they had alittle brother coming. 

"But mind, maidens, he must not see you, or know that you are here. He is but a savage now, and like the beasts which perish; and fromthe beasts which perish he must learn. So you must not play withhim, or speak to him, or let him see you: but only keep him frombeing harmed. "

Then the fairies were sad, because they could not play with theirnew brother, but they always did what they were told. 

And their Queen floated away down the river; and whither she went, thither she came. But all this Tom, of course, never saw or heard:and perhaps if he had it would have made little difference in thestory; for was so hot and thirsty, and longed so to be clean foronce, that he tumbled himself as quick as he could into the clearcool stream. 

And he had not been in it two minutes before he fell fast asleep, into the quietest, sunniest, cosiest sleep that ever he had in hislife; and he dreamt about the green meadows by which he had walkedthat morning, and the tall elm-trees, and the sleeping cows; andafter that he dreamt of nothing at all. 

The reason of his falling into such a delightful sleep is verysimple; and yet hardly any one has found it out. It was merelythat the fairies took him. 

Some people think that there are no fairies. Cousin Cramchildtells little folks so in his Conversations. Well, perhaps thereare none--in Boston, U. S. , where he was raised. There are only aclumsy lot of spirits there, who can't make people hear withoutthumping on the table: but they get their living thereby, and Isuppose that is all they want. And Aunt Agitate, in her Argumentson political economy, says there are none. Well, perhaps there arenone--in her political economy. But it is a wide world, my littleman--and thank Heaven for it, for else, between crinolines andtheories, some of us would get squashed--and plenty of room in itfor fairies, without people seeing them; unless, of course, theylook in the right place. The most wonderful and the strongestthings in the world, you know, are just the things which no one cansee. There is life in you; and it is the life in you which makesyou grow, and move, and think: and yet you can't see it. Andthere is steam in a steam-engine; and that is what makes it move:and yet you can't see it; and so there may be fairies in the world, and they may be just what makes the world go round to the old tuneof

"C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amourQui fait la monde a la ronde:"

and yet no one may be able to see them except those whose heartsare going round to that same tune. At all events, we will makebelieve that there are fairies in the world. It will not be thelast time by many a one that we shall have to make believe. Andyet, after all, there is no need for that. There must be fairies;for this is a fairy tale: and how can one have a fairy tale ifthere are no fairies?

You don't see the logic of that? Perhaps not. Then please not tosee the logic of a great many arguments exactly like it, which youwill hear before your beard is gray. 

The kind old dame came back at twelve, when school was over, tolook at Tom: but there was no Tom there. She looked about for hisfootprints; but the ground was so hard that there was no slot, asthey say in dear old North Devon. And if you grow up to be a bravehealthy man, you may know some day what no slot means, and knowtoo, I hope, what a slot does mean--a broad slot, with blunt claws, which makes a man put out his cigar, and set his teeth, and tightenhis girths, when he sees it; and what his rights mean, if he hasthem, brow, bay, tray, and points; and see something worth seeingbetween Haddon Wood and Countisbury Cliff, with good Mr. PalkCollyns to show you the way, and mend your bones as fast as yousmash them. Only when that jolly day comes, please don't breakyour neck; stogged in a mire you never will be, I trust; for youare a heath-cropper bred and born. 

So the old dame went in again quite sulky, thinking that little Tomhad tricked her with a false story, and shammed ill, and then runaway again. 

But she altered her mind the next day. For, when Sir John and therest of them had run themselves out of breath, and lost Tom, theywent back again, looking very foolish. 

And they looked more foolish still when Sir John heard more of thestory from the nurse; and more foolish still, again, when theyheard the whole story from Miss Ellie, the little lady in white. All she had seen was a poor little black chimney-sweep, crying andsobbing, and going to get up the chimney again. Of course, she wasvery much frightened: and no wonder. But that was all. The boyhad taken nothing in the room; by the mark of his little sootyfeet, they could see that he had never been off the hearthrug tillthe nurse caught hold of him. It was all a mistake. 

So Sir John told Grimes to go home, and promised him five shillingsif he would bring the boy quietly up to him, without beating him, that he might be sure of the truth. For he took for granted, andGrimes too, that Tom had made his way home. 

But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that evening; and he went to thepolice-office, to tell them to look out for the boy. But no Tomwas heard of. As for his having gone over those great fells toVendale, they no more dreamed of that than of his having gone tothe moon. 

So Mr. Grimes came up to Harthover next day with a very sour face;but when he got there, Sir John was over the hills and far away;and Mr. Grimes had to sit in the outer servants' hall all day, anddrink strong ale to wash away his sorrows; and they were washedaway long before Sir John came back. 

For good Sir John had slept very badly that night; and he said tohis lady, "My dear, the boy must have got over into the grouse-moors, and lost himself; and he lies very heavily on my conscience, poor little lad. But I know what I will do. "

So, at five the next morning up he got, and into his bath, and intohis shooting-jacket and gaiters, and into the stableyard, like afine old English gentleman, with a face as red as a rose, and ahand as hard as a table, and a back as broad as a bullock's; andbade them bring his shooting pony, and the keeper to come on hispony, and the huntsman, and the first whip, and the second whip, and the under-keeper with the bloodhound in a leash--a great dog astall as a calf, of the colour of a gravel-walk, with mahogany earsand nose, and a throat like a church-bell. They took him up to theplace where Tom had gone into the wood; and there the hound liftedup his mighty voice, and told them all he knew. 

Then he took them to the place where Tom had climbed the wall; andthey shoved it down, and all got through. 

And then the wise dog took them over the moor, and over the fells, step by step, very slowly; for the scent was a day old, you know, and very light from the heat and drought. But that was why cunningold Sir John started at five in the morning. 

And at last he came to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and there hebayed, and looked up in their faces, as much as to say, "I tell youhe is gone down here!"

They could hardly believe that Tom would have gone so far; and whenthey looked at that awful cliff, they could never believe that hewould have dared to face it. But if the dog said so, it must betrue. 

"Heaven forgive us!" said Sir John. "If we find him at all, weshall find him lying at the bottom. " And he slapped his great handupon his great thigh, and said -

"Who will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, and see if that boy isalive? Oh that I were twenty years younger, and I would go downmyself!" And so he would have done, as well as any sweep in thecounty. Then he said -

"Twenty pounds to the man who brings me that boy alive!" and as washis way, what he said he meant. 

Now among the lot was a little groom-boy, a very little groomindeed; and he was the same who had ridden up the court, and toldTom to come to the Hall; and he said -

"Twenty pounds or none, I will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, ifit's only for the poor boy's sake. For he was as civil a spokenlittle chap as ever climbed a flue. "

So down over Lewthwaite Crag he went: a very smart groom he was atthe top, and a very shabby one at the bottom; for he tore hisgaiters, and he tore his breeches, and he tore his jacket, and heburst his braces, and he burst his boots, and he lost his hat, andwhat was worst of all, he lost his shirt pin, which he prized verymuch, for it was gold, and he had won it in a raffle at Malton, andthere was a figure at the top of it, of t'ould mare, noble oldBeeswing herself, as natural as life; so it was a really severeloss: but he never saw anything of Tom. 

And all the while Sir John and the rest were riding round, fullthree miles to the right, and back again, to get into Vendale, andto the foot of the crag. 

When they came to the old dame's school, all the children came outto see. And the old dame came out too; and when she saw Sir John, she curtsied very low, for she was a tenant of his. 

"Well, dame, and how are you?" said Sir John. 

"Blessings on you as broad as your back, Harthover, " says she--shedidn't call him Sir John, but only Harthover, for that is thefashion in the North country--"and welcome into Vendale: butyou're no hunting the fox this time of the year?"

"I am hunting, and strange game too, " said he. 

"Blessings on your heart, and what makes you look so sad the morn?"

"I'm looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep, that is run away. "

"Oh, Harthover, Harthover, " says she, "ye were always a just manand a merciful; and ye'll no harm the poor little lad if I give youtidings of him?"

"Not I, not I, dame. I'm afraid we hunted him out of the house allon a miserable mistake, and the hound has brought him to the top ofLewthwaite Crag, and--"

Whereat the old dame broke out crying, without letting him finishhis story. 

"So he told me the truth after all, poor little dear! Ah, firstthoughts are best, and a body's heart'll guide them right, if theywill but hearken to it. " And then she told Sir John all. 

"Bring the dog here, and lay him on, " said Sir John, withoutanother word, and he set his teeth very hard. 

And the dog opened at once; and went away at the back of thecottage, over the road, and over the meadow, and through a bit ofalder copse; and there, upon an alder stump, they saw Tom's clotheslying. And then they knew as much about it all as there was anyneed to know. 

And Tom?

Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this wonderful story. Tom, when he woke, for of course he woke--children always wakeafter they have slept exactly as long as is good for them--foundhimself swimming about in the stream, being about four inches, or--that I may be accurate--3. 87902 inches long and having round theparotid region of his fauces a set of external gills (I hope youunderstand all the big words) just like those of a sucking eft, which he mistook for a lace frill, till he pulled at them, found hehurt himself, and made up his mind that they were part of himself, and best left alone. 

In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby. 

A water-baby? You never heard of a water-baby. Perhaps not. Thatis the very reason why this story was written. There are a greatmany things in the world which you never heard of; and a great manymore which nobody ever heard of; and a great many things, too, which nobody will ever hear of, at least until the coming of theCocqcigrues, when man shall be the measure of all things. 

"But there are no such things as water-babies. "

How do you know that? Have you been there to see? And if you hadbeen there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove thatthere were none. If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in EversleyWood--as folks sometimes fear he never will--that does not provethat there are no such things as foxes. And as is Eversley Wood toall the woods in England, so are the waters we know to all thewaters in the world. And no one has a right to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; whichis quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; anda thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do. 

"But surely if there were water-babies, somebody would have caughtone at least?"

Well. How do you know that somebody has not?

"But they would have put it into spirits, or into the IllustratedNews, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing, and sent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to seewhat they would each say about it. "

Ah, my dear little man! that does not follow at all, as you willsee before the end of the story. 

"But a water-baby is contrary to nature. "

Well, but, my dear little man, you must learn to talk about suchthings, when you grow older, in a very different way from that. You must not talk about "ain't" and "can't" when you speak of thisgreat wonderful world round you, of which the wisest man knows onlythe very smallest corner, and is, as the great Sir Isaac Newtonsaid, only a child picking up pebbles on the shore of a boundlessocean. 

You must not say that this cannot be, or that that is contrary tonature. You do not know what Nature is, or what she can do; andnobody knows; not even Sir Roderick Murchison, or Professor Owen, or Professor Sedgwick, or Professor Huxley, or Mr. Darwin, orProfessor Faraday, or Mr. Grove, or any other of the great men whomgood boys are taught to respect. They are very wise men; and youmust listen respectfully to all they say: but even if they shouldsay, which I am sure they never would, "That cannot exist. That iscontrary to nature, " you must wait a little, and see; for perhapseven they may be wrong. It is only children who read AuntAgitate's Arguments, or Cousin Cramchild's Conversations; or ladswho go to popular lectures, and see a man pointing at a few bigugly pictures on the wall, or making nasty smells with bottles andsquirts, for an hour or two, and calling that anatomy or chemistry--who talk about "cannot exist, " and "contrary to nature. " Wise menare afraid to say that there is anything contrary to nature, exceptwhat is contrary to mathematical truth; for two and two cannot makefive, and two straight lines cannot join twice, and a part cannotbe as great as the whole, and so on (at least, so it seems atpresent): but the wiser men are, the less they talk about"cannot. " That is a very rash, dangerous word, that "cannot"; andif people use it too often, the Queen of all the Fairies, who makesthe clouds thunder and the fleas bite, and takes just as muchtrouble about one as about the other, is apt to astonish themsuddenly by showing them, that though they say she cannot, yet shecan, and what is more, will, whether they approve or not. 

And therefore it is, that there are dozens and hundreds of thingsin the world which we should certainly have said were contrary tonature, if we did not see them going on under our eyes all daylong. If people had never seen little seeds grow into great plantsand trees, of quite different shape from themselves, and thesetrees again produce fresh seeds, to grow into fresh trees, theywould have said, "The thing cannot be; it is contrary to nature. "And they would have been quite as right in saying so, as in sayingthat most other things cannot be. 

Or suppose again, that you had come, like M. Du Chaillu, atraveller from unknown parts; and that no human being had ever seenor heard of an elephant. And suppose that you described him topeople, and said, "This is the shape, and plan, and anatomy of thebeast, and of his feet, and of his trunk, and of his grinders, andof his tusks, though they are not tusks at all, but two fore teethrun mad; and this is the section of his skull, more like a mushroomthan a reasonable skull of a reasonable or unreasonable beast; andso forth, and so forth; and though the beast (which I assure you Ihave seen and shot) is first cousin to the little hairy coney ofScripture, second cousin to a pig, and (I suspect) thirteenth orfourteenth cousin to a rabbit, yet he is the wisest of all beasts, and can do everything save read, write, and cast accounts. " Peoplewould surely have said, "Nonsense; your elephant is contrary tonature;" and have thought you were telling stories--as the Frenchthought of Le Vaillant when he came back to Paris and said that hehad shot a giraffe; and as the king of the Cannibal Islands thoughtof the English sailor, when he said that in his country waterturned to marble, and rain fell as feathers. They would tell you, the more they knew of science, "Your elephant is an impossiblemonster, contrary to the laws of comparative anatomy, as far as yetknown. " To which you would answer the less, the more you thought. 

Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last twenty-fiveyears, that a flying dragon was an impossible monster? And do wenot now know that there are hundreds of them found fossil up anddown the world? People call them Pterodactyles: but that is onlybecause they are ashamed to call them flying dragons, after denyingso long that flying dragons could exist. 

The truth is, that folks' fancy that such and such things cannotbe, simply because they have not seen them, is worth no more than asavage's fancy that there cannot be such a thing as a locomotive, because he never saw one running wild in the forest. Wise men knowthat their business is to examine what is, and not to settle whatis not. They know that there are elephants; they know that therehave been flying dragons; and the wiser they are, the less inclinedthey will be to say positively that there are no water-babies. 

No water-babies, indeed? Why, wise men of old said that everythingon earth had its double in the water; and you may see that that is, if not quite true, still quite as true as most other theories whichyou are likely to hear for many a day. There are land-babies--thenwhy not water-babies? Are there not water-rats, water-flies, water-crickets, water-crabs, water-tortoises, water-scorpions, water-tigers and water-hogs, water-cats and water-dogs, sea-lionsand sea-bears, sea-horses and sea-elephants, sea-mice and sea-urchins, sea-razors and sea-pens, sea-combs and sea-fans; and ofplants, are there not water-grass, and water-crowfoot, water-milfoil, and so on, without end?

"But all these things are only nicknames; the water things are notreally akin to the land things. "

That's not always true. They are, in millions of cases, not onlyof the same family, but actually the same individual creatures. Donot even you know that a green drake, and an alder-fly, and adragon-fly, live under water till they change their skins, just asTom changed his? And if a water animal can continually change intoa land animal, why should not a land animal sometimes change into awater animal? Don't be put down by any of Cousin Cramchild'sarguments, but stand up to him like a man, and answer him (quiterespectfully, of course) thus:-

If Cousin Cramchild says, that if there are water-babies, they mustgrow into water-men, ask him how he knows that they do not? andthen, how he knows that they must, any more than the Proteus of theAdelsberg caverns grows into a perfect newt. 

If he says that it is too strange a transformation for a land-babyto turn into a water-baby, ask him if he ever heard of thetransformation of Syllis, or the Distomas, or the common jelly-fish, of which M. Quatrefages says excellently well--"Who would notexclaim that a miracle had come to pass, if he saw a reptile comeout of the egg dropped by the hen in his poultry-yard, and thereptile give birth at once to an indefinite number of fishes andbirds? Yet the history of the jelly-fish is quite as wonderful asthat would be. " Ask him if he knows about all this; and if he doesnot, tell him to go and look for himself; and advise him (veryrespectfully, of course) to settle no more what strange thingscannot happen, till he has seen what strange things do happen everyday. 

If he says that things cannot degrade, that is, change downwardsinto lower forms, ask him, who told him that water-babies werelower than land-babies? But even if they were, does he know aboutthe strange degradation of the common goose-barnacles, which onefinds sticking on ships' bottoms; or the still stranger degradationof some cousins of theirs, of which one hardly likes to talk, soshocking and ugly it is?

And, lastly, if he says (as he most certainly will) that thesetransformations only take place in the lower animals, and not inthe higher, say that that seems to little boys, and to some grownpeople, a very strange fancy. For if the changes of the loweranimals are so wonderful, and so difficult to discover, why shouldnot there be changes in the higher animals far more wonderful, andfar more difficult to discover? And may not man, the crown andflower of all things, undergo some change as much more wonderfulthan all the rest, as the Great Exhibition is more wonderful than arabbit-burrow? Let him answer that. And if he says (as he will)that not having seen such a change in his experience, he is notbound to believe it, ask him respectfully, where his microscope hasbeen? Does not each of us, in coming into this world, go through atransformation just as wonderful as that of a sea-egg, or abutterfly? and do not reason and analogy, as well as Scripture, tell us that that transformation is not the last? and that, thoughwhat we shall be, we know not, yet we are here but as the crawlingcaterpillar, and shall be hereafter as the perfect fly. The oldGreeks, heathens as they were, saw as much as that two thousandyears ago; and I care very little for Cousin Cramchild, if he seeseven less than they. And so forth, and so forth, till he is quitecross. And then tell him that if there are no water-babies, atleast there ought to be; and that, at least, he cannot answer. 

And meanwhile, my dear little man, till you know a great deal moreabout nature than Professor Owen and Professor Huxley put together, don't tell me about what cannot be, or fancy that anything is toowonderful to be true. "We are fearfully and wonderfully made, "said old David; and so we are; and so is everything around us, downto the very deal table. Yes; much more fearfully and wonderfullymade, already, is the table, as it stands now, nothing but a pieceof dead deal wood, than if, as foxes say, and geese believe, spirits could make it dance, or talk to you by rapping on it. 

Am I in earnest? Oh dear no! Don't you know that this is a fairytale, and all fun and pretence; and that you are not to believe oneword of it, even if it is true?

But at all events, so it happened to Tom. And, therefore, thekeeper, and the groom, and Sir John made a great mistake, and werevery unhappy (Sir John at least) without any reason, when theyfound a black thing in the water, and said it was Tom's body, andthat he had been drowned. They were utterly mistaken. Tom wasquite alive; and cleaner, and merrier, than he ever had been. Thefairies had washed him, you see, in the swift river, so thoroughly, that not only his dirt, but his whole husk and shell had beenwashed quite off him, and the pretty little real Tom was washed outof the inside of it, and swam away, as a caddis does when its caseof stones and silk is bored through, and away it goes on its back, paddling to the shore, there to split its skin, and fly away as acaperer, on four fawn-coloured wings, with long legs and horns. They are foolish fellows, the caperers, and fly into the candle atnight, if you leave the door open. We will hope Tom will be wiser, now he has got safe out of his sooty old shell. 

But good Sir John did not understand all this, not being a fellowof the Linnaean Society; and he took it into his head that Tom wasdrowned. When they looked into the empty pockets of his shell, andfound no jewels there, nor money--nothing but three marbles, and abrass button with a string to it--then Sir John did something aslike crying as ever he did in his life, and blamed himself morebitterly than he need have done. So he cried, and the groom-boycried, and the huntsman cried, and the dame cried, and the littlegirl cried, and the dairymaid cried, and the old nurse cried (forit was somewhat her fault), and my lady cried, for though peoplehave wigs, that is no reason why they should not have hearts; butthe keeper did not cry, though he had been so good-natured to Tomthe morning before; for he was so dried up with running afterpoachers, that you could no more get tears out of him than milk outof leather: and Grimes did not cry, for Sir John gave him tenpounds, and he drank it all in a week. Sir John sent, far andwide, to find Tom's father and mother: but he might have lookedtill Doomsday for them, for one was dead, and the other was inBotany Bay. And the little girl would not play with her dolls fora whole week, and never forgot poor little Tom. And soon my ladyput a pretty little tombstone over Tom's shell in the littlechurchyard in Vendale, where the old dalesmen all sleep side byside between the lime-stone crags. And the dame decked it withgarlands every Sunday, till she grew so old that she could not stirabroad; then the little children decked it, for her. And alwaysshe sang an old old song, as she sat spinning what she called herwedding-dress. The children could not understand it, but theyliked it none the less for that; for it was very sweet, and verysad; and that was enough for them. And these are the words of it:-

When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green;And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen;Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away;Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day. 

When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown;And all the sport is stale, lad, And all the wheels run down;Creep home, and take your place there, The spent and maimed among:God grant you find one face there, You loved when all was young. 

Those are the words: but they are only the body of it: the soulof the song was the dear old woman's sweet face, and sweet voice, and the sweet old air to which she sang; and that, alas! one cannotput on paper. And at last she grew so stiff and lame, that theangels were forced to carry her; and they helped her on with herwedding-dress, and carried her up over Harthover Fells, and a longway beyond that too; and there was a new schoolmistress in Vendale, and we will hope that she was not certificated. 

And all the while Tom was swimming about in the river, with apretty little lace-collar of gills about his neck, as lively as agrig, and as clean as a fresh-run salmon. 

Now if you don't like my story, then go to the schoolroom and learnyour multiplication-table, and see if you like that better. Somepeople, no doubt, would do so. So much the better for us, if notfor them. It takes all sorts, they say, to make a world. 

CHAPTER III

"He prayeth well who loveth wellBoth men and bird and beast;He prayeth best who loveth bestAll things both great and small:For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all. "

COLERIDGE. 

Tom was now quite amphibious. You do not know what that means?You had better, then, ask the nearest Government pupil-teacher, whomay possibly answer you smartly enough, thus -

"Amphibious. Adjective, derived from two Greek words, amphi, afish, and bios, a beast. An animal supposed by our ignorantancestors to be compounded of a fish and a beast; which therefore, like the hippopotamus, can't live on the land, and dies in thewater. "

However that may be, Tom was amphibious: and what is better still, he was clean. For the first time in his life, he felt howcomfortable it was to have nothing on him but himself. But he onlyenjoyed it: he did not know it, or think about it; just as youenjoy life and health, and yet never think about being alive andhealthy; and may it be long before you have to think about it!

He did not remember having ever been dirty. Indeed, he did notremember any of his old troubles, being tired, or hungry, orbeaten, or sent up dark chimneys. Since that sweet sleep, he hadforgotten all about his master, and Harthover Place, and the littlewhite girl, and in a word, all that had happened to him when helived before; and what was best of all, he had forgotten all thebad words which he had learned from Grimes, and the rude boys withwhom he used to play. 

That is not strange: for you know, when you came into this world, and became a land-baby, you remembered nothing. So why should he, when he became a water-baby?

Then have you lived before?

My dear child, who can tell? One can only tell that, byremembering something which happened where we lived before; and aswe remember nothing, we know nothing about it; and no book, and noman, can ever tell us certainly. 

There was a wise man once, a very wise man, and a very good man, who wrote a poem about the feelings which some children have abouthaving lived before; and this is what he said -

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath elsewhere had its setting, And cometh from afar:Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory, do we comeFrom God, who is our home. "

There, you can know no more than that. But if I was you, I wouldbelieve that. For then the great fairy Science, who is likely tobe queen of all the fairies for many a year to come, can only doyou good, and never do you harm; and instead of fancying with somepeople, that your body makes your soul, as if a steam-engine couldmake its own coke; or, with some people, that your soul has nothingto do with your body, but is only stuck into it like a pin into apincushion, to fall out with the first shake;--you will believe theone true, orthodox, inductive, rational, deductive, philosophical, seductive, logical, productive, irrefragable, salutary, nominalistic, comfortable, realistic, and on-all-accounts-to-be-received

doctrine of this wonderful fairy tale; which is, that your soulmakes your body, just as a snail makes his shell. For the rest, itis enough for us to be sure that whether or not we lived before, weshall live again; though not, I hope, as poor little heathen Tomdid. For he went downward into the water: but we, I hope, shallgo upward to a very different place. 

But Tom was very happy in the water. He had been sadly overworkedin the land-world; and so now, to make up for that, he had nothingbut holidays in the water-world for a long, long time to come. Hehad nothing to do now but enjoy himself, and look at all the prettythings which are to be seen in the cool clear water-world, wherethe sun is never too hot, and the frost is never too cold. 

And what did he live on? Water-cresses, perhaps; or perhaps water-gruel, and water-milk; too many land-babies do so likewise. But wedo not know what one-tenth of the water-things eat; so we are notanswerable for the water-babies. 

Sometimes he went along the smooth gravel water-ways, looking atthe crickets which ran in and out among the stones, as rabbits doon land; or he climbed over the ledges of rock, and saw the sand-pipes hanging in thousands, with every one of them a pretty littlehead and legs peeping out; or he went into a still corner, andwatched the caddises eating dead sticks as greedily as you wouldeat plum-pudding, and building their houses with silk and glue. Very fanciful ladies they were; none of them would keep to the samematerials for a day. One would begin with some pebbles; then shewould stick on a piece of green wood; then she found a shell, andstuck it on too; and the poor shell was alive, and did not like atall being taken to build houses with: but the caddis did not lethim have any voice in the matter, being rude and selfish, as vainpeople are apt to be; then she stuck on a piece of rotten wood, then a very smart pink stone, and so on, till she was patched allover like an Irishman's coat. Then she found a long straw, fivetimes as long as herself, and said, "Hurrah! my sister has a tail, and I'll have one too;" and she stuck it on her back, and marchedabout with it quite proud, though it was very inconvenient indeed. And, at that, tails became all the fashion among the caddis-baitsin that pool, as they were at the end of the Long Pond last May, and they all toddled about with long straws sticking out behind, getting between each other's legs, and tumbling over each other, and looking so ridiculous, that Tom laughed at them till he cried, as we did. But they were quite right, you know; for people mustalways follow the fashion, even if it be spoon-bonnets. 

Then sometimes he came to a deep still reach; and there he saw thewater-forests. They would have looked to you only little weeds:but Tom, you must remember, was so little that everything looked ahundred times as big to him as it does to you, just as things do toa minnow, who sees and catches the little water-creatures which youcan only see in a microscope. 

And in the water-forest he saw the water-monkeys and water-squirrels (they had all six legs, though; everything almost has sixlegs in the water, except efts and water-babies); and nimbly enoughthey ran among the branches. There were water-flowers there too, in thousands; and Tom tried to pick them: but as soon as hetouched them, they drew themselves in and turned into knots ofjelly; and then Tom saw that they were all alive--bells, and stars, and wheels, and flowers, of all beautiful shapes and colours; andall alive and busy, just as Tom was. So now he found that therewas a great deal more in the world than he had fancied at firstsight. 

There was one wonderful little fellow, too, who peeped out of thetop of a house built of round bricks. He had two big wheels, andone little one, all over teeth, spinning round and round like thewheels in a thrashing-machine; and Tom stood and stared at him, tosee what he was going to make with his machinery. And what do youthink he was doing? Brick-making. With his two big wheels heswept together all the mud which floated in the water: all thatwas nice in it he put into his stomach and ate; and all the mud heput into the little wheel on his breast, which really was a roundhole set with teeth; and there he spun it into a neat hard roundbrick; and then he took it and stuck it on the top of his house-wall, and set to work to make another. Now was not he a cleverlittle fellow?

Tom thought so: but when he wanted to talk to him the brick-makerwas much too busy and proud of his work to take notice of him. 

Now you must know that all the things under the water talk; onlynot such a language as ours; but such as horses, and dogs, andcows, and birds talk to each other; and Tom soon learned tounderstand them and talk to them; so that he might have had verypleasant company if he had only been a good boy. But I am sorry tosay, he was too like some other little boys, very fond of huntingand tormenting creatures for mere sport. Some people say that boyscannot help it; that it is nature, and only a proof that we are alloriginally descended from beasts of prey. But whether it is natureor not, little boys can help it, and must help it. For if theyhave naughty, low, mischievous tricks in their nature, as monkeyshave, that is no reason why they should give way to those trickslike monkeys, who know no better. And therefore they must nottorment dumb creatures; for if they do, a certain old lady who iscoming will surely give them exactly what they deserve. 

But Tom did not know that; and he pecked and howked the poor water-things about sadly, till they were all afraid of him, and got outof his way, or crept into their shells; so he had no one to speakto or play with. 

The water-fairies, of course, were very sorry to see him sounhappy, and longed to take him, and tell him how naughty he was, and teach him to be good, and to play and romp with him too: butthey had been forbidden to do that. Tom had to learn his lessonfor himself by sound and sharp experience, as many another foolishperson has to do, though there may be many a kind heart yearningover them all the while, and longing to teach them what they canonly teach themselves. 

At last one day he found a caddis, and wanted it to peep out of itshouse: but its house-door was shut. He had never seen a caddiswith a house-door before: so what must he do, the meddlesomelittle fellow, but pull it open, to see what the poor lady wasdoing inside. What a shame! How should you like to have any onebreaking your bedroom-door in, to see how you looked when you wherein bed? So Tom broke to pieces the door, which was the prettiestlittle grating of silk, stuck all over with shining bits ofcrystal; and when he looked in, the caddis poked out her head, andit had turned into just the shape of a bird's. But when Tom spoketo her she could not answer; for her mouth and face were tight tiedup in a new night-cap of neat pink skin. However, if she didn'tanswer, all the other caddises did; for they held up their handsand shrieked like the cats in Struwelpeter: "Oh, you nasty horridboy; there you are at it again! And she had just laid herself upfor a fortnight's sleep, and then she would have come out with suchbeautiful wings, and flown about, and laid such lots of eggs: andnow you have broken her door, and she can't mend it because hermouth is tied up for a fortnight, and she will die. Who sent youhere to worry us out of our lives?"

So Tom swam away. He was very much ashamed of himself, and feltall the naughtier; as little boys do when they have done wrong andwon't say so. 

Then he came to a pool full of little trout, and began tormentingthem, and trying to catch them: but they slipped through hisfingers, and jumped clean out of water in their fright. But as Tomchased them, he came close to a great dark hover under an alderroot, and out floushed a huge old brown trout ten times as big ashe was, and ran right against him, and knocked all the breath outof his body; and I don't know which was the more frightened of thetwo. 

Then he went on sulky and lonely, as he deserved to be; and under abank he saw a very ugly dirty creature sitting, about half as bigas himself; which had six legs, and a big stomach, and a mostridiculous head with two great eyes and a face just like adonkey's. 

"Oh, " said Tom, "you are an ugly fellow to be sure!" and he beganmaking faces at him; and put his nose close to him, and halloed athim, like a very rude boy. 

When, hey presto; all the thing's donkey-face came off in a moment, and out popped a long arm with a pair of pincers at the end of it, and caught Tom by the nose. It did not hurt him much; but it heldhim quite tight. 

"Yah, ah! Oh, let me go!" cried Tom. 

"Then let me go, " said the creature. "I want to be quiet. I wantto split. "

Tom promised to let him alone, and he let go. 

"Why do you want to split?" said Tom. 

"Because my brothers and sisters have all split, and turned intobeautiful creatures with wings; and I want to split too. Don'tspeak to me. I am sure I shall split. I will split!"

Tom stood still, and watched him. And he swelled himself, andpuffed, and stretched himself out stiff, and at last--crack, puff, bang--he opened all down his back, and then up to the top of hishead. 

And out of his inside came the most slender, elegant, softcreature, as soft and smooth as Tom: but very pale and weak, likea little child who has been ill a long time in a dark room. Itmoved its legs very feebly; and looked about it half ashamed, likea girl when she goes for the first time into a ballroom; and thenit began walking slowly up a grass stem to the top of the water. 

Tom was so astonished that he never said a word but he stared withall his eyes. And he went up to the top of the water too, andpeeped out to see what would happen. 

And as the creature sat in the warm bright sun, a wonderful changecame over it. It grew strong and firm; the most lovely coloursbegan to show on its body, blue and yellow and black, spots andbars and rings; out of its back rose four great wings of brightbrown gauze; and its eyes grew so large that they filled all itshead, and shone like ten thousand diamonds. 

"Oh, you beautiful creature!" said Tom; and he put out his hand tocatch it. 

But the thing whirred up into the air, and hung poised on its wingsa moment, and then settled down again by Tom quite fearless. 

"No!" it said, "you cannot catch me. I am a dragon-fly now, theking of all the flies; and I shall dance in the sunshine, and hawkover the river, and catch gnats, and have a beautiful wife likemyself. I know what I shall do. Hurrah!" And he flew away intothe air, and began catching gnats. 

"Oh! come back, come back, " cried Tom, "you beautiful creature. Ihave no one to play with, and I am so lonely here. If you will butcome back I will never try to catch you. "

"I don't care whether you do or not, " said the dragon-fly; "for youcan't. But when I have had my dinner, and looked a little aboutthis pretty place, I will come back, and have a little chat aboutall I have seen in my travels. Why, what a huge tree this is! andwhat huge leaves on it!"

It was only a big dock: but you know the dragon-fly had never seenany but little water-trees; starwort, and milfoil, and water-crowfoot, and such like; so it did look very big to him. Besides, he was very short-sighted, as all dragon-flies are; and never couldsee a yard before his nose; any more than a great many other folks, who are not half as handsome as he. 

The dragon-fly did come back, and chatted away with Tom. He was alittle conceited about his fine colours and his large wings; butyou know, he had been a poor dirty ugly creature all his lifebefore; so there were great excuses for him. He was very fond oftalking about all the wonderful things he saw in the trees and themeadows; and Tom liked to listen to him, for he had forgotten allabout them. So in a little while they became great friends. 

And I am very glad to say, that Tom learned such a lesson that day, that he did not torment creatures for a long time after. And thenthe caddises grew quite tame, and used to tell him strange storiesabout the way they built their houses, and changed their skins, andturned at last into winged flies; till Tom began to long to changehis skin, and have wings like them some day. 

And the trout and he made it up (for trout very soon forget if theyhave been frightened and hurt). So Tom used to play with them athare and hounds, and great fun they had; and he used to try to leapout of the water, head over heels, as they did before a shower cameon; but somehow he never could manage it. He liked most, though, to see them rising at the flies, as they sailed round and roundunder the shadow of the great oak, where the beetles fell flop intothe water, and the green caterpillars let themselves down from theboughs by silk ropes for no reason at all; and then changed theirfoolish minds for no reason at all either; and hauled themselves upagain into the tree, rolling up the rope in a ball between theirpaws; which is a very clever rope-dancer's trick, and neitherBlondin nor Leotard could do it: but why they should take so muchtrouble about it no one can tell; for they cannot get their living, as Blondin and Leotard do, by trying to break their necks on astring. 

And very often Tom caught them just as they touched the water; andcaught the alder-flies, and the caperers, and the cock-tailed dunsand spinners, yellow, and brown, and claret, and gray, and gavethem to his friends the trout. Perhaps he was not quite kind tothe flies; but one must do a good turn to one's friends when onecan. 

And at last he gave up catching even the flies; for he madeacquaintance with one by accident and found him a very merry littlefellow. And this was the way it happened; and it is all quitetrue. 

He was basking at the top of the water one hot day in July, catching duns and feeding the trout, when he saw a new sort, a darkgray little fellow with a brown head. He was a very little fellowindeed: but he made the most of himself, as people ought to do. He cocked up his head, and he cocked up his wings, and he cocked uphis tail, and he cocked up the two whisks at his tail-end, and, inshort, he looked the cockiest little man of all little men. And sohe proved to be; for instead of getting away, he hopped upon Tom'sfinger, and sat there as bold as nine tailors; and he cried out inthe tiniest, shrillest, squeakiest little voice you ever heard, "Much obliged to you, indeed; but I don't want it yet. "

"Want what?" said Tom, quite taken aback by his impudence. 

"Your leg, which you are kind enough to hold out for me to sit on. I must just go and see after my wife for a few minutes. Dear me!what a troublesome business a family is!" (though the idle littlerogue did nothing at all, but left his poor wife to lay all theeggs by herself). "When I come back, I shall be glad of it, ifyou'll be so good as to keep it sticking out just so;" and off heflew. 

Tom thought him a very cool sort of personage; and still more so, when, in five minutes he came back, and said--"Ah, you were tiredwaiting? Well, your other leg will do as well. "

And he popped himself down on Tom's knee, and began chatting awayin his squeaking voice. 

"So you live under the water? It's a low place. I lived there forsome time; and was very shabby and dirty. But I didn't choose thatthat should last. So I turned respectable, and came up to the top, and put on this gray suit. It's a very business-like suit, youthink, don't you?"

"Very neat and quiet indeed, " said Tom. 

"Yes, one must be quiet and neat and respectable, and all that sortof thing for a little, when one becomes a family man. But I'mtired of it, that's the truth. I've done quite enough business, Iconsider, in the last week, to last me my life. So I shall put ona ball dress, and go out and be a smart man, and see the gay world, and have a dance or two. Why shouldn't one be jolly if one can?"

"And what will become of your wife?"

"Oh! she is a very plain stupid creature, and that's the truth; andthinks about nothing but eggs. If she chooses to come, why shemay; and if not, why I go without her;--and here I go. "

And, as he spoke, he turned quite pale, and then quite white. 

"Why, you're ill!" said Tom. But he did not answer. 

"You're dead, " said Tom, looking at him as he stood on his knee aswhite as a ghost. 

"No, I ain't!" answered a little squeaking voice over his head. "This is me up here, in my ball-dress; and that's my skin. Ha, ha!you could not do such a trick as that!"

And no more Tom could, nor Houdin, nor Robin, nor Frikell, nor allthe conjurors in the world. For the little rogue had jumped cleanout of his own skin, and left it standing on Tom's knee, eyes, wings, legs, tail, exactly as if it had been alive. 

"Ha, ha!" he said, and he jerked and skipped up and down, neverstopping an instant, just as if he had St. Vitus's dance. "Ain't Ia pretty fellow now?"

And so he was; for his body was white, and his tail orange, and hiseyes all the colours of a peacock's tail. And what was the oddestof all, the whisks at the end of his tail had grown five times aslong as they were before. 

"Ah!" said he, "now I will see the gay world. My living, won'tcost me much, for I have no mouth, you see, and no inside; so I cannever be hungry nor have the stomach-ache neither. "

No more he had. He had grown as dry and hard and empty as a quill, as such silly shallow-hearted fellows deserve to grow. 

But, instead of being ashamed of his emptiness, he was quite proudof it, as a good many fine gentlemen are, and began flirting andflipping up and down, and singing -

"My wife shall dance, and I shall sing, So merrily pass the day;For I hold it for quite the wisest thing, To drive dull care away. "

And he danced up and down for three days and three nights, till hegrew so tired, that he tumbled into the water, and floated down. But what became of him Tom never knew, and he himself never minded;for Tom heard him singing to the last, as he floated down -

"To drive dull care away-ay-ay!"

And if he did not care, why nobody else cared either. 

But one day Tom had a new adventure. He was sitting on a water-lily leaf, he and his friend the dragon-fly, watching the gnatsdance. The dragon-fly had eaten as many as he wanted, and wassitting quite still and sleepy, for it was very hot and bright. The gnats (who did not care the least for their poor brothers'death) danced a foot over his head quite happily, and a large blackfly settled within an inch of his nose, and began washing his ownface and combing his hair with his paws: but the dragon-fly neverstirred, and kept on chatting to Tom about the times when he livedunder the water. 

Suddenly, Tom heard the strangest noise up the stream; cooing, andgrunting, and whining, and squeaking, as if you had put into a bagtwo stock-doves, nine mice, three guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy, and left them there to settle themselves and make music. 

He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as thenoise; a great ball rolling over and over down the stream, seemingone moment of soft brown fur, and the next of shining glass: andyet it was not a ball; for sometimes it broke up and streamed awayin pieces, and then it joined again; and all the while the noisecame out of it louder and louder. 

Tom asked the dragon-fly what it could be: but, of course, withhis short sight, he could not even see it, though it was not tenyards away. So he took the neatest little header into the water, and started off to see for himself; and, when he came near, theball turned out to be four or five beautiful creatures, many timeslarger than Tom, who were swimming about, and rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling, and cuddling, and kissing and biting, and scratching, in the most charming fashion that ever was seen. And if you don't believe me, you may go to the Zoological Gardens(for I am afraid that you won't see it nearer, unless, perhaps, youget up at five in the morning, and go down to Cordery's Moor, andwatch by the great withy pollard which hangs over the backwater, where the otters breed sometimes), and then say, if otters at playin the water are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creaturesyou ever saw. 

But, when the biggest of them saw Tom, she darted out from therest, and cried in the water-language sharply enough, "Quick, children, here is something to eat, indeed!" and came at poor Tom, showing such a wicked pair of eyes, and such a set of sharp teethin a grinning mouth, that Tom, who had thought her very handsome, said to himself, Handsome is that handsome does, and slipped inbetween the water-lily roots as fast as he could, and then turnedround and made faces at her. 

"Come out, " said the wicked old otter, "or it will be worse foryou. "

But Tom looked at her from between two thick roots, and shook themwith all his might, making horrible faces all the while, just as heused to grin through the railings at the old women, when he livedbefore. It was not quite well bred, no doubt; but you know, Tomhad not finished his education yet. 

"Come, away, children, " said the otter in disgust, "it is not wortheating, after all. It is only a nasty eft, which nothing eats, noteven those vulgar pike in the pond. "

"I am not an eft!" said Tom; "efts have tails. "

"You are an eft, " said the otter, very positively; "I see your twohands quite plain, and I know you have a tail. "

"I tell you I have not, " said Tom. "Look here!" and he turned hispretty little self quite round; and, sure enough, he had no moretail than you. 

The otter might have got out of it by saying that Tom was a frog:but, like a great many other people, when she had once said athing, she stood to it, right or wrong; so she answered:

"I say you are an eft, and therefore you are, and not fit food forgentlefolk like me and my children. You may stay there till thesalmon eat you (she knew the salmon would not, but she wanted tofrighten poor Tom). Ha! ha! they will eat you, and we will eatthem;" and the otter laughed such a wicked cruel laugh--as you mayhear them do sometimes; and the first time that you hear it youwill probably think it is bogies. 

"What are salmon?" asked Tom. 

"Fish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat. They are the lordsof the fish, and we are lords of the salmon;" and she laughedagain. "We hunt them up and down the pools, and drive them up intoa corner, the silly things; they are so proud, and bully the littletrout, and the minnows, till they see us coming, and then they areso meek all at once, and we catch them, but we disdain to eat themall; we just bite out their soft throats and suck their sweetjuice--Oh, so good!"--(and she licked her wicked lips)--"and thenthrow them away, and go and catch another. They are coming soon, children, coming soon; I can smell the rain coming up off the sea, and then hurrah for a fresh, and salmon, and plenty of eating allday long. "

And the otter grew so proud that she turned head over heels twice, and then stood upright half out of the water, grinning like aCheshire cat. 

"And where do they come from?" asked Tom, who kept himself veryclose, for he was considerably frightened. 

"Out of the sea, eft, the great wide sea, where they might stay andbe safe if they liked. But out of the sea the silly things come, into the great river down below, and we come up to watch for them;and when they go down again we go down and follow them. And therewe fish for the bass and the pollock, and have jolly days along theshore, and toss and roll in the breakers, and sleep snug in thewarm dry crags. Ah, that is a merry life too, children, if it werenot for those horrid men. "

"What are men?" asked Tom; but somehow he seemed to know before heasked. 

"Two-legged things, eft: and, now I come to look at you, they areactually something like you, if you had not a tail" (she wasdetermined that Tom should have a tail), "only a great deal bigger, worse luck for us; and they catch the fish with hooks and lines, which get into our feet sometimes, and set pots along the rocks tocatch lobsters. They speared my poor dear husband as he went outto find something for me to eat. I was laid up among the cragsthen, and we were very low in the world, for the sea was so roughthat no fish would come in shore. But they speared him, poorfellow, and I saw them carrying him away upon a pole. All, he losthis life for your sakes, my children, poor dear obedient creaturethat he was. "

And the otter grew so sentimental (for otters can be verysentimental when they choose, like a good many people who are bothcruel and greedy, and no good to anybody at all) that she sailedsolemnly away down the burn, and Tom saw her no more for that time. And lucky it was for her that she did so; for no sooner was shegone, than down the bank came seven little rough terrier doors, snuffing and yapping, and grubbing and splashing, in full cry afterthe otter. Tom hid among the water-lilies till they were gone; forhe could not guess that they were the water-fairies come to helphim. 

But he could not help thinking of what the otter had said about thegreat river and the broad sea. And, as he thought, he longed to goand see them. He could not tell why; but the more he thought, themore he grew discontented with the narrow little stream in which helived, and all his companions there; and wanted to get out into thewide wide world, and enjoy all the wonderful sights of which he wassure it was full. 

And once he set off to go down the stream. But the stream was verylow; and when he came to the shallows he could not keep underwater, for there was no water left to keep under. So the sunburned his back and made him sick; and he went back again and layquiet in the pool for a whole week more. 

And then, on the evening of a very hot day, he saw a sight. 

He had been very stupid all day, and so had the trout; for theywould not move an inch to take a fly, though there were thousandson the water, but lay dozing at the bottom under the shade of thestones; and Tom lay dozing too, and was glad to cuddle their smoothcool sides, for the water was quite warm and unpleasant. 

But toward evening it grew suddenly dark, and Tom looked up and sawa blanket of black clouds lying right across the valley above hishead, resting on the crags right and left. He felt not quitefrightened, but very still; for everything was still. There wasnot a whisper of wind, nor a chirp of a bird to be heard; and nexta few great drops of rain fell plop into the water, and one hit Tomon the nose, and made him pop his head down quickly enough. 

And then the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed, and leaptacross Vendale and back again, from cloud to cloud, and cliff tocliff, till the very rocks in the stream seemed to shake: and Tomlooked up at it through the water, and thought it the finest thinghe ever saw in his life. 

But out of the water he dared not put his head; for the rain camedown by bucketsful, and the hail hammered like shot on the stream, and churned it into foam; and soon the stream rose, and rusheddown, higher and higher, and fouler and fouler, full of beetles, and sticks; and straws, and worms, and addle-eggs, and wood-lice, and leeches, and odds and ends, and omnium-gatherums, and this, that, and the other, enough to fill nine museums. 

Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and hid behind a rock. But the trout did not; for out they rushed from among the stones, and began gobbling the beetles and leeches in the most greedy andquarrelsome way, and swimming about with great worms hanging out oftheir mouths, tugging and kicking to get them away from each other. 

And now, by the flashes of the lightning, Tom saw a new sight--allthe bottom of the stream alive with great eels, turning andtwisting along, all down stream and away. They had been hiding forweeks past in the cracks of the rocks, and in burrows in the mud;and Tom had hardly ever seen them, except now and then at night:but now they were all out, and went hurrying past him so fiercelyand wildly that he was quite frightened. And as they hurried pasthe could hear them say to each other, "We must run, we must run. What a jolly thunderstorm! Down to the sea, down to the sea!"

And then the otter came by with all her brood, twining and sweepingalong as fast as the eels themselves; and she spied Tom as she cameby, and said "Now is your time, eft, if you want to see the world. Come along, children, never mind those nasty eels: we shallbreakfast on salmon to-morrow. Down to the sea, down to the sea!"

Then came a flash brighter than all the rest, and by the light ofit--in the thousandth part of a second they were gone again--but hehad seen them, he was certain of it--Three beautiful little whitegirls, with their arms twined round each other's necks, floatingdown the torrent, as they sang, "Down to the sea, down to the sea!"

"Oh stay! Wait for me!" cried Tom; but they were gone: yet hecould hear their voices clear and sweet through the roar of thunderand water and wind, singing as they died away, "Down to the sea!"

"Down to the sea?" said Tom; "everything is going to the sea, and Iwill go too. Good-bye, trout. " But the trout were so busygobbling worms that they never turned to answer him; so that Tomwas spared the pain of bidding them farewell. 

And now, down the rushing stream, guided by the bright flashes ofthe storm; past tall birch-fringed rocks, which shone out onemoment as clear as day, and the next were dark as night; past darkhovers under swirling banks, from which great trout rushed out onTom, thinking him to be good to eat, and turned back sulkily, forthe fairies sent them home again with a tremendous scolding, fordaring to meddle with a water-baby; on through narrow strids androaring cataracts, where Tom was deafened and blinded for a momentby the rushing waters; along deep reaches, where the white water-lilies tossed and flapped beneath the wind and hail; past sleepingvillages; under dark bridge-arches, and away and away to the sea. And Tom could not stop, and did not care to stop; he would see thegreat world below, and the salmon, and the breakers, and the widewide sea. 

And when the daylight came, Tom found himself out in the salmonriver. 

And what sort of a river was it? Was it like an Irish stream, winding through the brown bogs, where the wild ducks squatter upfrom among the white water-lilies, and the curlews flit to and fro, crying "Tullie-wheep, mind your sheep;" and Dennis tells youstrange stories of the Peishtamore, the great bogy-snake which liesin the black peat pools, among the old pine-stems, and puts hishead out at night to snap at the cattle as they come down todrink?--But you must not believe all that Dennis tells you, mind;for if you ask him:

"Is there a salmon here, do you think, Dennis?"

"Is it salmon, thin, your honour manes? Salmon? Cartloads it isof thim, thin, an' ridgmens, shouldthering ache out of water, av'ye'd but the luck to see thim. "

Then you fish the pool all over, and never get a rise. 

"But there can't be a salmon here, Dennis! and, if you'll butthink, if one had come up last tide, he'd be gone to the higherpools by now. "

"Shure thin, and your honour's the thrue fisherman, and understandsit all like a book. Why, ye spake as if ye'd known the wather athousand years! As I said, how could there be a fish here at all, just now?"

"But you said just now they were shouldering each other out ofwater?"

And then Dennis will look up at you with his handsome, sly, soft, sleepy, good-natured, untrustable, Irish gray eye, and answer withthe prettiest smile:

"Shure, and didn't I think your honour would like a pleasantanswer?"

So you must not trust Dennis, because he is in the habit of givingpleasant answers: but, instead of being angry with him, you mustremember that he is a poor Paddy, and knows no better; so you mustjust burst out laughing; and then he will burst out laughing too, and slave for you, and trot about after you, and show you goodsport if he can--for he is an affectionate fellow, and as fond ofsport as you are--and if he can't, tell you fibs instead, a hundredan hour; and wonder all the while why poor ould Ireland does notprosper like England and Scotland, and some other places, wherefolk have taken up a ridiculous fancy that honesty is the bestpolicy. 

Or was it like a Welsh salmon river, which is remarkable chiefly(at least, till this last year) for containing no salmon, as theyhave been all poached out by the enlightened peasantry, to preventthe Cythrawl Sassenach (which means you, my little dear, your kithand kin, and signifies much the same as the Chinese Fan Quei) fromcoming bothering into Wales, with good tackle, and ready money, andcivilisation, and common honesty, and other like things of whichthe Cymry stand in no need whatsoever?

Or was it such a salmon stream as I trust you will see among theHampshire water-meadows before your hairs are gray, under the wisenew fishing-laws?--when Winchester apprentices shall covenant, asthey did three hundred years ago, not to be made to eat salmon morethan three days a week; and fresh-run fish shall be as plentifulunder Salisbury spire as they are in Holly-hole at Christchurch; inthe good time coming, when folks shall see that, of all Heaven'sgifts of food, the one to be protected most carefully is thatworthy gentleman salmon, who is generous enough to go down to thesea weighing five ounces, and to come back next year weighing fivepounds, without having cost the soil or the state one farthing?

Or was it like a Scotch stream, such as Arthur Clough drew in his"Bothie":-

"Where over a ledge of graniteInto a granite bason the amber torrent descended. . . . . Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under;Beautiful most of all, where beads of foam uprisingMingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of thestillness. . . . Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendant birchboughs. " . . . 

Ah, my little man, when you are a big man, and fish such a streamas that, you will hardly care, I think, whether she be roaring downin full spate, like coffee covered with scald cream, while the fishare swirling at your fly as an oar-blade swirls in a boat-race, orflashing up the cataract like silver arrows, out of the fiercest ofthe foam; or whether the fall be dwindled to a single thread, andthe shingle below be as white and dusty as a turnpike road, whilethe salmon huddle together in one dark cloud in the clear amberpool, sleeping away their time till the rain creeps back again offthe sea. You will not care much, if you have eyes and brains; foryou will lay down your rod contentedly, and drink in at your eyesthe beauty of that glorious place; and listen to the water-ouzelpiping on the stones, and watch the yellow roes come down to drinkand look up at you with their great soft trustful eyes, as much asto say, "You could not have the heart to shoot at us?" And then, if you have sense, you will turn and talk to the great giant of agilly who lies basking on the stone beside you. He will tell youno fibs, my little man; for he is a Scotchman, and fears God, andnot the priest; and, as you talk with him, you will be surprisedmore and more at his knowledge, his sense, his humour, hiscourtesy; and you will find out--unless you have found it outbefore--that a man may learn from his Bible to be a more thoroughgentleman than if he had been brought up in all the drawing-roomsin London. 

No. It was none of these, the salmon stream at Harthover. It wassuch a stream as you see in dear old Bewick; Bewick, who was bornand bred upon them. A full hundred yards broad it was, sliding onfrom broad pool to broad shallow, and broad shallow to broad pool, over great fields of shingle, under oak and ash coverts, past lowcliffs of sandstone, past green meadows, and fair parks, and agreat house of gray stone, and brown moors above, and here andthere against the sky the smoking chimney of a colliery. You mustlook at Bewick to see just what it was like, for he has drawn it ahundred times with the care and the love of a true northcountryman; and, even if you do not care about the salmon river, you ought, like all good boys, to know your Bewick. 

At least, so old Sir John used to say, and very sensibly he put ittoo, as he was wont to do:

"If they want to describe a finished young gentleman in France, Ihear, they say of him, 'Il sait son Rabelais. ' But if I want todescribe one in England, I say, 'He knows his Bewick. ' And I thinkthat is the higher compliment. "

But Tom thought nothing about what the river was like. All hisfancy was, to get down to the wide wide sea. 

And after a while he came to a place where the river spread outinto broad still shallow reaches, so wide that little Tom, as heput his head out of the water, could hardly see across. 

And there he stopped. He got a little frightened. "This must bethe sea, " he thought. "What a wide place it is! If I go on intoit I shall surely lose my way, or some strange thing will bite me. I will stop here and look out for the otter, or the eels, or someone to tell me where I shall go. "

So he went back a little way, and crept into a crack of the rock, just where the river opened out into the wide shallows, and watchedfor some one to tell him his way: but the otter and the eels weregone on miles and miles down the stream. 

There he waited, and slept too, for he was quite tired with hisnight's journey; and, when he woke, the stream was clearing to abeautiful amber hue, though it was still very high. And after awhile he saw a sight which made him jump up; for he knew in amoment it was one of the things which he had come to look for. 

Such a fish! ten times as big as the biggest trout, and a hundredtimes as big as Tom, sculling up the stream past him, as easily asTom had sculled down. 

Such a fish! shining silver from head to tail, and here and there acrimson dot; with a grand hooked nose and grand curling lip, and agrand bright eye, looking round him as proudly as a king, andsurveying the water right and left as if all belonged to him. Surely he must be the salmon, the king of all the fish. 

Tom was so frightened that he longed to creep into a hole; but heneed not have been; for salmon are all true gentlemen, and, liketrue gentlemen, they look noble and proud enough, and yet, liketrue gentlemen, they never harm or quarrel with any one, but goabout their own business, and leave rude fellows to themselves. 

The salmon looked at him full in the face, and then went on withoutminding him, with a swish or two of his tail which made the streamboil again. And in a few minutes came another, and then four orfive, and so on; and all passed Tom, rushing and plunging up thecataract with strong strokes of their silver tails, now and thenleaping clean out of water and up over a rock, shining gloriouslyfor a moment in the bright sun; while Tom was so delighted that hecould have watched them all day long. 

And at last one came up bigger than all the rest; but he cameslowly, and stopped, and looked back, and seemed very anxious andbusy. And Tom saw that he was helping another salmon, anespecially handsome one, who had not a single spot upon it, but wasclothed in pure silver from nose to tail. 

"My dear, " said the great fish to his companion, "you really lookdreadfully tired, and you must not over-exert yourself at first. Do rest yourself behind this rock;" and he shoved her gently withhis nose, to the rock where Tom sat. 

You must know that this was the salmon's wife. For salmon, likeother true gentlemen, always choose their lady, and love her, andare true to her, and take care of her and work for her, and fightfor her, as every true gentleman ought; and are not like vulgarchub and roach and pike, who have no high feelings, and take nocare of their wives. 

Then he saw Tom, and looked at him very fiercely one moment, as ifhe was going to bite him. 

"What do you want here?" he said, very fiercely. 

"Oh, don't hurt me!" cried Tom. "I only want to look at you; youare so handsome. "

"Ah?" said the salmon, very stately but very civilly. "I reallybeg your pardon; I see what you are, my little dear. I have metone or two creatures like you before, and found them very agreeableand well-behaved. Indeed, one of them showed me a great kindnesslately, which I hope to be able to repay. I hope we shall not bein your way here. As soon as this lady is rested, we shall proceedon our journey. "

What a well-bred old salmon he was!

"So you have seen things like me before?" asked Tom. 

"Several times, my dear. Indeed, it was only last night that oneat the river's mouth came and warned me and my wife of some newstake-nets which had got into the stream, I cannot tell how, sincelast winter, and showed us the way round them, in the mostcharmingly obliging way. "

"So there are babies in the sea?" cried Tom, and clapped his littlehands. "Then I shall have some one to play with there? Howdelightful!"

"Were there no babies up this stream?" asked the lady salmon. 

"No! and I grew so lonely. I thought I saw three last night; butthey were gone in an instant, down to the sea. So I went too; forI had nothing to play with but caddises and dragon-flies andtrout. "

"Ugh!" cried the lady, "what low company!"

"My dear, if he has been in low company, he has certainly notlearnt their low manners, " said the salmon. 

"No, indeed, poor little dear: but how sad for him to live amongsuch people as caddises, who have actually six legs, the nastythings; and dragon-flies, too! why they are not even good to eat;for I tried them once, and they are all hard and empty; and, as fortrout, every one knows what they are. " Whereon she curled up herlip, and looked dreadfully scornful, while her husband curled uphis too, till he looked as proud as Alcibiades. 

"Why do you dislike the trout so?" asked Tom. 

"My dear, we do not even mention them, if we can help it; for I amsorry to say they are relations of ours who do us no credit. Agreat many years ago they were just like us: but they were solazy, and cowardly, and greedy, that instead of going down to thesea every year to see the world and grow strong and fat, they choseto stay and poke about in the little streams and eat worms andgrubs; and they are very properly punished for it; for they havegrown ugly and brown and spotted and small; and are actually sodegraded in their tastes, that they will eat our children. "

"And then they pretend to scrape acquaintance with us again, " saidthe lady. "Why, I have actually known one of them propose to alady salmon, the little impudent little creature. "

"I should hope, " said the gentleman, "that there are very fewladies of our race who would degrade themselves by listening tosuch a creature for an instant. If I saw such a thing happen, Ishould consider it my duty to put them both to death upon thespot. " So the old salmon said, like an old blue-blooded hidalgo ofSpain; and what is more, he would have done it too. For you mustknow, no enemies are so bitter against each other as those who areof the same race; and a salmon looks on a trout, as some greatfolks look on some little folks, as something just too much likehimself to be tolerated. 

CHAPTER IV

"Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;Our meddling intellectMis-shapes the beauteous forms of thingsWe murder to dissect. 

Enough of science and of art:Close up these barren leaves;Come forth, and bring with you a heartThat watches and receives. "

WORDSWORTH. 

So the salmon went up, after Tom had warned them of the wicked oldotter; and Tom went down, but slowly and cautiously, coasting alongshore. He was many days about it, for it was many miles down tothe sea; and perhaps he would never have found his way, if thefairies had not guided him, without his seeing their fair faces, orfeeling their gentle hands. 

And, as he went, he had a very strange adventure. It was a clearstill September night, and the moon shone so brightly down throughthe water, that he could not sleep, though he shut his eyes astight as possible. So at last he came up to the top, and sat upona little point of rock, and looked up at the broad yellow moon, andwondered what she was, and thought that she looked at him. And hewatched the moonlight on the rippling river, and the black heads ofthe firs, and the silver-frosted lawns, and listened to the owl'shoot, and the snipe's bleat, and the fox's bark, and the otter'slaugh; and smelt the soft perfume of the birches, and the wafts ofheather honey off the grouse moor far above; and felt very happy, though he could not well tell why. You, of course, would have beenvery cold sitting there on a September night, without the least bitof clothes on your wet back; but Tom was a water-baby, andtherefore felt cold no more than a fish. 

Suddenly, he saw a beautiful sight. A bright red light moved alongthe river-side, and threw down into the water a long tap-root offlame. Tom, curious little rogue that he was, must needs go andsee what it was; so he swam to the shore, and met the light as itstopped over a shallow run at the edge of a low rock. 

And there, underneath the light, lay five or six great salmon, looking up at the flame with their great goggle eyes, and waggingtheir tails, as if they were very much pleased at it. 

Tom came to the top, to look at this wonderful light nearer, andmade a splash. 

And he heard a voice say:

"There was a fish rose. "

He did not know what the words meant: but he seemed to know thesound of them, and to know the voice which spoke them; and he sawon the bank three great two-legged creatures, one of whom held thelight, flaring and sputtering, and another a long pole. And heknew that they were men, and was frightened, and crept into a holein the rock, from which he could see what went on. 

The man with the torch bent down over the water, and lookedearnestly in; and then he said:

"Tak' that muckle fellow, lad; he's ower fifteen punds; and haudyour hand steady. "

Tom felt that there was some danger coming, and longed to warn thefoolish salmon, who kept staring up at the light as if he wasbewitched. But before he could make up his mind, down came thepole through the water; there was a fearful splash and struggle, and Tom saw that the poor salmon was speared right through, and waslifted out of the water. 

And then, from behind, there sprang on these three men three othermen; and there were shouts, and blows, and words which Tomrecollected to have heard before; and he shuddered and turned sickat them now, for he felt somehow that they were strange, and ugly, and wrong, and horrible. And it all began to come back to him. They were men; and they were fighting; savage, desperate, up-and-down fighting, such as Tom had seen too many times before. 

And he stopped his little ears, and longed to swim away; and wasvery glad that he was a water-baby, and had nothing to do any morewith horrid dirty men, with foul clothes on their backs, and foulwords on their lips; but he dared not stir out of his hole: whilethe rock shook over his head with the trampling and struggling ofthe keepers and the poachers. 

All of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, and a frightfulflash, and a hissing, and all was still. 

For into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the men; he who heldthe light in his hand. Into the swift river he sank, and rolledover and over in the current. Tom heard the men above run alongseemingly looking for him; but he drifted down into the deep holebelow, and there lay quite still, and they could not find him. 

Tom waited a long time, till all was quiet; and then he peeped out, and saw the man lying. At last he screwed up his courage and swamdown to him. "Perhaps, " he thought, "the water has made him fallasleep, as it did me. "

Then he went nearer. He grew more and more curious, he could nottell why. He must go and look at him. He would go very quietly, of course; so he swam round and round him, closer and closer; and, as he did not stir, at last he came quite close and looked him inthe face. 

The moon shone so bright that Tom could see every feature; and, ashe saw, he recollected, bit by bit, it was his old master, Grimes. 

Tom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he could. 

"Oh dear me!" he thought, "now he will turn into a water-baby. What a nasty troublesome one he will be! And perhaps he will findme out, and beat me again. "

So he went up the river again a little way, and lay there the restof the night under an alder root; but, when morning came, he longedto go down again to the big pool, and see whether Mr. Grimes hadturned into a water-baby yet. 

So he went very carefully, peeping round all the rocks, and hidingunder all the roots. Mr. Grimes lay there still; he had not turnedinto a water-baby. In the afternoon Tom went back again. He couldnot rest till he had found out what had become of Mr. Grimes. Butthis time Mr. Grimes was gone; and Tom made up his mind that he wasturned into a water-baby. 

He might have made himself easy, poor little man; Mr. Grimes didnot turn into a water-baby, or anything like one at all. But hedid not make himself easy; and a long time he was fearful lest heshould meet Grimes suddenly in some deep pool. He could not knowthat the fairies had carried him away, and put him, where they puteverything which falls into the water, exactly where it ought tobe. But, do you know, what had happened to Mr. Grimes had such aneffect on him that he never poached salmon any more. And it isquite certain that, when a man becomes a confirmed poacher, theonly way to cure him is to put him under water for twenty-fourhours, like Grimes. So when you grow to be a big man, do youbehave as all honest fellows should; and never touch a fish or ahead of game which belongs to another man without his expressleave; and then people will call you a gentleman, and treat youlike one; and perhaps give you good sport: instead of hitting youinto the river, or calling you a poaching snob. 

Then Tom went on down, for he was afraid of staying near Grimes:and as he went, all the vale looked sad. The red and yellow leavesshowered down into the river; the flies and beetles were all deadand gone; the chill autumn fog lay low upon the hills, andsometimes spread itself so thickly on the river that he could notsee his way. But he felt his way instead, following the flow ofthe stream, day after day, past great bridges, past boats andbarges, past the great town, with its wharfs, and mills, and tallsmoking chimneys, and ships which rode at anchor in the stream; andnow and then he ran against their hawsers, and wondered what theywere, and peeped out, and saw the sailors lounging on board smokingtheir pipes; and ducked under again, for he was terribly afraid ofbeing caught by man and turned into a chimney-sweep once more. Hedid not know that the fairies were close to him always, shuttingthe sailors' eyes lest they should see him, and turning him asidefrom millraces, and sewer-mouths, and all foul and dangerousthings. Poor little fellow, it was a dreary journey for him; andmore than once he longed to be back in Vendale, playing with thetrout in the bright summer sun. But it could not be. What hasbeen once can never come over again. And people can be littlebabies, even water-babies, only once in their lives. 

Besides, people who make up their minds to go and see the world, asTom did, must needs find it a weary journey. Lucky for them ifthey do not lose heart and stop half-way, instead of going onbravely to the end as Tom did. For then they will remain neitherboys nor men, neither fish, flesh, nor good red-herring: havinglearnt a great deal too much, and yet not enough; and sown theirwild oats, without having the advantage of reaping them. 

But Tom was always a brave, determined, little English bull-dog, who never knew when he was beaten; and on and on he held, till hesaw a long way off the red buoy through the fog. And then he foundto his surprise, the stream turned round, and running up inland. 

It was the tide, of course: but Tom knew nothing of the tide. Heonly knew that in a minute more the water, which had been fresh, turned salt all round him. And then there came a change over him. He felt as strong, and light, and fresh, as if his veins had runchampagne; and gave, he did not know why, three skips out of thewater, a yard high, and head over heels, just as the salmon do whenthey first touch the noble rich salt water, which, as some wise mentell us, is the mother of all living things. 

He did not care now for the tide being against him. The red buoywas in sight, dancing in the open sea; and to the buoy he would go, and to it he went. He passed great shoals of bass and mullet, leaping and rushing in after the shrimps, but he never heeded them, or they him; and once he passed a great black shining seal, who wascoming in after the mullet. The seal put his head and shouldersout of water, and stared at him, looking exactly like a fat oldgreasy negro with a gray pate. And Tom, instead of beingfrightened, said, "How d'ye do, sir; what a beautiful place the seais!" And the old seal, instead of trying to bite him, looked athim with his soft sleepy winking eyes, and said, "Good tide to you, my little man; are you looking for your brothers and sisters? Ipassed them all at play outside. "

"Oh, then, " said Tom, "I shall have playfellows at last, " and heswam on to the buoy, and got upon it (for he was quite out ofbreath) and sat there, and looked round for water-babies: butthere were none to be seen. 

The sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and blew the fog away;and the little waves danced for joy around the buoy, and the oldbuoy danced with them. The shadows of the clouds ran races overthe bright blue bay, and yet never caught each other up; and thebreakers plunged merrily upon the wide white sands, and jumped upover the rocks, to see what the green fields inside were like, andtumbled down and broke themselves all to pieces, and never mindedit a bit, but mended themselves and jumped up again. And the ternshovered over Tom like huge white dragon-flies with black heads, andthe gulls laughed like girls at play, and the sea-pies, with theirred bills and legs, flew to and fro from shore to shore, andwhistled sweet and wild. And Tom looked and looked, and listened;and he would have been very happy, if he could only have seen thewater-babies. Then when the tide turned, he left the buoy, andswam round and round in search of them: but in vain. Sometimes hethought he heard them laughing: but it was only the laughter ofthe ripples. And sometimes he thought he saw them at the bottom:but it was only white and pink shells. And once he was sure he hadfound one, for he saw two bright eyes peeping out of the sand. Sohe dived down, and began scraping the sand away, and cried, "Don'thide; I do want some one to play with so much!" And out jumped agreat turbot with his ugly eyes and mouth all awry, and floppedaway along the bottom, knocking poor Tom over. And he sat down atthe bottom of the sea, and cried salt tears from sheerdisappointment. 

To have come all this way, and faced so many dangers, and yet tofind no water-babies! How hard! Well, it did seem hard: butpeople, even little babies, cannot have all they want withoutwaiting for it, and working for it too, my little man, as you willfind out some day. 

And Tom sat upon the buoy long days, long weeks, looking out tosea, and wondering when the water-babies would come back; and yetthey never came. 

Then he began to ask all the strange things which came in out ofthe sea if they had seen any; and some said "Yes, " and some saidnothing at all. 

He asked the bass and the pollock; but they were so greedy afterthe shrimps that they did not care to answer him a word. 

Then there came in a whole fleet of purple sea-snails, floatingalong, each on a sponge full of foam, and Tom said, "Where do youcome from, you pretty creatures? and have you seen the water-babies?"

And the sea-snails answered, "Whence we come we know not; andwhither we are going, who can tell? We float out our life in themid-ocean, with the warm sunshine above our heads, and the warmgulf-stream below; and that is enough for us. Yes; perhaps we haveseen the water-babies. We have seen many strange things as wesailed along. " And they floated away, the happy stupid things, andall went ashore upon the sands. 

Then there came in a great lazy sunfish, as big as a fat pig cut inhalf; and he seemed to have been cut in half too, and squeezed in aclothes-press till he was flat; but to all his big body and bigfins he had only a little rabbit's mouth, no bigger than Tom's;and, when Tom questioned him, he answered in a little squeakyfeeble voice:

"I'm sure I don't know; I've lost my way. I meant to go to theChesapeake, and I'm afraid I've got wrong somehow. Dear me! it wasall by following that pleasant warm water. I'm sure I've lost myway. "

And, when Tom asked him again, he could only answer, "I've lost myway. Don't talk to me; I want to think. "

But, like a good many other people, the more he tried to think theless he could think; and Tom saw him blundering about all day, tillthe coast-guardsmen saw his big fin above the water, and rowed out, and struck a boat-hook into him, and took him away. They took himup to the town and showed him for a penny a head, and made a goodday's work of it. But of course Tom did not know that. 

Then there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling as they went--papas, and mammas, and little children--and all quite smooth andshiny, because the fairies French-polish them every morning; andthey sighed so softly as they came by, that Tom took courage tospeak to them: but all they answered was, "Hush, hush, hush;" forthat was all they had learnt to say. 

And then there came a shoal of basking sharks' some of them as longas a boat, and Tom was frightened at them. But they were very lazygood-natured fellows, not greedy tyrants, like white sharks andblue sharks and ground sharks and hammer-heads, who eat men, orsaw-fish and threshers and ice-sharks, who hunt the poor oldwhales. They came and rubbed their great sides against the buoy, and lay basking in the sun with their backfins out of water; andwinked at Tom: but he never could get them to speak. They hadeaten so many herrings that they were quite stupid; and Tom wasglad when a collier brig came by and frightened them all away; forthey did smell most horribly, certainly, and he had to hold hisnose tight as long as they were there. 

And then there came by a beautiful creature, like a ribbon of puresilver with a sharp head and very long teeth; but it seemed verysick and sad. Sometimes it rolled helpless on its side; and thenit dashed away glittering like white fire; and then it lay sickagain and motionless. 

"Where do you come from?" asked Tom. "And why are YOU so sick andsad?"

"I come from the warm Carolinas, and the sandbanks fringed withpines; where the great owl-rays leap and flap, like giant bats, upon the tide. But I wandered north and north, upon thetreacherous warm gulf-stream, till I met with the cold icebergs, afloat in the mid ocean. So I got tangled among the icebergs, andchilled with their frozen breath. But the water-babies helped mefrom among them, and set me free again. And now I am mending everyday; but I am very sick and sad; and perhaps I shall never get homeagain to play with the owl-rays any more. "

"Oh!" cried Tom. "And you have seen water-babies? Have you seenany near here?"

"Yes; they helped me again last night, or I should have been eatenby a great black porpoise. "

How vexatious! The water-babies close to him, and yet he could notfind one. 

And then he left the buoy, and used to go along the sands and roundthe rocks, and come out in the night--like the forsaken Merman inMr. Arnold's beautiful, beautiful poem, which you must learn byheart some day--and sit upon a point of rock, among the shiningsea-weeds, in the low October tides, and cry and call for thewater-babies; but he never heard a voice call in return. And atlast, with his fretting and crying, he grew quite lean and thin. 

But one day among the rocks he found a playfellow. It was not awater-baby, alas! but it was a lobster; and a very distinguishedlobster he was; for he had live barnacles on his claws, which is agreat mark of distinction in lobsterdom, and no more to be boughtfor money than a good conscience or the Victoria Cross. 

Tom had never seen a lobster before; and he was mightily taken withthis one; for he thought him the most curious, odd, ridiculouscreature he had ever seen; and there he was not far wrong; for allthe ingenious men, and all the scientific men, and all the fancifulmen, in the world, with all the old German bogy-painters into thebargain, could never invent, if all their wits were boiled intoone, anything so curious, and so ridiculous, as a lobster. 

He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and Tom delighted inwatching him hold on to the seaweed with his knobbed claw, while hecut up salads with his jagged one, and then put them into hismouth, after smelling at them, like a monkey. And always thelittle barnacles threw out their casting-nets and swept the water, and came in for their share of whatever there was for dinner. 

But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired himself off--snap!like the leap-frogs which you make out of a goose's breast-bone. Certainly he took the most wonderful shots, and backwards, too. For, if he wanted to go into a narrow crack ten yards off, what doyou think he did? If he had gone in head foremost, of course hecould not have turned round. So he used to turn his tail to it, and lay his long horns, which carry his sixth sense in their tips(and nobody knows what that sixth sense is), straight down his backto guide him, and twist his eyes back till they almost came out oftheir sockets, and then made ready, present, fire, snap!--and awayhe went, pop into the hole; and peeped out and twiddled hiswhiskers, as much as to say, "You couldn't do that. "

Tom asked him about water-babies. "Yes, " he said. He had seenthem often. But he did not think much of them. They weremeddlesome little creatures, that went about helping fish andshells which got into scrapes. Well, for his part, he should beashamed to be helped by little soft creatures that had not even ashell on their backs. He had lived quite long enough in the worldto take care of himself. 

He was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not very civil toTom; and you will hear how he had to alter his mind before he wasdone, as conceited people generally have. But he was so funny, andTom so lonely, that he could not quarrel with him; and they used tosit in holes in the rocks, and chat for hours. 

And about this time there happened to Tom a very strange andimportant adventure--so important, indeed, that he was very nearnever finding the water-babies at all; and I am sure you would havebeen sorry for that. 

I hope that you have not forgotten the little white lady all thiswhile. At least, here she comes, looking like a clean white goodlittle darling, as she always was, and always will be. For itbefell in the pleasant short December days, when the wind alwaysblows from the south-west, till Old Father Christmas comes andspreads the great white table-cloth, ready for little boys andgirls to give the birds their Christmas dinner of crumbs--it befell(to go on) in the pleasant December days, that Sir John was so busyhunting that nobody at home could get a word out of him. Four daysa week he hunted, and very good sport he had; and the other two hewent to the bench and the board of guardians, and very good justicehe did; and, when he got home in time, he dined at five; for hehated this absurd new fashion of dining at eight in the huntingseason, which forces a man to make interest with the footman forcold beef and beer as soon as he comes in, and so spoil hisappetite, and then sleep in an arm-chair in his bedroom, all stiffand tired, for two or three hours before he can get his dinner likea gentleman. And do you be like Sir John, my dear little man, whenyou are your own master; and, if you want either to read hard orride hard, stick to the good old Cambridge hours of breakfast ateight and dinner at five; by which you may get two days' work outof one. But, of course, if you find a fox at three in theafternoon and run him till dark, and leave off twenty miles fromhome, why you must wait for your dinner till you can get it, asbetter men than you have done. Only see that, if you go hungry, your horse does not; but give him his warm gruel and beer, and takehim gently home, remembering that good horses don't grow on thehedge like blackberries. 

It befell (to go on a second time) that Sir John, hunting all day, and dining at five, fell asleep every evening, and snored soterribly that all the windows in Harthover shook, and the soot felldown the chimneys. Whereon My Lady, being no more able to getconversation out of him than a song out of a dead nightingale, determined to go off and leave him, and the doctor, and CaptainSwinger the agent, to snore in concert every evening to theirhearts' content. So she started for the seaside with all thechildren, in order to put herself and them into condition by mildapplications of iodine. She might as well have stayed at home andused Parry's liquid horse-blister, for there was plenty of it inthe stables; and then she would have saved her money, and saved thechance, also, of making all the children ill instead of well (ashundreds are made), by taking them to some nasty smelling undrainedlodging, and then wondering how they caught scarlatina anddiphtheria: but people won't be wise enough to understand thattill they are dead of bad smells, and then it will be too late;besides you see, Sir John did certainly snore very loud. 

But where she went to nobody must know, for fear young ladiesshould begin to fancy that there are water-babies there! and sohunt and howk after them (besides raising the price of lodgings), and keep them in aquariums, as the ladies at Pompeii (as you maysee by the paintings) used to keep Cupids in cages. But nobodyever heard that they starved the Cupids, or let them die of dirtand neglect, as English young ladies do by the poor sea-beasts. Sonobody must know where My Lady went. Letting water-babies die isas bad as taking singing birds' eggs; for, though there arethousands, ay, millions, of both of them in the world, yet there isnot one too many. 

Now it befell that, on the very shore, and over the very rocks, where Tom was sitting with his friend the lobster, there walked oneday the little white lady, Ellie herself, and with her a very wiseman indeed--Professor Ptthmllnsprts. 

His mother was a Dutchwoman, and therefore he was born at Curacao(of course you have learnt your geography, and therefore know why);and his father a Pole, and therefore he was brought up atPetropaulowski (of course you have learnt your modern politics, andtherefore know why): but for all that he was as thorough anEnglishman as ever coveted his neighbour's goods. And his name, asI said, was Professor Ptthmllnsprts, which is a very ancient andnoble Polish name. 

He was, as I said, a very great naturalist, and chief professor ofNecrobioneopalaeonthydrochthonanthropopithekology in the newuniversity which the king of the Cannibal Islands had founded; and, being a member of the Acclimatisation Society, he had come here tocollect all the nasty things which he could find on the coast ofEngland, and turn them loose round the Cannibal Islands, becausethey had not nasty things enough there to eat what they left. 

But he was a very worthy kind good-natured little old gentleman;and very fond of children (for he was not the least a cannibalhimself); and very good to all the world as long as it was good tohim. Only one fault he had, which cock-robins have likewise, asyou may see if you look out of the nursery window--that, when anyone else found a curious worm, he would hop round them, and peckthem, and set up his tail, and bristle up his feathers, just as acock-robin would; and declare that he found the worm first; andthat it was his worm; and, if not, that then it was not a worm atall. 

He had met Sir John at Scarborough, or Fleetwood, or somewhere orother (if you don't care where, nobody else does), and had madeacquaintance with him, and become very fond of his children. Now, Sir John knew nothing about sea-cockyolybirds, and cared less, provided the fishmonger sent him good fish for dinner; and My Ladyknew as little: but she thought it proper that the children shouldknow something. For in the stupid old times, you must understand, children were taught to know one thing, and to know it well; but inthese enlightened new times they are taught to know a little abouteverything, and to know it all ill; which is a great dealpleasanter and easier, and therefore quite right. 

So Ellie and he were walking on the rocks, and he was showing herabout one in ten thousand of all the beautiful and curious thingswhich are to be seen there. But little Ellie was not satisfiedwith them at all. She liked much better to play with livechildren, or even with dolls, which she could pretend were alive;and at last she said honestly, "I don't care about all thesethings, because they can't play with me, or talk to me. If therewere little children now in the water, as there used to be, and Icould see them, I should like that. "

"Children in the water, you strange little duck?" said theprofessor. 

"Yes, " said Ellie. "I know there used to be children in the water, and mermaids too, and mermen. I saw them all in a picture at home, of a beautiful lady sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and babiesflying round her, and one sitting in her lap; and the mermaidsswimming and playing, and the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells;and it is called 'The Triumph of Galatea;' and there is a burningmountain in the picture behind. It hangs on the great staircase, and I have looked at it ever since I was a baby, and dreamt aboutit a hundred times; and it is so beautiful, that it must be true. "

But the professor had not the least notion of allowing that thingswere true, merely because people thought them beautiful. For atthat rate, he said, the Baltas would be quite right in thinking ita fine thing to eat their grandpapas, because they thought it anugly thing to put them underground. The professor, indeed, wentfurther, and held that no man was forced to believe anything to betrue, but what he could see, hear, taste, or handle. 

He held very strange theories about a good many things. He hadeven got up once at the British Association, and declared that apeshad hippopotamus majors in their brains just as men have. Whichwas a shocking thing to say; for, if it were so, what would becomeof the faith, hope, and charity of immortal millions? You maythink that there are other more important differences between youand an ape, such as being able to speak, and make machines, andknow right from wrong, and say your prayers, and other littlematters of that kind; but that is a child's fancy, my dear. Nothing is to be depended on but the great hippopotamus test. Ifyou have a hippopotamus major in your brain, you are no ape, thoughyou had four hands, no feet, and were more apish than the apes ofall aperies. But if a hippopotamus major is ever discovered in onesingle ape's brain, nothing will save your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-greater-greatest-grandmother from having been an ape too. No, my dear little man;always remember that the one true, certain, final, and all-important difference between you and an ape is, that you have ahippopotamus major in your brain, and it has none; and that, therefore, to discover one in its brain will be a very wrong anddangerous thing, at which every one will be very much shocked, aswe may suppose they were at the professor. --Though really, afterall, it don't much matter; because--as Lord Dundreary and otherswould put it--nobody but men have hippopotamuses in their brains;so, if a hippopotamus was discovered in an ape's brain, why itwould not be one, you know, but something else. 

But the professor had gone, I am sorry to say, even further thanthat; for he had read at the British Association at Melbourne, Australia, in the year 1999, a paper which assured every one whofound himself the better or wiser for the news, that there werenot, never had been, and could not be, any rational or half-rational beings except men, anywhere, anywhen, or anyhow; thatnymphs, satyrs, fauns, inui, dwarfs, trolls, elves, gnomes, fairies, brownies, nixes, wills, kobolds, leprechaunes, cluricaunes, banshees, will-o'-the-wisps, follets, lutins, magots, goblins, afrits, marids, jinns, ghouls, peris, deevs, angels, archangels, imps, bogies, or worse, were nothing at all, and purebosh and wind. And he had to get up very early in the morning toprove that, and to eat his breakfast overnight; but he did it, atleast to his own satisfaction. Whereon a certain great divine, anda very clever divine was he, called him a regular Sadducee; andprobably he was quite right. Whereon the professor, in return, called him a regular Pharisee; and probably he was quite right too. But they did not quarrel in the least; for, when men are men of theworld, hard words run off them like water off a duck's back. Sothe professor and the divine met at dinner that evening, and sattogether on the sofa afterwards for an hour, and talked over thestate of female labour on the antarctic continent (for nobody talksshop after his claret), and each vowed that the other was the bestcompany he ever met in his life. What an advantage it is to be menof the world!

From all which you may guess that the professor was not the leastof little Ellie's opinion. So he gave her a succinct compendium ofhis famous paper at the British Association, in a form suited forthe youthful mind. But, as we have gone over his arguments againstwater-babies once already, which is once too often, we will notrepeat them here. 

Now little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; for, insteadof being convinced by Professor Ptthmllnsprts' arguments, she onlyasked the same question over again. 

"But why are there not water-babies?"

I trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at thatmoment on the edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt one of hiscorns sadly, that he answered quite sharply, forgetting that he wasa scientific man, and therefore ought to have known that hecouldn't know; and that he was a logician, and therefore ought tohave known that he could not prove a universal negative--I say, Itrust and hope it was because the mussel hurt his corn, that theprofessor answered quite sharply:

"Because there ain't. "

Which was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as youmust know from Aunt Agitate's Arguments, the professor ought tohave said, if he was so angry as to say anything of the kind--Because there are not: or are none: or are none of them; or (ifhe had been reading Aunt Agitate too) because they do not exist. 

And he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, that, asit befell, he caught poor little Tom. 

He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly, with Tom allentangled in the meshes. 

"Dear me!" he cried. "What a large pink Holothurian; with hands, too! It must be connected with Synapta. "

And he took him out. 

"It has actually eyes!" he cried. "Why, it must be a Cephalopod!This is most extraordinary!"

"No, I ain't!" cried Tom, as loud as he could; for he did not liketo be called bad names. 

"It is a water-baby!" cried Ellie; and of course it was. 

"Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!" said the professor; and he turnedaway sharply. 

There was no denying it. It was a water-baby: and he had said amoment ago that there were none. What was he to do?

He would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom home in a bucket. He would not have put him in spirits. Of course not. He wouldhave kept him alive, and petted him (for he was a very kind oldgentleman), and written a book about him, and given him two longnames, of which the first would have said a little about Tom, andthe second all about himself; for of course he would have calledhim Hydrotecnon Ptthmllnsprtsianum, or some other long name likethat; for they are forced to call everything by long names now, because they have used up all the short ones, ever since they tookto making nine species out of one. But--what would all the learnedmen say to him after his speech at the British Association? Andwhat would Ellie say, after what he had just told her?

There was a wise old heathen once, who said, "Maxima debetur puerisreverentia"--The greatest reverence is due to children; that is, that grown people should never say or do anything wrong beforechildren, lest they should set them a bad example. --CousinCramchild says it means, "The greatest respectfulness is expectedfrom little boys. " But he was raised in a country where littleboys are not expected to be respectful, because all of them are asgood as the President:- Well, every one knows his own concernsbest; so perhaps they are. But poor Cousin Cramchild, to do himjustice, not being of that opinion, and having a moral mission, andbeing no scholar to speak of, and hard up for an authority--why, itwas a very great temptation for him. But some people, and I amafraid the professor was one of them, interpret that in a morestrange, curious, one-sided, left-handed, topsy-turvy, inside-out, behind-before fashion than even Cousin Cramchild; for they make itmean, that you must show your respect for children, by neverconfessing yourself in the wrong to them, even if you know that youare so, lest they should lose confidence in their elders. 

Now, if the professor had said to Ellie, "Yes, my darling, it is awater-baby, and a very wonderful thing it is; and it shows howlittle I know of the wonders of nature, in spite of forty years'honest labour. I was just telling you that there could be no suchcreatures; and, behold! here is one come to confound my conceit andshow me that Nature can do, and has done, beyond all that man'spoor fancy can imagine. So, let us thank the Maker, and Inspirer, and Lord of Nature for all His wonderful and glorious works, andtry and find out something about this one;"--I think that, if theprofessor had said that, little Ellie would have believed him morefirmly, and respected him more deeply, and loved him better, thanever she had done before. But he was of a different opinion. Hehesitated a moment. He longed to keep Tom, and yet he half wishedhe never had caught him; and at last he quite longed to get rid ofhim. So he turned away and poked Tom with his finger, for want ofanything better to do; and said carelessly, "My dear little maid, you must have dreamt of water-babies last night, your head is sofull of them. "

Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable fright allthe while; and had kept as quiet as he could, though he was calleda Holothurian and a Cephalopod; for it was fixed in his little headthat if a man with clothes on caught him, he might put clothes onhim too, and make a dirty black chimney-sweep of him again. But, when the professor poked him, it was more than he could bear; and, between fright and rage, he turned to bay as valiantly as a mousein a corner, and bit the professor's finger till it bled. 

"Oh! ah! yah!" cried he; and glad of an excuse to be rid of Tom, dropped him on to the seaweed, and thence he dived into the waterand was gone in a moment. 

"But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak!" cried Ellie. "Ah, it is gone!" And she jumped down off the rock, to try and catchTom before he slipped into the sea. 

Too late! and what was worse, as she sprang down, she slipped, andfell some six feet, with her head on a sharp rock, and lay quitestill. 

The professor picked her up, and tried to waken her, and called toher, and cried over her, for he loved her very much: but she wouldnot waken at all. So he took her up in his arms and carried her toher governess, and they all went home; and little Ellie was put tobed, and lay there quite still; only now and then she woke up andcalled out about the water-baby: but no one knew what she meant, and the professor did not tell, for he was ashamed to tell. 

And, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies came flying inat the window and brought her such a pretty pair of wings that shecould not help putting them on; and she flew with them out of thewindow, and over the land, and over the sea, and up through theclouds, and nobody heard or saw anything of her for a very longwhile. 

And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a water-baby. For my part, I believe that the naturalists get dozens ofthem when they are out dredging; but they say nothing about them, and throw them overboard again, for fear of spoiling theirtheories. But, you see the professor was found out, as every oneis in due time. A very terrible old fairy found the professor out;she felt his bumps, and cast his nativity, and took the lunars ofhim carefully inside and out; and so she knew what he would do aswell as if she had seen it in a print book, as they say in the dearold west country; and he did it; and so he was found outbeforehand, as everybody always is; and the old fairy will find outthe naturalists some day, and put them in the Times, and then onwhose side will the laugh be?

So the old fairy took him in hand very severely there and then. But she says she is always most severe with the best people, because there is most chance of curing them, and therefore they arethe patients who pay her best; for she has to work on the samesalary as the Emperor of China's physicians (it is a pity that alldo not), no cure, no pay. 

So she took the poor professor in hand: and because he was notcontent with things as they are, she filled his head with things asthey are not, to try if he would like them better; and because hedid not choose to believe in a water-baby when he saw it, she madehim believe in worse things than water-babies--in unicorns, fire-drakes, manticoras, basilisks, amphisbaenas, griffins, phoenixes, rocs, orcs, dog-headed men, three-headed dogs, three-bodiedgeryons, and other pleasant creatures, which folks think neverexisted yet, and which folks hope never will exist, though theyknow nothing about the matter, and never will; and these creaturesso upset, terrified, flustered, aggravated, confused, astounded, horrified, and totally flabbergasted the poor professor that thedoctors said that he was out of his wits for three months; andperhaps they were right, as they are now and then. 

So all the doctors in the county were called in to make a report onhis case; and of course every one of them flatly contradicted theother: else what use is there in being men of science? But atlast the majority agreed on a report in the true medical language, one half bad Latin, the other half worse Greek, and the rest whatmight have been English, if they had only learnt to write it. Andthis is the beginning thereof -

"The subanhypaposupernal anastomoses of peritomic diacellurite inthe encephalo digital region of the distinguished individual ofwhose symptomatic phoenomena we had the melancholy honour(subsequently to a preliminary diagnostic inspection) of making aninspectorial diagnosis, presenting the interexclusivelyquadrilateral and antinomian diathesis known as Bumpsterhausen'sblue follicles, we proceeded" -

But what they proceeded to do My Lady never knew; for she was sofrightened at the long words that she ran for her life, and lockedherself into her bedroom, for fear of being squashed by the wordsand strangled by the sentence. A boa constrictor, she said, wasbad company enough: but what was a boa constrictor made of pavingstones?

"It was quite shocking! What can they think is the matter withhim?" said she to the old nurse. 

"That his wit's just addled; may be wi' unbelief and heathenry, "quoth she. 

"Then why can't they say so?"

And the heaven, and the sea, and the rocks, and the vales re-echoed--"Why indeed?" But the doctors never heard them. 

So she made Sir John write to the Times to command the Chancellorof the Exchequer for the time being to put a tax on long words; -

A light tax on words over three syllables, which are necessaryevils, like rats: but, like them, must be kept down judiciously. 

A heavy tax on words over four syllables, as heterodoxy, spontaneity, spiritualism, spuriosity, etc. 

And on words over five syllables (of which I hope no one will wishto see any examples), a totally prohibitory tax. 

And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from three or morelanguages at once; words derived from two languages having becomeso common that there was no more hope of rooting out them than ofrooting out peth-winds. 

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and a man ofsense, jumped at the notion; for he saw in it the one and only planfor abolishing Schedule D: but when he brought in his bill, mostof the Irish members, and (I am sorry to say) some of the Scotchlikewise, opposed it most strongly, on the ground that in a freecountry no man was bound either to understand himself or to letothers understand him. So the bill fell through on the firstreading; and the Chancellor, being a philosopher, comforted himselfwith the thought that it was not the first time that a woman hadhit off a grand idea and the men turned up their stupid nosesthereat. 

Now the doctors had it all their own way; and to work they went inearnest, and they gave the poor professor divers and sundrymedicines, as prescribed by the ancients and moderns, fromHippocrates to Feuchtersleben, as below, viz. -

1. Hellebore, to wit -

Hellebore of AEta. Hellebore of Galatia. Hellebore of Sicily. 

And all other Hellebores, after the method of the HelleborisingHelleborists of the Helleboric era. But that would not do. Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles would not stir an inch out of hisencephalo digital region. 

2. Trying to find out what was the matter with him, after themethod of

Hippocrates, Aretaeus, Celsus, Coelius Aurelianus, And Galen. 

But they found that a great deal too much trouble, as most peoplehave since; and so had recourse to -

3. Borage. Cauteries. 

Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says Gordonius)"will, without doubt, do much good. " But it didn't. 

Bezoar stone. Diamargaritum. A ram's brain boiled in spice. Oil of wormwood. Water of Nile. Capers. Good wine (but there was none to be got). The water of a smith's forge. Ambergris. Mandrake pillows. Dormouse fat. Hares' ears. Starvation. Camphor. Salts and senna. Musk. Opium. Strait-waistcoats. Bullyings. Bumpings. Bleedings. Bucketings with cold water. Knockings down. Kneeling on his chest till they broke it in, etc. Etc. ; after themedieval or monkish method: but that would not do. Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles stuck there still. 

Then -

4. Coaxing. Kissing. Champagne and turtle. Red herrings and soda water. Good advice. Gardening. Croquet. Musical soirees. Aunt Salty. Mild tobacco. The Saturday Review. A carriage with outriders, etc. Etc. 

After the modern method. But that would not do. 

And if he had but been a convict lunatic, and had shot at theQueen, killed all his creditors to avoid paying them, or indulgedin any other little amiable eccentricity of that kind, they wouldhave given him in addition -

The healthiest situation in England, on Easthampstead Plain. 

Free run of Windsor Forest. 

The Times every morning. 

A double-barrelled gun and pointers, and leave to shoot threeWellington College boys a week (not more) in case black game wasscarce. 

But as he was neither mad enough nor bad enough to be allowed suchluxuries, they grew desperate, and fell into bad ways, viz. -

5. Suffumigations of sulphur. Herrwiggius his "Incomparable drink for madmen:"

Only they could not find out what it was. 

Suffumigation of the liver of the fish * * *

Only they had forgotten its name, so Dr. Gray could not wellprocure them a specimen. 

Metallic tractors. Holloway's Ointment. Electro-biology. Valentine Greatrakes his Stroking Cure. Spirit-rapping. Holloway's Pills. Table-turning. Morison's Pills. Homoeopathy. Parr's Life Pills. Mesmerism. Pure Bosh. Exorcisms, for which the read Maleus Maleficarum, NideriFormicarium, Delrio, Wierus, etc. 

But could not get one that mentioned water-babies. 

Hydropathy. Madame Rachel's Elixir of Youth. The Poughkeepsie Seer his Prophecies. The distilled liquor of addle eggs. Pyropathy. 

As successfully employed by the old inquisitors to cure the maladyof thought, and now by the Persian Mollahs to cure that ofrheumatism. 

Geopathy, or burying him. Atmopathy, or steaming him. Sympathy, after the method of Basil Valentine his Triumph ofAntimony, and Kenelm Digby his Weapon-salve, which some call a hairof the dog that bit him. Hermopathy, or pouring mercury down his throat to move the animalspirits. Meteoropathy, or going up to the moon to look for his lost wits, asRuggiero did for Orlando Furioso's: only, having no hippogriff, they were forced to use a balloon; and, falling into the North Sea, were picked up by a Yarmouth herring-boat, and came home much thewiser, and all over scales. 

Antipathy, or using him like "a man and a brother. "

Apathy, or doing nothing at all. 

With all other ipathies and opathies which Noodle has invented, andFoodle tried, since black-fellows chipped flints at Abbeville--which is a considerable time ago, to judge by the Great Exhibition. 

But nothing would do; for he screamed and cried all day for awater-baby, to come and drive away the monsters; and of course theydid not try to find one, because they did not believe in them, andwere thinking of nothing but Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles;having, as usual, set the cart before the horse, and taken theeffect for the cause. 

So they were forced at last to let the poor professor ease his mindby writing a great book, exactly contrary to all his old opinions;in which he proved that the moon was made of green cheese, and thatall the mites in it (which you may see sometimes quite plainthrough a telescope, if you will only keep the lens dirty enough, as Mr. Weekes kept his voltaic battery) are nothing in the worldbut little babies, who are hatching and swarming up there inmillions, ready to come down into this world whenever children wanta new little brother or sister. 

Which must be a mistake, for this one reason: that, there being noatmosphere round the moon (though some one or other says there is, at least on the other side, and that he has been round at the backof it to see, and found that the moon was just the shape of a Bathbun, and so wet that the man in the moon went about on Midsummer-day in Macintoshes and Cording's boots, spearing eels andsneezing); that, therefore, I say, there being no atmosphere, therecan be no evaporation; and therefore the dew-point can never fallbelow 71. 5 degrees below zero of Fahrenheit: and, therefore, itcannot be cold enough there about four o'clock in the morning tocondense the babies' mesenteric apophthegms into their leftventricles; and, therefore, they can never catch the hooping-cough;and if they do not have hooping-cough, they cannot be babies atall; and, therefore, there are no babies in the moon. --Q. E. D. 

Which may seem a roundabout reason; and so, perhaps, it is: butyou will have heard worse ones in your time, and from better menthan you are. 

But one thing is certain; that, when the good old doctor got hisbook written, he felt considerably relieved from Bumpsterhausen'sblue follicles, and a few things infinitely worse; to wit, frompride and vain-glory, and from blindness and hardness of heart;which are the true causes of Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles, andof a good many other ugly things besides. Whereon the foul flood-water in his brains ran down, and cleared to a fine coffee colour, such as fish like to rise in, till very fine clean fresh-run fishdid begin to rise in his brains; and he caught two or three of them(which is exceedingly fine sport, for brain rivers), and anatomisedthem carefully, and never mentioned what he found out from them, except to little children; and became ever after a sadder and awiser man; which is a very good thing to become, my dear littleboy, even though one has to pay a heavy price for the blessing. 

CHAPTER V

"Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wearThe Godhead's most benignant grace;Nor know we anything so fairAs is the smile upon thy face:Flowers laugh before thee on their bedsAnd fragrance in thy footing treads;Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong. "

WORDSWORTH, Ode to Duty. 

What became of little Tom?

He slipped away off the rocks into the water, as I said before. But he could not help thinking of little Ellie. He did notremember who she was; but he knew that she was a little girl, though she was a hundred times as big as he. That is notsurprising: size has nothing to do with kindred. A tiny weed maybe first cousin to a great tree; and a little dog like Vick knowsthat Lioness is a dog too, though she is twenty times larger thanherself. So Tom knew that Ellie was a little girl, and thoughtabout her all that day, and longed to have had her to play with;but he had very soon to think of something else. And here is theaccount of what happened to him, as it was published next morning, in the Water-proof Gazette, on the finest watered paper, for theuse of the great fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, who reads the newsvery carefully every morning, and especially the police cases, asyou will hear very soon. 

He was going along the rocks in three-fathom water, watching thepollock catch prawns, and the wrasses nibble barnacles off therocks, shells and all, when he saw a round cage of green withes;and inside it, looking very much ashamed of himself, sat his friendthe lobster, twiddling his horns, instead of thumbs. 

"What, have you been naughty, and have they put you in the lock-up?" asked Tom. 

The lobster felt a little indignant at such a notion, but he wastoo much depressed in spirits to argue; so he only said, "I can'tget out. "

"Why did you get in?"

"After that nasty piece of dead fish. " He had thought it lookedand smelt very nice when he was outside, and so it did, for alobster: but now he turned round and abused it because he wasangry with himself. 

"Where did you get in?"

"Through that round hole at the top. "

"Then why don't you get out through it?"

"Because I can't:" and the lobster twiddled his horns more fiercelythan ever, but he was forced to confess. 

"I have jumped upwards, downwards, backwards, and sideways, atleast four thousand times; and I can't get out: I always get upunderneath there, and can't find the hole. "

Tom looked at the trap, and having more wit than the lobster, hesaw plainly enough what was the matter; as you may if you will lookat a lobster-pot. 

"Stop a bit, " said Tom. "Turn your tail up to me, and I'll pullyou through hindforemost, and then you won't stick in the spikes. "

But the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he couldn't hit thehole. Like a great many fox-hunters, he was very sharp as long ashe was in his own country; but as soon as they get out of it theylose their heads; and so the lobster, so to speak, lost his tail. 

Tom reached and clawed down the hole after him, till he caught holdof him; and then, as was to be expected, the clumsy lobster pulledhim in head foremost. 

"Hullo! here is a pretty business, " said Tom. "Now take your greatclaws, and break the points off those spikes, and then we shallboth get out easily. "

"Dear me, I never thought of that, " said the lobster; "and afterall the experience of life that I have had!"

You see, experience is of very little good unless a man, or alobster, has wit enough to make use of it. For a good many people, like old Polonius, have seen all the world, and yet remain littlebetter than children after all. 

But they had not got half the spikes away when they saw a greatdark cloud over them: and lo, and behold, it was the otter. 

How she did grin and grin when she saw Tom. "Yar!" said she, "youlittle meddlesome wretch, I have you now! I will serve you out fortelling the salmon where I was!" And she crawled all over the potto get in. 

Tom was horribly frightened, and still more frightened when shefound the hole in the top, and squeezed herself right down throughit, all eyes and teeth. But no sooner was her head inside thanvaliant Mr. Lobster caught her by the nose and held on. 

And there they were all three in the pot, rolling over and over, and very tight packing it was. And the lobster tore at the otter, and the otter tore at the lobster, and both squeezed and thumpedpoor Tom till he had no breath left in his body; and I don't knowwhat would have happened to him if he had not at last got on theotter's back, and safe out of the hole. 

He was right glad when he got out: but he would not desert hisfriend who had saved him; and the first time he saw his tailuppermost he caught hold of it, and pulled with all his might. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

"Come along, " said Tom; "don't you see she is dead?" And so shewas, quite drowned and dead. 

And that was the end of the wicked otter. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

"Come along, you stupid old stick-in-the-mud, " cried Tom, "or thefisherman will catch you!" And that was true, for Tom felt someone above beginning to haul up the pot. 

But the lobster would not let go. Tom saw the fisherman haul himup to the boat-side, and thought it was all up with him. But whenMr. Lobster saw the fisherman, he gave such a furious andtremendous snap, that he snapped out of his hand, and out of thepot, and safe into the sea. But he left his knobbed claw behindhim; for it never came into his stupid head to let go after all, sohe just shook his claw off as the easier method. It was somethingof a bull, that; but you must know the lobster was an Irishlobster, and was hatched off Island Magee at the mouth of BelfastLough. 

Tom asked the lobster why he never thought of letting go. He saidvery determinedly that it was a point of honour among lobsters. And so it is, as the Mayor of Plymouth found out once to his cost--eight or nine hundred years ago, of course; for if it had happenedlately it would be personal to mention it. 

For one day he was so tired with sitting on a hard chair, in agrand furred gown, with a gold chain round his neck, hearing onepoliceman after another come in and sing, "What shall we do withthe drunken sailor, so early in the morning?" and answering themeach exactly alike:

"Put him in the round house till he gets sober, so early in themorning" -

That, when it was over, he jumped up, and played leap-frog with thetown-clerk till he burst his buttons, and then had his luncheon, and burst some more buttons, and then said: "It is a low spring-tide; I shall go out this afternoon and cut my capers. "

Now he did not mean to cut such capers as you eat with boiledmutton. It was the commandant of artillery at Valetta who used toamuse himself with cutting them, and who stuck upon one of thebastions a notice, "No one allowed to cut capers here but me, "which greatly edified the midshipmen in port, and the Maltese onthe Nix Mangiare stairs. But all that the mayor meant was that hewould go and have an afternoon's fun, like any schoolboy, and catchlobsters with an iron hook. 

So to the Mewstone he went, and for lobsters he looked. And whenhe came to a certain crack in the rocks he was so excited that, instead of putting in his hook, he put in his hand; and Mr. Lobsterwas at home, and caught him by the finger, and held on. 

"Yah!" said the mayor, and pulled as hard as he dared: but themore he pulled, the more the lobster pinched, till he was forced tobe quiet. 

Then he tried to get his hook in with his other hand; but the holewas too narrow. 

Then he pulled again; but he could not stand the pain. 

Then he shouted and bawled for help: but there was no one nearerhim than the men-of-war inside the breakwater. 

Then he began to turn a little pale; for the tide flowed, and stillthe lobster held on. 

Then he turned quite white; for the tide was up to his knees, andstill the lobster held on. 

Then he thought of cutting off his finger; but he wanted two thingsto do it with--courage and a knife; and he had got neither. 

Then he turned quite yellow; for the tide was up to his waist, andstill the lobster held on. 

Then he thought over all the naughty things he ever had done; allthe sand which he had put in the sugar, and the sloe-leaves in thetea, and the water in the treacle, and the salt in the tobacco(because his brother was a brewer, and a man must help his ownkin). 

Then he turned quite blue; for the tide was up to his breast, andstill the lobster held on. 

Then, I have no doubt, he repented fully of all the said naughtythings which he had done, and promised to mend his life, as toomany do when they think they have no life left to mend. Whereby, as they fancy, they make a very cheap bargain. But the old fairywith the birch rod soon undeceives them. 

And then he grew all colours at once, and turned up his eyes like aduck in thunder; for the water was up to his chin, and still thelobster held on. 

And then came a man-of-war's boat round the Mewstone, and saw hishead sticking up out of the water. One said it was a keg ofbrandy, and another that it was a cocoa-nut, and another that itwas a buoy loose, and another that it was a black diver, and wantedto fire at it, which would not have been pleasant for the mayor:but just then such a yell came out of a great hole in the middle ofit that the midshipman in charge guessed what it was, and bade pullup to it as fast as they could. So somehow or other the Jack-tarsgot the lobster out, and set the mayor free, and put him ashore atthe Barbican. He never went lobster-catching again; and we willhope he put no more salt in the tobacco, not even to sell hisbrother's beer. 

And that is the story of the Mayor of Plymouth, which has twoadvantages--first, that of being quite true; and second, that ofhaving (as folks say all good stories ought to have) no moralwhatsoever: no more, indeed, has any part of this book, because itis a fairy tale, you know. 

And now happened to Tom a most wonderful thing; for he had not leftthe lobster five minutes before he came upon a water-baby. 

A real live water-baby, sitting on the white sand, very busy abouta little point of rock. And when it saw Tom it looked up for amoment, and then cried, "Why, you are not one of us. You are a newbaby! Oh, how delightful!"

And it ran to Tom, and Tom ran to it, and they hugged and kissedeach other for ever so long, they did not know why. But they didnot want any introductions there under the water. 

At last Tom said, "Oh, where have you been all this while? I havebeen looking for you so long, and I have been so lonely. "

"We have been here for days and days. There are hundreds of usabout the rocks. How was it you did not see us, or hear us when wesing and romp every evening before we go home?"

Tom looked at the baby again, and then he said:

"Well, this is wonderful! I have seen things just like you againand again, but I thought you were shells, or sea-creatures. Inever took you for water-babies like myself. "

Now, was not that very odd? So odd, indeed, that you will, nodoubt, want to know how it happened, and why Tom could never find awater-baby till after he had got the lobster out of the pot. And, if you will read this story nine times over, and then think foryourself, you will find out why. It is not good for little boys tobe told everything, and never to be forced to use their own wits. They would learn, then, no more than they do at Dr. Dulcimer'sfamous suburban establishment for the idler members of the youthfularistocracy, where the masters learn the lessons and the boys hearthem--which saves a great deal of trouble--for the time being. 

"Now, " said the baby, "come and help me, or I shall not havefinished before my brothers and sisters come, and it is time to gohome. "

"What shall I help you at?"

"At this poor dear little rock; a great clumsy boulder came rollingby in the last storm, and knocked all its head off, and rubbed offall its flowers. And now I must plant it again with seaweeds, andcoralline, and anemones, and I will make it the prettiest littlerock-garden on all the shore. "

So they worked away at the rock, and planted it, and smoothed thesand down round, it, and capital fun they had till the tide beganto turn. And then Tom heard all the other babies coming, laughingand singing and shouting and romping; and the noise they made wasjust like the noise of the ripple. So he knew that he had beenhearing and seeing the water-babies all along; only he did not knowthem, because his eyes and ears were not opened. 

And in they came, dozens and dozens of them, some bigger than Tomand some smaller, all in the neatest little white bathing dresses;and when they found that he was a new baby, they hugged him andkissed him, and then put him in the middle and danced round him onthe sand, and there was no one ever so happy as poor little Tom. 

"Now then, " they cried all at once, "we must come away home, wemust come away home, or the tide will leave us dry. We have mendedall the broken sea-weed, and put all the rock-pools in order, andplanted all the shells again in the sand, and nobody will see wherethe ugly storm swept in last week. "

And this is the reason why the rock-pools are always so neat andclean; because the water-babies come inshore after every storm tosweep them out, and comb them down, and put them all to rightsagain. 

Only where men are wasteful and dirty, and let sewers run into thesea instead of putting the stuff upon the fields like thriftyreasonable souls; or throw herrings' heads and dead dog-fish, orany other refuse, into the water; or in any way make a mess uponthe clean shore--there the water-babies will not come, sometimesnot for hundreds of years (for they cannot abide anything smelly orfoul), but leave the sea-anemones and the crabs to clear awayeverything, till the good tidy sea has covered up all the dirt insoft mud and clean sand, where the water-babies can plant livecockles and whelks and razor-shells and sea-cucumbers and golden-combs, and make a pretty live garden again, after man's dirt iscleared away. And that, I suppose, is the reason why there are nowater-babies at any watering-place which I have ever seen. 

And where is the home of the water-babies? In St. Brandan's fairyisle. 

Did you never hear of the blessed St. Brandan, how he preached tothe wild Irish on the wild, wild Kerry coast, he and five otherhermits, till they were weary and longed to rest? For the wildIrish would not listen to them, or come to confession and to mass, but liked better to brew potheen, and dance the pater o'pee, andknock each other over the head with shillelaghs, and shoot eachother from behind turf-dykes, and steal each other's cattle, andburn each other's homes; till St. Brandan and his friends wereweary of them, for they would not learn to be peaceable Christiansat all. 

So St. Brandan went out to the point of Old Dunmore, and lookedover the tide-way roaring round the Blasquets, at the end of allthe world, and away into the ocean, and sighed--"Ah that I hadwings as a dove!" And far away, before the setting sun, he saw ablue fairy sea, and golden fairy islands, and he said, "Those arethe islands of the blest. " Then he and his friends got into ahooker, and sailed away and away to the westward, and were neverheard of more. But the people who would not hear him were changedinto gorillas, and gorillas they are until this day. 

And when St. Brandan and the hermits came to that fairy isle theyfound it overgrown with cedars and full of beautiful birds; and hesat down under the cedars and preached to all the birds in the air. And they liked his sermons so well that they told the fishes in thesea; and they came, and St. Brandan preached to them; and thefishes told the water-babies, who live in the caves under the isle;and they came up by hundreds every Sunday, and St. Brandan gotquite a neat little Sunday-school. And there he taught the water-babies for a great many hundred years, till his eyes grew too dimto see, and his beard grew so long that he dared not walk for fearof treading on it, and then he might have tumbled down. And atlast he and the five hermits fell fast asleep under the cedar-shades, and there they sleep unto this day. But the fairies tookto the water-babies, and taught them their lessons themselves. 

And some say that St. Brandan will awake and begin to teach thebabies once more: but some think that he will sleep on, for betterfor worse, till the coming of the Cocqcigrues. But, on still clearsummer evenings, when the sun sinks down into the sea, among goldencloud-capes and cloud-islands, and locks and friths of azure sky, the sailors fancy that they see, away to westward, St. Brandan'sfairy isle. 

But whether men can see it or not, St. Brandan's Isle once actuallystood there; a great land out in the ocean, which has sunk and sunkbeneath the waves. Old Plato called it Atlantis, and told strangetales of the wise men who lived therein, and of the wars theyfought in the old times. And from off that island came strangeflowers, which linger still about this land:- the Cornish heath, and Cornish moneywort, and the delicate Venus's hair, and theLondon-pride which covers the Kerry mountains, and the little pinkbutterwort of Devon, and the great blue butterwort of Ireland, andthe Connemara heath, and the bristle-fern of the Turk waterfall, and many a strange plant more; all fairy tokens left for wise menand good children from off St. Brandan's Isle. 

Now when Tom got there, he found that the isle stood all onpillars, and that its roots were full of caves. There were pillarsof black basalt, like Staffa; and pillars of green and crimsonserpentine, like Kynance; and pillars ribboned with red and whiteand yellow sandstone, like Livermead; and there were blue grottoeslike Capri, and white grottoes like Adelsberg; all curtained anddraped with seaweeds, purple and crimson, green and brown; andstrewn with soft white sand, on which the water-babies sleep everynight. But, to keep the place clean and sweet, the crabs picked upall the scraps off the floor and ate them like so many monkeys;while the rocks were covered with ten thousand sea-anemones, andcorals and madrepores, who scavenged the water all day long, andkept it nice and pure. But, to make up to them for having to dosuch nasty work, they were not left black and dirty, as poorchimney-sweeps and dustmen are. No; the fairies are moreconsiderate and just than that, and have dressed them all in themost beautiful colours and patterns, till they look like vastflower-beds of gay blossoms. If you think I am talking nonsense, Ican only say that it is true; and that an old gentleman namedFourier used to say that we ought to do the same by chimney-sweepsand dustmen, and honour them instead of despising them; and he wasa very clever old gentleman: but, unfortunately for him and theworld, as mad as a March hare. 

And, instead of watchmen and policemen to keep out nasty things atnight, there were thousands and thousands of water-snakes, and mostwonderful creatures they were. They were all named after theNereids, the sea-fairies who took care of them, Eunice and Polynoe, Phyllodoce and Psamathe, and all the rest of the pretty darlingswho swim round their Queen Amphitrite, and her car of cameo shell. They were dressed in green velvet, and black velvet, and purplevelvet; and were all jointed in rings; and some of them had threehundred brains apiece, so that they must have been uncommonlyshrewd detectives; and some had eyes in their tails; and some hadeyes in every joint, so that they kept a very sharp look-out; andwhen they wanted a baby-snake, they just grew one at the end oftheir own tails, and when it was able to take care of itself itdropped off; so that they brought up their families very cheaply. But if any nasty thing came by, out they rushed upon it; and thenout of each of their hundreds of feet there sprang a whole cutler'sshop of

Scythes, Javelins, Billhooks, Lances, Pickaxes, Halberts, Forks, Gisarines, Penknives, Poleaxes, Rapiers, Fishhooks, Sabres, Bradawls, Yataghans, Gimblets, Creeses, Corkscrews, Ghoorka swords, Pins, Tucks, Needles, And so forth, which stabbed, shot, poked, pricked, scratched, ripped, pinked, andcrimped those naughty beasts so terribly, that they had to run fortheir lives, or else be chopped into small pieces and be eatenafterwards. And, if that is not all, every word, true, then thereis no faith in microscopes, and all is over with the LinnaeanSociety. 

And there were the water-babies in thousands, more than Tom, or youeither, could count. --All the little children whom the good fairiestake to, because their cruel mothers and fathers will not; all whoare untaught and brought up heathens, and all who come to grief byill-usage or ignorance or neglect; all the little children who areoverlaid, or given gin when they are young, or are let to drink outof hot kettles, or to fall into the fire; all the little childrenin alleys and courts, and tumble-down cottages, who die by fever, and cholera, and measles, and scarlatina, and nasty complaintswhich no one has any business to have, and which no one will havesome day, when folks have common sense; and all the little childrenwho have been killed by cruel masters and wicked soldiers; theywere all there, except, of course, the babes of Bethlehem who werekilled by wicked King Herod; for they were taken straight to heavenlong ago, as everybody knows, and we call them the Holy Innocents. 

But I wish Tom had given up all his naughty tricks, and left offtormenting dumb animals now that he had plenty of playfellows toamuse him. Instead of that, I am sorry to say, he would meddlewith the creatures, all but the water-snakes, for they would standno nonsense. So he tickled the madrepores, to make them shut up;and frightened the crabs, to make them hide in the sand and peepout at him with the tips of their eyes; and put stones into theanemones' mouths, to make them fancy that their dinner was coming. 

The other children warned him, and said, "Take care what you areat. Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is coming. " But Tom never heeded them, being quite riotous with high spirits and good luck, till, oneFriday morning early, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid came indeed. 

A very tremendous lady she was; and when the children saw her theyall stood in a row, very upright indeed, and smoothed down theirbathing dresses, and put their hands behind them, just as if theywere going to be examined by the inspector. 

And she had on a black bonnet, and a black shawl, and no crinolineat all; and a pair of large green spectacles, and a great hookednose, hooked so much that the bridge of it stood quite up above hereyebrows; and under her arm she carried a great birch-rod. Indeed, she was so ugly that Tom was tempted to make faces at her: but didnot; for he did not admire the look of the birch-rod under her arm. 

And she looked at the children one by one, and seemed very muchpleased with them, though she never asked them one question abouthow they were behaving; and then began giving them all sorts ofnice sea-things--sea-cakes, sea-apples, sea-oranges, sea-bullseyes, sea-toffee; and to the very best of all she gave sea-ices, made outof sea-cows' cream, which never melt under water. 

And, if you don't quite believe me, then just think--What is morecheap and plentiful than sea-rock? Then why should there not besea-toffee as well? And every one can find sea-lemons (readyquartered too) if they will look for them at low tide; and sea-grapes too sometimes, hanging in bunches; and, if you will go toNice, you will find the fish-market full of sea-fruit, which theycall "frutta di mare:" though I suppose they call them "fruits demer" now, out of compliment to that most successful, and thereforemost immaculate, potentate who is seemingly desirous of inheritingthe blessing pronounced on those who remove their neighbours' land-mark. And, perhaps, that is the very reason why the place iscalled Nice, because there are so many nice things in the seathere: at least, if it is not, it ought to be. 

Now little Tom watched all these sweet things given away, till hismouth watered, and his eyes grew as round as an owl's. For hehoped that his turn would come at last; and so it did. For thelady called him up, and held out her fingers with something inthem, and popped it into his mouth; and, lo and behold, it was anasty cold hard pebble. 

"You are a very cruel woman, " said he, and began to whimper. 

"And you are a very cruel boy; who puts pebbles into the sea-anemones' mouths, to take them in, and make them fancy that theyhad caught a good dinner! As you did to them, so I must do toyou. "

"Who told you that?" said Tom. 

"You did yourself, this very minute. "

Tom had never opened his lips; so he was very much taken abackindeed. 

"Yes; every one tells me exactly what they have done wrong; andthat without knowing it themselves. So there is no use trying tohide anything from me. Now go, and be a good boy, and I will putno more pebbles in your mouth, if you put none in othercreatures'. "

"I did not know there was any harm in it, " said Tom. 

"Then you know now. People continually say that to me: but I tellthem, if you don't know that fire burns, that is no reason that itshould not burn you; and if you don't know that dirt breeds fever, that is no reason why the fevers should not kill you. The lobsterdid not know that there was any harm in getting into the lobster-pot; but it caught him all the same. "

"Dear me, " thought Tom, "she knows everything!" And so she did, indeed. 

"And so, if you do not know that things are wrong that is no reasonwhy you should not be punished for them; though not as much, not asmuch, my little man" (and the lady looked very kindly, after all), "as if you did know. "

"Well, you are a little hard on a poor lad, " said Tom. 

"Not at all; I am the best friend you ever had in all your life. But I will tell you; I cannot help punishing people when they dowrong. I like it no more than they do; I am often very, very sorryfor them, poor things: but I cannot help it. If I tried not to doit, I should do it all the same. For I work by machinery, justlike an engine; and am full of wheels and springs inside; and amwound up very carefully, so that I cannot help going. "

"Was it long ago since they wound you up?" asked Tom. For hethought, the cunning little fellow, "She will run down some day:or they may forget to wind her up, as old Grimes used to forget towind up his watch when he came in from the public-house; and then Ishall be safe. "

"I was wound up once and for all, so long ago, that I forget allabout it. "

"Dear me, " said Tom, "you must have been made a long time!"

"I never was made, my child; and I shall go for ever and ever; forI am as old as Eternity, and yet as young as Time. "

And there came over the lady's face a very curious expression--verysolemn, and very sad; and yet very, very sweet. And she looked upand away, as if she were gazing through the sea, and through thesky, at something far, far off; and as she did so, there came sucha quiet, tender, patient, hopeful smile over her face that Tomthought for the moment that she did not look ugly at all. And nomore she did; for she was like a great many people who have not apretty feature in their faces, and yet are lovely to behold, anddraw little children's hearts to them at once because though thehouse is plain enough, yet from the windows a beautiful and goodspirit is looking forth. 

And Tom smiled in her face, she looked so pleasant for the moment. And the strange fairy smiled too, and said:

"Yes. You thought me very ugly just now, did you not?"

Tom hung down his head, and got very red about the ears. 

"And I am very ugly. I am the ugliest fairy in the world; and Ishall be, till people behave themselves as they ought to do. Andthen I shall grow as handsome as my sister, who is the loveliestfairy in the world; and her name is Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby. Soshe begins where I end, and I begin where she ends; and those whowill not listen to her must listen to me, as you will see. Now, all of you run away, except Tom; and he may stay and see what I amgoing to do. It will be a very good warning for him to begin with, before he goes to school. 

"Now, Tom, every Friday I come down here and call up all who haveill-used little children and serve them as they served thechildren. "

And at that Tom was frightened, and crept under a stone; which madethe two crabs who lived there very angry, and frightened theirfriend the butter-fish into flapping hysterics: but he would notmove for them. 

And first she called up all the doctors who give little children somuch physic (they were most of them old ones; for the young oneshave learnt better, all but a few army surgeons, who still fancythat a baby's inside is much like a Scotch grenadier's), and sheset them all in a row; and very rueful they looked; for they knewwhat was coming. 

And first she pulled all their teeth out; and then she bled themall round: and then she dosed them with calomel, and jalap, andsalts and senna, and brimstone and treacle; and horrible faces theymade; and then she gave them a great emetic of mustard and water, and no basons; and began all over again; and that was the way shespent the morning. 

And then she called up a whole troop of foolish ladies, who pinchup their children's waists and toes; and she laced them all up intight stays, so that they were choked and sick, and their nosesgrew red, and their hands and feet swelled; and then she crammedtheir poor feet into the most dreadfully tight boots, and made themall dance, which they did most clumsily indeed; and then she askedthem how they liked it; and when they said not at all, she let themgo: because they had only done it out of foolish fashion, fancyingit was for their children's good, as if wasps' waists and pigs'toes could be pretty, or wholesome, or of any use to anybody. 

Then she called up all the careless nurserymaids, and stuck pinsinto them all over, and wheeled them about in perambulators withtight straps across their stomachs and their heads and arms hangingover the side, till they were quite sick and stupid, and would havehad sun-strokes: but, being under the water, they could only havewater-strokes; which, I assure you, are nearly as bad, as you willfind if you try to sit under a mill-wheel. And mind--when you heara rumbling at the bottom of the sea, sailors will tell you that itis a ground-swell: but now you know better. It is the old ladywheeling the maids about in perambulators. 

And by that time she was so tired, she had to go to luncheon. 

And after luncheon she set to work again, and called up all thecruel schoolmasters--whole regiments and brigades of them; and whenshe saw them, she frowned most terribly, and set to work inearnest, as if the best part of the day's work was to come. Morethan half of them were nasty, dirty, frowzy, grubby, smelly oldmonks, who, because they dare not hit a man of their own size, amused themselves with beating little children instead; as you maysee in the picture of old Pope Gregory (good man and true though hewas, when he meddled with things which he did understand), teachingchildren to sing their fa-fa-mi-fa with a cat-o'-nine tails underhis chair: but, because they never had any children of their own, they took into their heads (as some folks do still) that they werethe only people in the world who knew how to manage children: andthey first brought into England, in the old Anglo-Saxon times, thefashion of treating free boys, and girls too, worse than you wouldtreat a dog or a horse: but Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has caught themall long ago; and given them many a taste of their own rods; andmuch good may it do them. 

And she boxed their ears, and thumped them over the head withrulers, and pandied their hands with canes, and told them that theytold stories, and were this and that bad sort of people; and themore they were very indignant, and stood upon their honour, anddeclared they told the truth, the more she declared they were not, and that they were only telling lies; and at last she birched themall round soundly with her great birch-rod and set them each animposition of three hundred thousand lines of Hebrew to learn byheart before she came back next Friday. And at that they all criedand howled so, that their breaths came all up through the sea likebubbles out of soda-water; and that is one reason of the bubbles inthe sea. There are others: but that is the one which principallyconcerns little boys. And by that time she was so tired that shewas glad to stop; and, indeed, she had done a very good day's work. 

Tom did not quite dislike the old lady: but he could not helpthinking her a little spiteful--and no wonder if she was, poor oldsoul; for if she has to wait to grow handsome till people do asthey would be done by, she will have to wait a very long time. 

Poor old Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid! she has a great deal of hard workbefore her, and had better have been born a washerwoman, and stoodover a tub all day: but, you see, people cannot always choosetheir own profession. 

But Tom longed to ask her one question; and after all, whenever shelooked at him, she did not look cross at all; and now and thenthere was a funny smile in her face, and she chuckled to herself ina way which gave Tom courage, and at last he said:

"Pray, ma'am, may I ask you a question?"

"Certainly, my little dear. "

"Why don't you bring all the bad masters here and serve them outtoo? The butties that knock about the poor collier-boys; and thenailers that file off their lads' noses and hammer their fingers;and all the master sweeps, like my master Grimes? I saw him fallinto the water long ago; so I surely expected he would have beenhere. I'm sure he was bad enough to me. "

Then the old lady looked so very stern that Tom was quitefrightened, and sorry that he had been so bold. But she was notangry with him. She only answered, "I look after them all the weekround; and they are in a very different place from this, becausethey knew that they were doing wrong. "

She spoke very quietly; but there was something in her voice whichmade Tom tingle from head to foot, as if he had got into a shoal ofsea-nettles. 

"But these people, " she went on, "did not know that they were doingwrong: they were only stupid and impatient; and therefore I onlypunish them till they become patient, and learn to use their commonsense like reasonable beings. But as for chimney-sweeps, andcollier-boys, and nailer lads, my sister has set good people tostop all that sort of thing; and very much obliged to her I am; forif she could only stop the cruel masters from ill-using poorchildren, I should grow handsome at least a thousand years sooner. And now do you be a good boy, and do as you would be done by, whichthey did not; and then, when my sister, MADAMEDOASYOUWOULDBEDONEBY, comes on Sunday, perhaps she will take noticeof you, and teach you how to behave. She understands that betterthan I do. " And so she went. 

Tom was very glad to hear that there was no chance of meetingGrimes again, though he was a little sorry for him, consideringthat he used sometimes to give him the leavings of the beer: buthe determined to be a very good boy all Saturday; and he was; forhe never frightened one crab, nor tickled any live corals, nor putstones into the sea anemones' mouths, to make them fancy they hadgot a dinner; and when Sunday morning came, sure enough, MRS. DOASYOUWOULDBEDONEBY came too. Whereat all the little childrenbegan dancing and clapping their hands, and Tom danced too with allhis might. 

And as for the pretty lady, I cannot tell you what the colour ofher hair was, or, of her eyes: no more could Tom; for, when anyone looks at her, all they can think of is, that she has thesweetest, kindest, tenderest, funniest, merriest face they eversaw, or want to see. But Tom saw that she was a very tall woman, as tall as her sister: but instead of being gnarly and horny, andscaly, and prickly, like her, she was the most nice, soft, fat, smooth, pussy, cuddly, delicious creature who ever nursed a baby;and she understood babies thoroughly, for she had plenty of herown, whole rows and regiments of them, and has to this day. Andall her delight was, whenever she had a spare moment, to play withbabies, in which she showed herself a woman of sense; for babiesare the best company, and the pleasantest playfellows, in theworld; at least, so all the wise people in the world think. Andtherefore when the children saw her, they naturally all caught holdof her, and pulled her till she sat down on a stone, and climbedinto her lap, and clung round her neck, and caught hold of herhands; and then they all put their thumbs into their mouths, andbegan cuddling and purring like so many kittens, as they ought tohave done. While those who could get nowhere else sat down on thesand, and cuddled her feet--for no one, you know, wear shoes in thewater, except horrid old bathing-women, who are afraid of thewater-babies pinching their horny toes. And Tom stood staring atthem; for he could not understand what it was all about. 

"And who are you, you little darling?" she said. 

"Oh, that is the new baby!" they all cried, pulling their thumbsout of their mouths; "and he never had any mother, " and they allput their thumbs back again, for they did not wish to lose anytime. 

"Then I will be his mother, and he shall have the very best place;so get out, all of you, this moment. "

And she took up two great armfuls of babies--nine hundred under onearm, and thirteen hundred under the other--and threw them away, right and left, into the water. But they minded it no more thanthe naughty boys in Struwelpeter minded when St. Nicholas dippedthem in his inkstand; and did not even take their thumbs out oftheir mouths, but came paddling and wriggling back to her like somany tadpoles, till you could see nothing of her from head to footfor the swarm of little babies. 

But she took Tom in her arms, and laid him in the softest place ofall, and kissed him, and patted him, and talked to him, tenderlyand low, such things as he had never heard before in his life; andTom looked up into her eyes, and loved her, and loved, till he fellfast asleep from pure love. 

And when he woke she was telling the children a story. And whatstory did she tell them? One story she told them, which beginsevery Christmas Eve, and yet never ends at all for ever and ever;and, as she went on, the children took their thumbs out of theirmouths and listened quite seriously; but not sadly at all; for shenever told them anything sad; and Tom listened too, and never grewtired of listening. And he listened so long that he fell fastasleep again, and, when he woke, the lady was nursing him still. 

"Don't go away, " said little Tom. "This is so nice. I never hadany one to cuddle me before. "

"Don't go away, " said all the children; "you have not sung us onesong. "

"Well, I have time for only one. So what shall it be?"

"The doll you lost! The doll you lost!" cried all the babies atonce. 

So the strange fairy sang:-

I once had a sweet little doll, dears, The prettiest doll in the world;Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears, And her hair was so charmingly curled. But I lost my poor little doll, dears, As I played in the heath one day;And I cried for her more than a week, dears, But I never could find where she lay. 

I found my poor little doll, dears, As I played in the heath one day:Folks say she is terribly changed, dears, For her paint is all washed away, And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears, And her hair not the least bit curled:Yet, for old sakes' sake she is still, dears, The prettiest doll in the world. 

What a silly song for a fairy to sing!

And what silly water-babies to be quite delighted at it!

Well, but you see they have not the advantage of Aunt Agitate'sArguments in the sea-land down below. 

"Now, " said the fairy to Tom, "will you be a good boy for my sake, and torment no more sea-beasts till I come back?"

"And you will cuddle me again?" said poor little Tom. 

"Of course I will, you little duck. I should like to take you withme and cuddle you all the way, only I must not;" and away she went. 

So Tom really tried to be a good boy, and tormented no sea-beastsafter that as long as he lived; and he is quite alive, I assureyou, still. 

Oh, how good little boys ought to be who have kind pussy mammas tocuddle them and tell them stories; and how afraid they ought to beof growing naughty, and bringing tears into their mammas' prettyeyes!

CHAPTER VI

"Thou little child, yet glorious in the nightOf heaven-born freedom on thy Being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provokeThe Years to bring the inevitable yoke -Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weightHeavy as frost, and deep almost as life. "

WORDSWORTH. 

I come to the very saddest part of all my story. I know somepeople will only laugh at it, and call it much ado about nothing. But I know one man who would not; and he was an officer with a pairof gray moustaches as long as your arm, who said once in companythat two of the most heart-rending sights in the world, which movedhim most to tears, which he would do anything to prevent or remedy, were a child over a broken toy and a child stealing sweets. 

The company did not laugh at him; his moustaches were too long andtoo gray for that: but, after he was gone, they called himsentimental and so forth, all but one dear little old Quaker ladywith a soul as white as her cap, who was not, of course, generallypartial to soldiers; and she said very quietly, like a Quaker:

"Friends, it is borne upon my mind that that is a truly brave man. "

Now you may fancy that Tom was quite good, when he had everythingthat he could want or wish: but you would be very much mistaken. Being quite comfortable is a very good thing; but it does not makepeople good. Indeed, it sometimes makes them naughty, as it hasmade the people in America; and as it made the people in the Bible, who waxed fat and kicked, like horses overfed and underworked. AndI am very sorry to say that this happened to little Tom. For hegrew so fond of the sea-bullseyes and sea-lollipops that hisfoolish little head could think of nothing else: and he was alwayslonging for more, and wondering when the strange lady would comeagain and give him some, and what she would give him, and how much, and whether she would give him more than the others. And hethought of nothing but lollipops by day, and dreamt of nothing elseby night--and what happened then?

That he began to watch the lady to see where she kept the sweetthings: and began hiding, and sneaking, and following her about, and pretending to be looking the other way, or going aftersomething else, till he found out that she kept them in a beautifulmother-of-pearl cabinet away in a deep crack of the rocks. 

And he longed to go to the cabinet, and yet he was afraid; and thenhe longed again, and was less afraid; and at last, by continualthinking about it, he longed so violently that he was not afraid atall. And one night, when all the other children were asleep, andhe could not sleep for thinking of lollipops, he crept away amongthe rocks, and got to the cabinet, and behold! it was open. 

But, when he saw all the nice things inside, instead of beingdelighted, he was quite frightened, and wished he had never comethere. And then he would only touch them, and he did; and then hewould only taste one, and he did; and then he would only eat one, and he did; and then he would only eat two, and then three, and soon; and then he was terrified lest she should come and catch him, and began gobbling them down so fast that he did not taste them, orhave any pleasure in them; and then he felt sick, and would haveonly one more; and then only one more again; and so on till he hadeaten them all up. 

And all the while, close behind him, stood Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. 

Some people may say, But why did she not keep her cupboard locked?Well, I know. --It may seem a very strange thing, but she never doeskeep her cupboard locked; every one may go and taste forthemselves, and fare accordingly. It is very odd, but so it is;and I am quite sure that she knows best. Perhaps she wishes peopleto keep their fingers out of the fire, by having them burned. 

She took off her spectacles, because she did not like to see toomuch; and in her pity she arched up her eyebrows into her veryhair, and her eyes grew so wide that they would have taken in allthe sorrows of the world, and filled with great big tears, as theytoo often do. 

But all she said was:

"Ah, you poor little dear! you are just like all the rest. "

But she said it to herself, and Tom neither heard nor saw her. Now, you must not fancy that she was sentimental at all. If youdo, and think that she is going to let off you, or me, or any humanbeing when we do wrong, because she is too tender-hearted to punishus, then you will find yourself very much mistaken, as many a mandoes every year and every day. 

But what did the strange fairy do when she saw all her lollipopseaten?

Did she fly at Tom, catch him by the scruff of the neck, hold him, howk him, hump him, hurry him, hit him, poke him, pull him, pinchhim, pound him, put him in the corner, shake him, slap him, set himon a cold stone to reconsider himself, and so forth?

Not a bit. You may watch her at work if you know where to findher. But you will never see her do that. For, if she had, sheknew quite well Tom would have fought, and kicked, and bit, andsaid bad words, and turned again that moment into a naughty littleheathen chimney-sweep, with his hand, like Ishmael's of old, against every man, and every man's hand against him. 

Did she question him, hurry him, frighten him, threaten him, tomake him confess? Not a bit. You may see her, as I said, at herwork often enough if you know where to look for her: but you willnever see her do that. For, if she had, she would have tempted himto tell lies in his fright; and that would have been worse for him, if possible, than even becoming a heathen chimney-sweep again. 

No. She leaves that for anxious parents and teachers (lazy ones, some call them), who, instead of giving children a fair trial, suchas they would expect and demand for themselves, force them byfright to confess their own faults--which is so cruel and unfairthat no judge on the bench dare do it to the wickedest thief ormurderer, for the good British law forbids it--ay, and even punishthem to make them confess, which is so detestable a crime that itis never committed now, save by Inquisitors, and Kings of Naples, and a few other wretched people of whom the world is weary. Andthen they say, "We have trained up the child in the way he shouldgo, and when he grew up he has departed from it. Why then didSolomon say that he would not depart from it?" But perhaps the wayof beating, and hurrying and frightening, and questioning, was notthe way that the child should go; for it is not even the way inwhich a colt should go if you want to break it in and make it aquiet serviceable horse. 

Some folks may say, "Ah! but the Fairy does not need to do that ifshe knows everything already. " True. But, if she did not know, she would not surely behave worse than a British judge and jury;and no more should parents and teachers either. 

So she just said nothing at all about the matter, not even when Tomcame next day with the rest for sweet things. He was horriblyafraid of coming: but he was still more afraid of staying away, lest any one should suspect him. He was dreadfully afraid, too, lest there should be no sweets--as was to be expected, he havingeaten them all--and lest then the fairy should inquire who hadtaken them. But, behold! she pulled out just as many as ever, which astonished Tom, and frightened him still more. 

And, when the fairy looked him full in the face, he shook from headto foot: however she gave him his share like the rest, and hethought within himself that she could not have found him out. 

But, when he put the sweets into his mouth, he hated the taste ofthem; and they made him so sick that he had to get away as fast ashe could; and terribly sick he was, and very cross and unhappy, allthe week after. 

Then, when next week came, he had his share again; and again thefairy looked him full in the face; but more sadly than she had everlooked. And he could not bear the sweets: but took them again inspite of himself. 

And when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, he wanted to be cuddledlike the rest; but she said very seriously:

"I should like to cuddle you; but I cannot, you are so horny andprickly. "

And Tom looked at himself: and he was all over prickles, just likea sea-egg. 

Which was quite natural; for you must know and believe thatpeople's souls make their bodies just as a snail makes its shell (Iam not joking, my little man; I am in serious, solemn earnest). And therefore, when Tom's soul grew all prickly with naughtytempers, his body could not help growing prickly, too, so thatnobody would cuddle him, or play with him, or even like to look athim. 

What could Tom do now but go away and hide in a corner and cry?For nobody would play with him, and he knew full well why. 

And he was so miserable all that week that when the ugly fairy cameand looked at him once more full in the face, more seriously andsadly than ever, he could stand it no longer, and thrust thesweetmeats away, saying, "No, I don't want any: I can't bear themnow, " and then burst out crying, poor little man, and told Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid every word as it happened. 

He was horribly frightened when he had done so; for he expected herto punish him very severely. But, instead, she only took him upand kissed him, which was not quite pleasant, for her chin was verybristly indeed; but he was so lonely-hearted, he thought that roughkissing was better than none. 

"I will forgive you, little man, " she said. "I always forgiveevery one the moment they tell me the truth of their own accord. "

"Then you will take away all these nasty prickles?"

"That is a very different matter. You put them there yourself, andonly you can take them away. "

"But how can I do that?" asked Tom, crying afresh. 

"Well, I think it is time for you to go to school; so I shall fetchyou a schoolmistress, who will teach you how to get rid of yourprickles. " And so she went away. 

Tom was frightened at the notion of a school-mistress; for hethought she would certainly come with a birch-rod or a cane; but hecomforted himself, at last, that she might be something like theold woman in Vendale--which she was not in the least; for, when thefairy brought her, she was the most beautiful little girl that everwas seen, with long curls floating behind her like a golden cloud, and long robes floating all round her like a silver one. 

"There he is, " said the fairy; "and you must teach him to be good, whether you like or not. "

"I know, " said the little girl; but she did not seem quite to like, for she put her finger in her mouth, and looked at Tom under herbrows; and Tom put his finger in his mouth, and looked at her underhis brows, for he was horribly ashamed of himself. 

The little girl seemed hardly to know how to begin; and perhaps shewould never have begun at all if poor Tom had not burst out crying, and begged her to teach him to be good and help him to cure hisprickles; and at that she grew so tender-hearted that she beganteaching him as prettily as ever child was taught in the world. 

And what did the little girl teach Tom? She taught him, first, what you have been taught ever since you said your first prayers atyour mother's knees; but she taught him much more simply. For thelessons in that world, my child, have no such hard words in them asthe lessons in this, and therefore the water-babies like thembetter than you like your lessons, and long to learn them more andmore; and grown men cannot puzzle nor quarrel over their meaning, as they do here on land; for those lessons all rise clear and pure, like the Test out of Overton Pool, out of the everlasting ground ofall life and truth. 

So she taught Tom every day in the week; only on Sundays she alwayswent away home, and the kind fairy took her place. And before shehad taught Tom many Sundays, his prickles had vanished quite away, and his skin was smooth and clean again. 

"Dear me!" said the little girl; "why, I know you now. You are thevery same little chimney-sweep who came into my bedroom. "

"Dear me!" cried Tom. "And I know you, too, now. You are the verylittle white lady whom I saw in bed. " And he jumped at her, andlonged to hug and kiss her; but did not, remembering that she was alady born; so he only jumped round and round her till he was quitetired. 

And then they began telling each other all their story--how he hadgot into the water, and she had fallen over the rock; and how hehad swum down to the sea, and how she had flown out of the window;and how this, that, and the other, till it was all talked out: andthen they both began over again, and I can't say which of the twotalked fastest. 

And then they set to work at their lessons again, and both likedthem so well that they went on well till seven full years were pastand gone. 

You may fancy that Tom was quite content and happy all those sevenyears; but the truth is, he was not. He had always one thing onhis mind, and that was--where little Ellie went, when she went homeon Sundays. 

To a very beautiful place, she said. 

But what was the beautiful place like, and where was it?

Ah! that is just what she could not say. And it is strange, buttrue, that no one can say; and that those who have been oftenest init, or even nearest to it, can say least about it, and make peopleunderstand least what it is like. There are a good many folksabout the Other-end-of-Nowhere (where Tom went afterwards), whopretend to know it from north to south as well as if they had beenpenny postmen there; but, as they are safe at the Other-end-of-Nowhere, nine hundred and ninety-nine million miles away, what theysay cannot concern us. 

But the dear, sweet, loving, wise, good, self-sacrificing people, who really go there, can never tell you anything about it, savethat it is the most beautiful place in all the world; and, if youask them more, they grow modest, and hold their peace, for fear ofbeing laughed at; and quite right they are. 

So all that good little Ellie could say was, that it was worth allthe rest of the world put together. And of course that only madeTom the more anxious to go likewise. 

"Miss Ellie, " he said at last, "I will know why I cannot go withyou when you go home on Sundays, or I shall have no peace, and giveyou none either. "

"You must ask the fairies that. "

So when the fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, came next, Tom asked her. 

"Little boys who are only fit to play with sea-beasts cannot gothere, " she said. "Those who go there must go first where they donot like, and do what they do not like, and help somebody they donot like. "

"Why, did Ellie do that?"

"Ask her. "

And Ellie blushed, and said, "Yes, Tom; I did not like coming hereat first; I was so much happier at home, where it is always Sunday. And I was afraid of you, Tom, at first, because--because--"

"Because I was all over prickles? But I am not prickly now, am I, Miss Ellie?"

"No, " said Ellie. "I like you very much now; and I like cominghere, too. "

"And perhaps, " said the fairy, "you will learn to like going whereyou don't like, and helping some one that you don't like, as Elliehas. "

But Tom put his finger in his mouth, and hung his head down; for hedid not see that at all. 

So when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, Tom asked her; for hethought in his little head, She is not so strict as her sister, andperhaps she may let me off more easily. 

Ah, Tom, Tom, silly fellow! and yet I don't know why I should blameyou, while so many grown people have got the very same notion intheir heads. 

But, when they try it, they get just the same answer as Tom did. For, when he asked the second fairy, she told him just what thefirst did, and in the very same words. 

Tom was very unhappy at that. And, when Ellie went home on Sunday, he fretted and cried all day, and did not care to listen to thefairy's stories about good children, though they were prettier thanever. Indeed, the more he overheard of them, the less he liked tolisten, because they were all about children who did what they didnot like, and took trouble for other people, and worked to feedtheir little brothers and sisters instead of caring only for theirplay. And, when she began to tell a story about a holy child inold times, who was martyred by the heathen because it would notworship idols, Tom could bear no more, and ran away and hid amongthe rocks. 

And, when Ellie came back, he was shy with her, because he fanciedshe looked down on him, and thought him a coward. And then he grewquite cross with her, because she was superior to him, and did whathe could not do. And poor Ellie was quite surprised and sad; andat last Tom burst out crying; but he would not tell her what wasreally in his mind. 

And all the while he was eaten up with curiosity to know whereEllie went to; so that he began not to care for his playmates, orfor the sea-palace or anything else. But perhaps that made mattersall the easier for him; for he grew so discontented with everythinground him that he did not care to stay, and did not care where hewent. 

"Well, " he said, at last, "I am so miserable here, I'll go; if onlyyou will go with me?"

"Ah!" said Ellie, "I wish I might; but the worst of it is, that thefairy says that you must go alone if you go at all. Now don't pokethat poor crab about, Tom" (for he was feeling very naughty andmischievous), "or the fairy will have to punish you. "

Tom was very nearly saying, "I don't care if she does;" but hestopped himself in time. 

"I know what she wants me to do, " he said, whining most dolefully. "She wants me to go after that horrid old Grimes. I don't likehim, that's certain. And if I find him, he will turn me into achimney-sweep again, I know. That's what I have been afraid of allalong. "

"No, he won't--I know as much as that. Nobody can turn water-babies into sweeps, or hurt them at all, as long as they are good. "

"Ah, " said naughty Tom, "I see what you want; you are persuading meall along to go, because you are tired of me, and want to get ridof me. "

Little Ellie opened her eyes very wide at that, and they were allbrimming over with tears. 

"Oh, Tom, Tom!" she said, very mournfully--and then she cried, "Oh, Tom! where are you?"

And Tom cried, "Oh, Ellie, where are you?"

For neither of them could see each other--not the least. LittleEllie vanished quite away, and Tom heard her voice calling him, andgrowing smaller and smaller, and fainter and fainter, till all wassilent. 

Who was frightened then but Tom? He swam up and down among therocks, into all the halls and chambers, faster than ever he swambefore, but could not find her. He shouted after her, but she didnot answer; he asked all the other children, but they had not seenher; and at last he went up to the top of the water and begancrying and screaming for Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid--which perhaps wasthe best thing to do--for she came in a moment. 

"Oh!" said Tom. "Oh dear, oh dear! I have been naughty to Ellie, and I have killed her--I know I have killed her. "

"Not quite that, " said the fairy; "but I have sent her away home, and she will not come back again for I do not know how long. "

And at that Tom cried so bitterly that the salt sea was swelledwith his tears, and the tide was . 3, 954, 620, 819 of an inch higherthan it had been the day before: but perhaps that was owing to thewaxing of the moon. It may have been so; but it is consideredright in the new philosophy, you know, to give spiritual causes forphysical phenomena--especially in parlour-tables; and, of course, physical causes for spiritual ones, like thinking, and praying, andknowing right from wrong. And so they odds it till it comes even, as folks say down in Berkshire. 

"How cruel of you to send Ellie away!" sobbed Tom. "However, Iwill find her again, if I go to the world's end to look for her. "

The fairy did not slap Tom, and tell him to hold his tongue: butshe took him on her lap very kindly, just as her sister would havedone; and put him in mind how it was not her fault, because she waswound up inside, like watches, and could not help doing thingswhether she liked or not. And then she told him how he had been inthe nursery long enough, and must go out now and see the world, ifhe intended ever to be a man; and how he must go all alone byhimself, as every one else that ever was born has to go, and seewith his own eyes, and smell with his own nose, and make his ownbed and lie on it, and burn his own fingers if he put them into thefire. And then she told him how many fine things there were to beseen in the world, and what an odd, curious, pleasant, orderly, respectable, well-managed, and, on the whole, successful (as, indeed, might have been expected) sort of a place it was, if peoplewould only be tolerably brave and honest and good in it; and thenshe told him not to be afraid of anything he met, for nothing wouldharm him if he remembered all his lessons, and did what he knew wasright. And at last she comforted poor little Tom so much that hewas quite eager to go, and wanted to set out that minute. "Only, "he said, "if I might see Ellie once before I went!"

"Why do you want that?"

"Because--because I should be so much happier if I thought she hadforgiven me. "

And in the twinkling of an eye there stood Ellie, smiling, andlooking so happy that Tom longed to kiss her; but was still afraidit would not be respectful, because she was a lady born. 

"I am going, Ellie!" said Tom. "I am going, if it is to theworld's end. But I don't like going at all, and that's the truth. "

"Pooh! pooh! pooh!" said the fairy. "You will like it very wellindeed, you little rogue, and you know that at the bottom of yourheart. But if you don't, I will make you like it. Come here, andsee what happens to people who do only what is pleasant. "

And she took out of one of her cupboards (she had all sorts ofmysterious cupboards in the cracks of the rocks) the most wonderfulwaterproof book, full of such photographs as never were seen. Forshe had found out photography (and this is a fact) more than13, 598, 000 years before anybody was born; and, what is more, herphotographs did not merely represent light and shade, as ours do, but colour also, and all colours, as you may see if you look at ablack-cock's tail, or a butterfly's wing, or indeed most thingsthat are or can be, so to speak. And therefore her photographswere very curious and famous, and the children looked with greatdelight for the opening of the book. 

And on the title-page was written, "The History of the great andfamous nation of the Doasyoulikes, who came away from the countryof Hardwork, because they wanted to play on the Jews' harp all daylong. "

In the first picture they saw these Doasyoulikes living in the landof Readymade, at the foot of the Happy-go-lucky Mountains, whereflapdoodle grows wild; and if you want to know what that is, youmust read Peter Simple. 

They lived very much such a life as those jolly old Greeks inSicily, whom you may see painted on the ancient vases, and reallythere seemed to be great excuses for them, for they had no need towork. 

Instead of houses they lived in the beautiful caves of tufa, andbathed in the warm springs three times a day; and, as for clothes, it was so warm there that the gentlemen walked about in littlebeside a cocked hat and a pair of straps, or some light summertackle of that kind; and the ladies all gathered gossamer in autumn(when they were not too lazy) to make their winter dresses. 

They were very fond of music, but it was too much trouble to learnthe piano or the violin; and as for dancing, that would have beentoo great an exertion. So they sat on ant-hills all day long, andplayed on the Jews' harp; and, if the ants bit them, why they justgot up and went to the next ant-hill, till they were bitten therelikewise. 

And they sat under the flapdoodle-trees, and let the flapdoodledrop into their mouths; and under the vines, and squeezed thegrape-juice down their throats; and, if any little pigs ran aboutready roasted, crying, "Come and eat me, " as was their fashion inthat country, they waited till the pigs ran against their mouths, and then took a bite, and were content, just as so many oysterswould have been. 

They needed no weapons, for no enemies ever came near their land;and no tools, for everything was readymade to their hand; and thestern old fairy Necessity never came near them to hunt them up, andmake them use their wits, or die. 

And so on, and so on, and so on, till there were never suchcomfortable, easy-going, happy-go-lucky people in the world. 

"Well, that is a jolly life, " said Tom. 

"You think so?" said the fairy. "Do you see that great peakedmountain there behind, " said the fairy, "with smoke coming out ofits top?"

"Yes. "

"And do you see all those ashes, and slag, and cinders lyingabout?"

"Yes. "

"Then turn over the next five hundred years, and you will see whathappens next. "

And behold the mountain had blown up like a barrel of gunpowder, and then boiled over like a kettle; whereby one-third of theDoasyoulikes were blown into the air, and another third weresmothered in ashes; so that there was only one-third left. 

"You see, " said the fairy, "what comes of living on a burningmountain. "

"Oh, why did you not warn them?" said little Ellie. 

"I did warn them all that I could. I let the smoke come out of themountain; and wherever there is smoke there is fire. And I laidthe ashes and cinders all about; and wherever there are cinders, cinders may be again. But they did not like to face facts, mydears, as very few people do; and so they invented a cock-and-bullstory, which, I am sure, I never told them, that the smoke was thebreath of a giant, whom some gods or other had buried under themountain; and that the cinders were what the dwarfs roasted thelittle pigs whole with; and other nonsense of that kind. And, whenfolks are in that humour, I cannot teach them, save by the good oldbirch-rod. "

And then she turned over the next five hundred years: and therewere the remnant of the Doasyoulikes, doing as they liked, asbefore. They were too lazy to move away from the mountain; so theysaid, If it has blown up once, that is all the more reason that itshould not blow up again. And they were few in number: but theyonly said, The more the merrier, but the fewer the better fare. However, that was not quite true; for all the flapdoodle-trees werekilled by the volcano, and they had eaten all the roast pigs, who, of course, could not be expected to have little ones. So they hadto live very hard, on nuts and roots which they scratched out ofthe ground with sticks. Some of them talked of sowing corn, astheir ancestors used to do, before they came into the land ofReadymade; but they had forgotten how to make ploughs (they hadforgotten even how to make Jews' harps by this time), and had eatenall the seed-corn which they brought out of the land of Hardworkyears since; and of course it was too much trouble to go away andfind more. So they lived miserably on roots and nuts, and all theweakly little children had great stomachs, and then died. 

"Why, " said Tom, "they are growing no better than savages. "

"And look how ugly they are all getting, " said Ellie. 

"Yes; when people live on poor vegetables instead of roast beef andplum-pudding, their jaws grow large, and their lips grow coarse, like the poor Paddies who eat potatoes. "

And she turned over the next five hundred years. And there theywere all living up in trees, and making nests to keep off the rain. And underneath the trees lions were prowling about. 

"Why, " said Ellie, "the lions seem to have eaten a good many ofthem, for there are very few left now. "

"Yes, " said the fairy; "you see it was only the strongest and mostactive ones who could climb the trees, and so escape. "

"But what great, hulking, broad-shouldered chaps they are, " saidTom; "they are a rough lot as ever I saw. "

"Yes, they are getting very strong now; for the ladies will notmarry any but the very strongest and fiercest gentlemen, who canhelp them up the trees out of the lions' way. "

And she turned over the next five hundred years. And in that theywere fewer still, and stronger, and fiercer; but their feet hadchanged shape very oddly, for they laid hold of the branches withtheir great toes, as if they had been thumbs, just as a Hindootailor uses his toes to thread his needle. 

The children were very much surprised, and asked the fairy whetherthat was her doing. 

"Yes, and no, " she said, smiling. "It was only those who could usetheir feet as well as their hands who could get a good living: or, indeed, get married; so that they got the best of everything, andstarved out all the rest; and those who are left keep up a regularbreed of toe-thumb-men, as a breed of short-horns, or are skye-terriers, or fancy pigeons is kept up. "

"But there is a hairy one among them, " said Ellie. 

"Ah!" said the fairy, "that will be a great man in his time, andchief of all the tribe. "

And, when she turned over the next five hundred years, it was true. 

For this hairy chief had had hairy children, and they hairierchildren still; and every one wished to marry hairy husbands, andhave hairy children too; for the climate was growing so damp thatnone but the hairy ones could live: all the rest coughed andsneezed, and had sore throats, and went into consumptions, beforethey could grow up to be men and women. 

Then the fairy turned over the next five hundred years. And theywere fewer still. 

"Why, there is one on the ground picking up roots, " said Ellie, "and he cannot walk upright. "

No more he could; for in the same way that the shape of their feethad altered, the shape of their backs had altered also. 

"Why, " cried Tom, "I declare they are all apes. "

"Something fearfully like it, poor foolish creatures, " said thefairy. "They are grown so stupid now, that they can hardly think:for none of them have used their wits for many hundred years. Theyhave almost forgotten, too, how to talk. For each stupid childforgot some of the words it heard from its stupid parents, and hadnot wits enough to make fresh words for itself. Beside, they aregrown so fierce and suspicious and brutal that they keep out ofeach other's way, and mope and sulk in the dark forests, neverhearing each other's voice, till they have forgotten almost whatspeech is like. I am afraid they will all be apes very soon, andall by doing only what they liked. "

And in the next five hundred years they were all dead and gone, bybad food and wild beasts and hunters; all except one tremendous oldfellow with jaws like a jack, who stood full seven feet high; andM. Du Chaillu came up to him, and shot him, as he stood roaring andthumping his breast. And he remembered that his ancestors had oncebeen men, and tried to say, "Am I not a man and a brother?" but hadforgotten how to use his tongue; and then he had tried to call fora doctor, but he had forgotten the word for one. So all he saidwas "Ubboboo!" and died. 

And that was the end of the great and jolly nation of theDoasyoulikes. And, when Tom and Ellie came to the end of the book, they looked very sad and solemn; and they had good reason so to do, for they really fancied that the men were apes, and never thought, in their simplicity, of asking whether the creatures hadhippopotamus majors in their brains or not; in which case, as youhave been told already, they could not possibly have been apes, though they were more apish than the apes of all aperies. 

"But could you not have saved them from becoming apes?" said littleEllie, at last. 

"At first, my dear; if only they would have behaved like men, andset to work to do what they did not like. But the longer theywaited, and behaved like the dumb beasts, who only do what theylike, the stupider and clumsier they grew; till at last they werepast all cure, for they had thrown their own wits away. It is suchthings as this that help to make me so ugly, that I know not when Ishall grow fair. "

"And where are they all now?" asked Ellie. 

"Exactly where they ought to be, my dear. "

"Yes!" said the fairy, solemnly, half to herself, as she closed thewonderful book. "Folks say now that I can make beasts into men, bycircumstance, and selection, and competition, and so forth. Well, perhaps they are right; and perhaps, again, they are wrong. Thatis one of the seven things which I am forbidden to tell, till thecoming of the Cocqcigrues; and, at all events, it is no concern oftheirs. Whatever their ancestors were, men they are; and I advisethem to behave as such, and act accordingly. But let themrecollect this, that there are two sides to every question, and adownhill as well as an uphill road; and, if I can turn beasts intomen, I can, by the same laws of circumstance, and selection, andcompetition, turn men into beasts. You were very near being turnedinto a beast once or twice, little Tom. Indeed, if you had notmade up your mind to go on this journey, and see the world, like anEnglishman, I am not sure but that you would have ended as an eftin a pond. "

"Oh, dear me!" said Tom; "sooner than that, and be all over slime, I'll go this minute, if it is to the world's end. "

CHAPTER VII

"And Nature, the old Nurse, tookThe child upon her knee, Saying, 'Here is a story bookThy father hath written for thee. 

"'Come wander with me, ' she said, 'Into regions yet untrod, And read what is still unreadIn the Manuscripts of God. '

"And he wandered away and awayWith Nature, the dear old Nurse, Who sang to him night and dayThe rhymes of the universe. "

LONGFELLOW. 

"Now, " said Tom, "I am ready be off, if it's to the world's end. "

"Ah!" said the fairy, "that is a brave, good boy. But you must gofarther than the world's end, if you want to find Mr. Grimes; forhe is at the Other-end-of-Nowhere. You must go to Shiny Wall, andthrough the white gate that never was opened; and then you willcome to Peacepool, and Mother Carey's Haven, where the good whalesgo when they die. And there Mother Carey will tell you the way tothe Other-end-of-Nowhere, and there you will find Mr. Grimes. "

"Oh, dear!" said Tom. "But I do not know my way to Shiny Wall, orwhere it is at all. "

"Little boys must take the trouble to find out things forthemselves, or they will never grow to be men; so that you must askall the beasts in the sea and the birds in the air, and if you havebeen good to them, some of them will tell you the way to ShinyWall. "

"Well, " said Tom, "it will be a long journey, so I had better startat once. Good-bye, Miss Ellie; you know I am getting a big boy, and I must go out and see the world. "

"I know you must, " said Ellie; "but you will not forget me, Tom. Ishall wait here till you come. "

And she shook hands with him, and bade him good-bye. Tom longedvery much again to kiss her; but he thought it would not berespectful, considering she was a lady born; so he promised not toforget her: but his little whirl-about of a head was so full ofthe notion of going out to see the world, that it forgot her infive minutes: however, though his head forgot her, I am glad tosay his heart did not. 

So he asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the birds in theair, but none of them knew the way to Shiny Wall. For why? He wasstill too far down south. 

Then he met a ship, far larger than he had ever seen--a gallantocean-steamer, with a long cloud of smoke trailing behind; and hewondered how she went on without sails, and swam up to her to see. A school of dolphins were running races round and round her, goingthree feet for her one, and Tom asked them the way to Shiny Wall:but they did not know. Then he tried to find out how she moved, and at last he saw her screw, and was so delighted with it that heplayed under her quarter all day, till he nearly had his noseknocked off by the fans, and thought it time to move. Then hewatched the sailors upon deck, and the ladies, with their bonnetsand parasols: but none of them could see him, because their eyeswere not opened, --as, indeed, most people's eyes are not. 

At last there came out into the quarter-gallery a very pretty lady, in deep black widow's weeds, and in her arms a baby. She leanedover the quarter-gallery, and looked back and back toward Englandfar away; and as she looked she sang:

I. 

"Soft soft wind, from out the sweet south sliding, Waft thy silver cloud-webs athwart the summer sea;Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twiningWeave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me. 

II. 

"Deep deep Love, within thine own abyss abiding, Pour Thyself abroad, O Lord, on earth and air and sea;Worn weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding, Shield from sorrow, sin, and shame my helpless babe and me. "

Her voice was so soft and low, and the music of the air so sweet, that Tom could have listened to it all day. But as she held thebaby over the gallery rail, to show it the dolphins leaping and thewater gurgling in the ship's wake, lo! and behold, the baby sawTom. 

He was quite sure of that for when their eyes met, the baby smiledand held out his hands; and Tom smiled and held out his hands too;and the baby kicked and leaped, as if it wanted to jump overboardto him. 

"What do you see, my darling?" said the lady; and her eyes followedthe baby's till she too caught sight of Tom, swimming about amongthe foam-beads below. 

She gave a little shriek and start; and then she said, quitequietly, "Babies in the sea? Well, perhaps it is the happiestplace for them;" and waved her hand to Tom, and cried, "Wait alittle, darling, only a little: and perhaps we shall go with youand be at rest. "

And at that an old nurse, all in black, came out and talked to her, and drew her in. And Tom turned away northward, sad and wondering;and watched the great steamer slide away into the dusk, and thelights on board peep out one by one, and die out again, and thelong bar of smoke fade away into the evening mist, till all was outof sight. 

And he swam northward again, day after day, till at last he met theKing of the Herrings, with a curry-comb growing out of his nose, and a sprat in his mouth for a cigar, and asked him the way toShiny Wall; so he bolted his sprat head foremost, and said:

"If I were you, young Gentleman, I should go to the Allalonestone, and ask the last of the Gairfowl. She is of a very ancient clan, very nearly as ancient as my own; and knows a good deal which thesemodern upstarts don't, as ladies of old houses are likely to do. "

Tom asked his way to her, and the King of the Herrings told himvery kindly, for he was a courteous old gentleman of the oldschool, though he was horribly ugly, and strangely bedizened too, like the old dandies who lounge in the club-house windows. 

But just as Tom had thanked him and set off, he called after him:"Hi! I say, can you fly?"

"I never tried, " says Tom. "Why?"

"Because, if you can, I should advise you to say nothing to the oldlady about it. There; take a hint. Good-bye. "

And away Tom went for seven days and seven nights due north-west, till he came to a great codbank, the like of which he never sawbefore. The great cod lay below in tens of thousands, and gobbledshell-fish all day long; and the blue sharks roved above inhundreds, and gobbled them when they came up. So they ate, andate, and ate each other, as they had done since the making of theworld; for no man had come here yet to catch them, and find out howrich old Mother Carey is. 

And there he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing up on theAllalonestones all alone. And a very grand old lady she was, fullthree feet high, and bolt upright, like some old Highlandchieftainess. She had on a black velvet gown, and a white pinnerand apron, and a very high bridge to her nose (which is a sure markof high breeding), and a large pair of white spectacles on it, which made her look rather odd: but it was the ancient fashion ofher house. 

And instead of wings, she had two little feathery arms, with whichshe fanned herself, and complained of the dreadful heat; and shekept on crooning an old song to herself, which she learnt when shewas a little baby-bird, long ago -

"Two little birds they sat on a stone, One swam away, and then there was one, With a fal-lal-la-lady. 

"The other swam after, and then there was none, And so the poor stone was left all alone;With a fal-lal-la-lady. "

It was "flew" away, properly, and not "swam" away: but, as shecould not fly, she had a right to alter it. However, it was a veryfit song for her to sing, because she was a lady herself. 

Tom came up to her very humbly, and made his bow; and the firstthing she said was -

"Have you wings? Can you fly?"

"Oh dear, no, ma'am; I should not think of such thing, " saidcunning little Tom. 

"Then I shall have great pleasure in talking to you, my dear. Itis quite refreshing nowadays to see anything without wings. Theymust all have wings, forsooth, now, every new upstart sort of bird, and fly. What can they want with flying, and raising themselvesabove their proper station in life? In the days of my ancestors nobirds ever thought of having wings, and did very well without; andnow they all laugh at me because I keep to the good old fashion. Why, the very marrocks and dovekies have got wings, the vulgarcreatures, and poor little ones enough they are; and my own cousinstoo, the razor-bills, who are gentlefolk born, and ought to knowbetter than to ape their inferiors. "

And so she was running on, while Tom tried to get in a wordedgeways; and at last he did, when the old lady got out of breath, and began fanning herself again; and then he asked if she knew theway to Shiny Wall. 

"Shiny Wall? Who should know better than I? We all came fromShiny Wall, thousands of years ago, when it was decently cold, andthe climate was fit for gentlefolk; but now, what with the heat, and what with these vulgar-winged things who fly up and down andeat everything, so that gentlepeople's hunting is all spoilt, andone really cannot get one's living, or hardly venture off the rockfor fear of being flown against by some creature that would nothave dared to come within a mile of one a thousand years ago--whatwas I saying? Why, we have quite gone down in the world, my dear, and have nothing left but our honour. And I am the last of myfamily. A friend of mine and I came and settled on this rock whenwe were young, to be out of the way of low people. Once we were agreat nation, and spread over all the Northern Isles. But men shotus so, and knocked us on the head, and took our eggs--why, if youwill believe it, they say that on the coast of Labrador the sailorsused to lay a plank from the rock on board the thing called theirship, and drive us along the plank by hundreds, till we tumbleddown into the ship's waist in heaps; and then, I suppose, they ateus, the nasty fellows! Well--but--what was I saying? At last, there were none of us left, except on the old Gairfowlskerry, justoff the Iceland coast, up which no man could climb. Even there wehad no peace; for one day, when I was quite a young girl, the landrocked, and the sea boiled, and the sky grew dark, and all the airwas filled with smoke and dust, and down tumbled the oldGairfowlskerry into the sea. The dovekies and marrocks, of course, all flew away; but we were too proud to do that. Some of us weredashed to pieces, and some drowned; and those who were left gotaway to Eldey, and the dovekies tell me they are all dead now, andthat another Gairfowlskerry has risen out of the sea close to theold one, but that it is such a poor flat place that it is not safeto live on: and so here I am left alone. "

This was the Gairfowl's story, and, strange as it may seem, it isevery word of it true. 

"If you only had had wings!" said Tom; "then you might all haveflown away too. "

"Yes, young gentleman: and if people are not gentleman and ladies, and forget that noblesse oblige, they will find it as easy to geton in the world as other people who don't care what they do. Why, if I had not recollected that noblesse oblige, I should not havebeen all alone now. " And the poor old lady sighed. 

"How was that, ma'am?"

"Why, my dear, a gentleman came hither with me, and after we hadbeen here some time, he wanted to marry--in fact, he actuallyproposed to me. Well, I can't blame him; I was young, and veryhandsome then, I don't deny: but you see, I could not hear of sucha thing, because he was my deceased sister's husband, you see?"

"Of course not, ma'am, " said Tom; though, of course, he knewnothing about it. "She was very much diseased, I suppose?"

"You do not understand me, my dear. I mean, that being a lady, andwith right and honourable feelings, as our house always has had, Ifelt it my duty to snub him, and howk him, and peck himcontinually, to keep him at his proper distance; and, to tell thetruth, I once pecked him a little too hard, poor fellow, and hetumbled backwards off the rock, and--really, it was veryunfortunate, but it was not my fault--a shark coming by saw himflapping, and snapped him up. And since then I have lived all alone-

'With a fal-lal-la-lady. '

And soon I shall be gone, my little dear, and nobody will miss me;and then the poor stone will be left all alone. "

"But, please, which is the way to Shiny Wall?" said Tom. 

"Oh, you must go, my little dear--you must go. Let me see--I amsure--that is--really, my poor old brains are getting quitepuzzled. Do you know, my little dear, I am afraid, if you want toknow, you must ask some of these vulgar birds about, for I havequite forgotten. "

And the poor old Gairfowl began to cry tears of pure oil; and Tomwas quite sorry for her; and for himself too, for he was at hiswit's end whom to ask. 

But by there came a flock of petrels, who are Mother Carey's ownchickens; and Tom thought them much prettier than Lady Gairfowl, and so perhaps they were; for Mother Carey had had a great deal offresh experience between the time that she invented the Gairfowland the time that she invented them. They flitted along like aflock of black swallows, and hopped and skipped from wave to wave, lifting up their little feet behind them so daintily, and whistlingto each other so tenderly, that Tom fell in love with them at once, and called them to know the way to Shiny Wall. 

"Shiny Wall? Do you want Shiny Wall? Then come with us, and wewill show you. We are Mother Carey's own chickens, and she sendsus out over all the seas, to show the good birds the way home. "

Tom was delighted, and swam off to them, after he had made his bowto the Gairfowl. But she would not return his bow: but heldherself bolt upright, and wept tears of oil as she sang:

"And so the poor stone was left all alone;With a fal-lal-la-lady. "

But she was wrong there; for the stone was not left all alone: andthe next time that Tom goes by it, he will see a sight worthseeing. 

The old Gairfowl is gone already: but there are better things comein her place; and when Tom comes he will see the fishing-smacksanchored there in hundreds, from Scotland, and from Ireland, andfrom the Orkneys, and the Shetlands, and from all the Northernports, full of the children of the old Norse Vikings, the mastersof the sea. And the men will be hauling in the great cod bythousands, till their hands are sore from the lines; and they willbe making cod-liver oil and guano, and salting down the fish; andthere will be a man-of-war steamer there to protect them, and alighthouse to show them the way; and you and I, perhaps, shall gosome day to the Allalonestone to the great summer sea-fair, anddredge strange creatures such as man never saw before; and we shallhear the sailors boast that it is not the worst jewel in QueenVictoria's crown, for there are eighty miles of codbank, and foodfor all the poor folk in the land. That is what Tom will see, andperhaps you and I shall see it too. And then we shall not be sorrybecause we cannot get a Gairfowl to stuff, much less find gairfowlenough to drive them into stone pens and slaughter them, as the oldNorsemen did, or drive them on board along a plank till the shipwas victualled with them, as the old English and French rovers usedto do, of whom dear old Hakluyt tells: but we shall remember whatMr. Tennyson says: how

"The old order changeth, giving place to the new, And God fulfils himself in many ways. "

And now Tom was all agog to start for Shiny Wall; but the petrelssaid no. They must go first to Allfowlsness, and wait there forthe great gathering of all the sea-birds, before they start fortheir summer breeding-places far away in the Northern Isles; andthere they would be sure to find some birds which were going toShiny Wall: but where Allfowlsness was, he must promise never totell, lest men should go there and shoot the birds, and stuff them, and put them into stupid museums, instead of leaving them to playand breed and work in Mother Carey's water-garden, where they oughtto be. 

So where Allfowlsness is nobody must know; and all that is to besaid about it is, that Tom waited there many days; and as hewaited, he saw a very curious sight. On the rabbit burrows on theshore there gathered hundreds and hundreds of hoodie-crows, such asyou see in Cambridgeshire. And they made such a noise, that Tomcame on shore and went up to see what was the matter. 

And there he found them holding their great caucus, which they holdevery year in the North; and all their stump-orators werespeechifying; and for a tribune, the speaker stood on an oldsheep's skull. 

And they cawed and cawed, and boasted of all the clever things theyhad done; how many lambs' eyes they had picked out, and how manydead bullocks they had eaten, and how many young grouse they hadswallowed whole, and how many grouse-eggs they had flown away with, stuck on the point of their bills, which is the hoodie-crow'sparticularly clever feat, of which he is as proud as a gipsy is ofdoing the hokany-baro; and what that is, I won't tell you. 

And at last they brought out the prettiest, neatest young lady-crowthat ever was seen, and set her in the middle, and all beganabusing and vilifying, and rating, and bullyragging at her, becauseshe had stolen no grouse-eggs, and had actually dared to say thatshe would not steal any. So she was to be tried publicly by theirlaws (for the hoodies always try some offenders in their greatyearly parliament). And there she stood in the middle, in herblack gown and gray hood, looking as meek and as neat as aQuakeress, and they all bawled at her at once -

And it was in vain that she pleaded -

That she did not like grouse-eggs;That she could get her living very well without them;That she was afraid to eat them, for fear of the gamekeepers;That she had not the heart to eat them, because the grouse weresuch pretty, kind, jolly birds;And a dozen reasons more. 

For all the other scaul-crows set upon her, and pecked her to deaththere and then, before Tom could come to help her; and then flewaway, very proud of what they had done. 

Now, was not this a scandalous transaction?

But they are true republicans, these hoodies, who do every one justwhat he likes, and make other people do so too; so that, for anyfreedom of speech, thought, or action, which is allowed among them, they might as well be American citizens of the new school. 

But the fairies took the good crow, and gave her nine new sets offeathers running, and turned her at last into the most beautifulbird of paradise with a green velvet suit and a long tail, and senther to eat fruit in the Spice Islands, where cloves and nutmegsgrow. 

And Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid settled her account with the wickedhoodies. For, as they flew away, what should they find but a nastydead dog?--on which they all set to work, peeking and gobbling andcawing and quarrelling to their hearts' content. But the momentafterwards, they all threw up their bills into the air, and gaveone screech; and then turned head over heels backward, and felldown dead, one hundred and twenty-three of them at once. For why?The fairy had told the gamekeeper in a dream, to fill the dead dogfull of strychnine; and so he did. 

And after a while the birds began to gather at Allfowlsness, inthousands and tens of thousands, blackening all the air; swans andbrant geese, harlequins and eiders, harolds and garganeys, smewsand goosanders, divers and loons, grebes and dovekies, auks andrazor-bills, gannets and petrels, skuas and terns, with gullsbeyond all naming or numbering; and they paddled and washed andsplashed and combed and brushed themselves on the sand, till theshore was white with feathers; and they quacked and clucked andgabbled and chattered and screamed and whooped as they talked overmatters with their friends, and settled where they were to go andbreed that summer, till you might have heard them ten miles off;and lucky it was for them that there was no one to hear them butthe old keeper, who lived all alone upon the Ness, in a turf hutthatched with heather and fringed round with great stones slungacross the roof by bent-ropes, lest the winter gales should blowthe hut right away. But he never minded the birds nor hurt them, because they were not in season; indeed, he minded but two thingsin the whole world, and those were, his Bible and his grouse; forhe was as good an old Scotchman as ever knit stockings on awinter's night: only, when all the birds were going, he toddledout, and took off his cap to them, and wished them a merry journeyand a safe return; and then gathered up all the feathers which theyhad left, and cleaned them to sell down south, and make feather-beds for stuffy people to lie on. 

Then the petrels asked this bird and that whether they would takeTom to Shiny Wall: but one set was going to Sutherland, and one tothe Shetlands, and one to Norway, and one to Spitzbergen, and oneto Iceland, and one to Greenland: but none would go to Shiny Wall. So the good-natured petrels said that they would show him part ofthe way themselves, but they were only going as far as Jan Mayen'sLand; and after that he must shift for himself. 

And then all the birds rose up, and streamed away in long blacklines, north, and north-east, and north-west, across the brightblue summer sky; and their cry was like ten thousand packs ofhounds, and ten thousand peals of bells. Only the puffins stayedbehind, and killed the young rabbits, and laid their eggs in therabbit-burrows; which was rough practice, certainly; but a man mustsee to his own family. 

And, as Tom and the petrels went north-eastward, it began to blowright hard; for the old gentleman in the gray great-coat, who looksafter the big copper boiler, in the gulf of Mexico, had gotbehindhand with his work; so Mother Carey had sent an electricmessage to him for more steam; and now the steam was coming, asmuch in an hour as ought to have come in a week, puffing androaring and swishing and swirling, till you could not see where thesky ended and the sea began. But Tom and the petrels never cared, for the gale was right abaft, and away they went over the crests ofthe billows, as merry as so many flying-fish. 

And at last they saw an ugly sight--the black side of a great ship, waterlogged in the trough of the sea. Her funnel and her mastswere overboard, and swayed and surged under her lee; her decks wereswept as clean as a barn floor, and there was no living soul onboard. 

The petrels flew up to her, and wailed round her; for they werevery sorry indeed, and also they expected to find some salt pork;and Tom scrambled on board of her and looked round, frightened andsad. 

And there, in a little cot, lashed tight under the bulwark, lay ababy fast asleep; the very same baby, Tom saw at once, which he hadseen in the singing lady's arms. 

He went up to it, and wanted to wake it; but behold, from under thecot out jumped a little black and tan terrier dog, and beganbarking and snapping at Tom, and would not let him touch the cot. 

Tom knew the dog's teeth could not hurt him: but at least it couldshove him away, and did; and he and the dog fought and struggled, for he wanted to help the baby, and did not want to throw the poordog overboard: but as they were struggling there came a tall greensea, and walked in over the weather side of the ship, and sweptthem all into the waves. 

"Oh, the baby, the baby!" screamed Tom: but the next moment he didnot scream at all; for he saw the cot settling down through thegreen water, with the baby, smiling in it, fast asleep; and he sawthe fairies come up from below, and carry baby and cradle gentlydown in their soft arms; and then he knew it was all right, andthat there would be a new water-baby in St. Brandan's Isle. 

And the poor little dog?

Why, after he had kicked and coughed a little, he sneezed so hard, that he sneezed himself clean out of his skin, and turned into awater-dog, and jumped and danced round Tom, and ran over the crestsof the waves, and snapped at the jelly-fish and the mackerel, andfollowed Tom the whole way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere. 

Then they went on again, till they began to see the peak of JanMayen's Land, standing-up like a white sugar-loaf, two miles abovethe clouds. 

And there they fell in with a whole flock of molly-mocks, who werefeeding on a dead whale. 

"These are the fellows to show you the way, " said Mother Carey'schickens; "we cannot help you farther north. We don't like to getamong the ice pack, for fear it should nip our toes: but themollys dare fly anywhere. "

So the petrels called to the mollys: but they were so busy andgreedy, gobbling and peeking and spluttering and fighting over theblubber, that they did not take the least notice. 

"Come, come, " said the petrels, "you lazy greedy lubbers, thisyoung gentleman is going to Mother Carey, and if you don't attendon him, you won't earn your discharge from her, you know. "

"Greedy we are, " says a great fat old molly, "but lazy we ain't;and, as for lubbers, we're no more lubbers than you. Let's have alook at the lad. "

And he flapped right into Tom's face, and stared at him in the mostimpudent way (for the mollys are audacious fellows, as all whalersknow), and then asked him where he hailed from, and what land hesighted last. 

And, when Tom told him, he seemed pleased, and said he was a goodplucked one to have got so far. 

"Come along, lads, " he said to the rest, "and give this little chapa cast over the pack, for Mother Carey's sake. We've eaten blubberenough for to-day, and we'll e'en work out a bit of our time byhelping the lad. "

So the mollys took Tom up on their backs, and flew off with him, laughing and joking--and oh, how they did smell of train oil!

"Who are you, you jolly birds?" asked Tom. 

"We are the spirits of the old Greenland skippers (as every sailorknows), who hunted here, right whales and horse-whales, fullhundreds of years agone. But, because we were saucy and greedy, wewere all turned into mollys, to eat whale's blubber all our days. But lubbers we are none, and could sail a ship now against any manin the North seas, though we don't hold with this new-fangledsteam. And it's a shame of those black imps of petrels to call usso; but because they're her grace's pets, they think they may sayanything they like. "

"And who are you?" asked Tom of him, for he saw that he was theking of all the birds. 

"My name is Hendrick Hudson, and a right good skipper was I; and myname will last to the world's end, in spite of all the wrong I did. For I discovered Hudson River, and I named Hudson's Bay; and manyhave come in my wake that dared not have shown me the way. But Iwas a hard man in my time, that's truth, and stole the poor Indiansoff the coast of Maine, and sold them for slaves down in Virginia;and at last I was so cruel to my sailors, here in these very seas, that they set me adrift in an open boat, and I never was heard ofmore. So now I'm the king of all mollys, till I've worked out mytime. "

And now they came to the edge of the pack, and beyond it they couldsee Shiny Wall looming, through mist, and snow, and storm. But thepack rolled horribly upon the swell, and the ice giants fought androared, and leapt upon each other's backs, and ground each other topowder, so that Tom was afraid to venture among them, lest heshould be ground to powder too. And he was the more afraid, whenhe saw lying among the ice pack the wrecks of many a gallant ship;some with masts and yards all standing, some with the seamen frozenfast on board. Alas, alas, for them! They were all true Englishhearts; and they came to their end like good knights-errant, insearching for the white gate that never was opened yet. 

But the good mollys took Tom and his dog up, and flew with themsafe over the pack and the roaring ice giants, and set them down atthe foot of Shiny Wall. 

"And where is the gate?" asked Tom. 

"There is no gate, " said the mollys. 

"No gate?" cried Tom, aghast. 

"None; never a crack of one, and that's the whole of the secret, asbetter fellows, lad, than you have found to their cost; and ifthere had been, they'd have killed by now every right whale thatswims the sea. "

"What am I to do, then?"

"Dive under the floe, to be sure, if you have pluck. "

"I've not come so far to turn now, " said Tom; "so here goes for aheader. "

"A lucky voyage to you, lad, " said the mollys; "we knew you wereone of the right sort. So good-bye. "

"Why don't you come too?" asked Tom. 

But the mollys only wailed sadly, "We can't go yet, we can't goyet, " and flew away over the pack. 

So Tom dived under the great white gate which never was opened yet, and went on in black darkness, at the bottom of the sea, for sevendays and seven nights. And yet he was not a bit frightened. Whyshould he be? He was a brave English lad, whose business is to goout and see all the world. 

And at last he saw the light, and clear clear water overhead; andup he came a thousand fathoms, among clouds of sea-moths, whichfluttered round his head. There were moths with pink heads andwings and opal bodies, that flapped about slowly; moths with brownwings that flapped about quickly; yellow shrimps that hopped andskipped most quickly of all; and jellies of all the colours in theworld, that neither hopped nor skipped, but only dawdled andyawned, and would not get out of his way. The dog snapped at themtill his jaws were tired; but Tom hardly minded them at all, he wasso eager to get to the top of the water, and see the pool where thegood whales go. 

And a very large pool it was, miles and miles across, though theair was so clear that the ice cliffs on the opposite side looked asif they were close at hand. All round it the ice cliffs rose, inwalls and spires and battlements, and caves and bridges, andstories and galleries, in which the ice-fairies live, and driveaway the storms and clouds, that Mother Carey's pool may lie calmfrom year's end to year's end. And the sun acted policeman, andwalked round outside every day, peeping just over the top of theice wall, to see that all went right; and now and then he playedconjuring tricks, or had an exhibition of fireworks, to amuse theice-fairies. For he would make himself into four or five suns atonce, or paint the sky with rings and crosses and crescents ofwhite fire, and stick himself in the middle of them, and wink atthe fairies; and I daresay they were very much amused; foranything's fun in the country. 

And there the good whales lay, the happy sleepy beasts, upon thestill oily sea. They were all right whales, you must know, andfinners, and razor-backs, and bottle-noses, and spotted sea-unicorns with long ivory horns. But the sperm whales are suchraging, ramping, roaring, rumbustious fellows, that, if MotherCarey let them in, there would be no more peace in Peacepool. Soshe packs them away in a great pond by themselves at the SouthPole, two hundred and sixty-three miles south-south-east of MountErebus, the great volcano in the ice; and there they butt eachother with their ugly noses, day and night from year's end toyear's end. 

But here there were only good quiet beasts, lying about like theblack hulls of sloops, and blowing every now and then jets of whitesteam, or sculling round with their huge mouths open, for the sea-moths to swim down their throats. There were no threshers there tothresh their poor old backs, or sword-fish to stab their stomachs, or saw-fish to rip them up, or ice-sharks to bite lumps out oftheir sides, or whalers to harpoon and lance them. They were quitesafe and happy there; and all they had to do was to wait quietly inPeacepool, till Mother Carey sent for them to make them out of oldbeasts into new. 

Tom swam up to the nearest whale, and asked the way to MotherCarey. 

"There she sits in the middle, " said the whale. 

Tom looked; but he could see nothing in the middle of the pool, butone peaked iceberg: and he said so. 

"That's Mother Carey, " said the whale, "as you will find when youget to her. There she sits making old beasts into new all the yearround. "

"How does she do that?"

"That's her concern, not mine, " said the old whale; and yawned sowide (for he was very large) that there swam into his mouth 943sea-moths, 13, 846 jelly-fish no bigger than pins' heads, a stringof salpae nine yards long, and forty-three little ice-crabs, whogave each other a parting pinch all round, tucked their legs undertheir stomachs, and determined to die decently, like Julius Caesar. 

"I suppose, " said Tom, "she cuts up a great whale like you into awhole shoal of porpoises?"

At which the old whale laughed so violently that he coughed up allthe creatures; who swam away again very thankful at having escapedout of that terrible whalebone net of his, from which bourne notraveller returns; and Tom went on to the iceberg, wondering. 

And, when he came near it, it took the form of the grandest oldlady he had ever seen--a white marble lady, sitting on a whitemarble throne. And from the foot of the throne there swum away, out and out into the sea, millions of new-born creatures, of moreshapes and colours than man ever dreamed. And they were MotherCarey's children, whom she makes out of the sea-water all day long. 

He expected, of course--like some grown people who ought to knowbetter--to find her snipping, piecing, fitting, stitching, cobbling, basting, filing, planing, hammering, turning, polishing, moulding, measuring, chiselling, clipping, and so forth, as men dowhen they go to work to make anything. 

But, instead of that, she sat quite still with her chin upon herhand, looking down into the sea with two great grand blue eyes, asblue as the sea itself. Her hair was as white as the snow--for shewas very very old--in fact, as old as anything which you are likelyto come across, except the difference between right and wrong. 

And, when she saw Tom, she looked at him very kindly. 

"What do you want, my little man? It is long since I have seen awater-baby here. "

Tom told her his errand, and asked the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere. 

"You ought to know yourself, for you have been there already. "

"Have I, ma'am? I'm sure I forget all about it. "

"Then look at me. "

And, as Tom looked into her great blue eyes, he recollected the wayperfectly. 

Now, was not that strange?

"Thank you, ma'am, " said Tom. "Then I won't trouble your ladyshipany more; I hear you are very busy. "

"I am never more busy than I am now, " she said, without stirring afinger. 

"I heard, ma'am, that you were always making new beasts out ofold. "

"So people fancy. But I am not going to trouble myself to makethings, my little dear. I sit here and make them make themselves. "

"You are a clever fairy, indeed, " thought Tom. And he was quiteright. 

That is a grand trick of good old Mother Carey's, and a grandanswer, which she has had occasion to make several times toimpertinent people. 

There was once, for instance, a fairy who was so clever that shefound out how to make butterflies. I don't mean sham ones; no:but real live ones, which would fly, and eat, and lay eggs, and doeverything that they ought; and she was so proud of her skill thatshe went flying straight off to the North Pole, to boast to MotherCarey how she could make butterflies. 

But Mother Carey laughed. 

"Know, silly child, " she said, "that any one can make things, ifthey will take time and trouble enough: but it is not every onewho, like me, can make things make themselves. "

But people do not yet believe that Mother Carey is as clever as allthat comes to; and they will not till they, too, go the journey tothe Other-end-of-Nowhere. 

"And now, my pretty little man, " said Mother Carey, "you are sureyou know the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere?"

Tom thought; and behold, he had forgotten it utterly. 

"That is because you took your eyes off me. "

Tom looked at her again, and recollected; and then looked away, andforgot in an instant. 

"But what am I to do, ma'am? For I can't keep looking at you whenI am somewhere else. "

"You must do without me, as most people have to do, for ninehundred and ninety-nine thousandths of their lives; and look at thedog instead; for he knows the way well enough, and will not forgetit. Besides, you may meet some very queer-tempered people there, who will not let you pass without this passport of mine, which youmust hang round your neck and take care of; and, of course, as thedog will always go behind you, you must go the whole way backward. "

"Backward!" cried Tom. "Then I shall not be able to see my way. "

"On the contrary, if you look forward, you will not see a stepbefore you, and be certain to go wrong; but, if you look behindyou, and watch carefully whatever you have passed, and especiallykeep your eye on the dog, who goes by instinct, and therefore can'tgo wrong, then you will know what is coming next, as plainly as ifyou saw it in a looking-glass. "

Tom was very much astonished: but he obeyed her, for he had learntalways to believe what the fairies told him. 

"So it is, my dear child, " said Mother Carey; "and I will tell youa story, which will show you that I am perfectly right, as it is mycustom to be. 

"Once on a time, there were two brothers. One was calledPrometheus, because he always looked before him, and boasted thathe was wise beforehand. The other was called Epimetheus, becausehe always looked behind him, and did not boast at all; but saidhumbly, like the Irishman, that he had sooner prophesy after theevent. 

"Well, Prometheus was a very clever fellow, of course, and inventedall sorts of wonderful things. But, unfortunately, when they wereset to work, to work was just what they would not do: whereforevery little has come of them, and very little is left of them; andnow nobody knows what they were, save a few archaeological oldgentlemen who scratch in queer corners, and find little there savePtinum Furem, Blaptem Mortisagam, Acarum Horridum, and TineamLaciniarum. 

"But Epimetheus was a very slow fellow, certainly, and went amongmen for a clod, and a muff, and a milksop, and a slowcoach, and abloke, and a boodle, and so forth. And very little he did, formany years: but what he did, he never had to do over again. 

"And what happened at last? There came to the two brothers themost beautiful creature that ever was seen, Pandora by name; whichmeans, All the gifts of the Gods. But because she had a strangebox in her hand, this fanciful, forecasting, suspicious, prudential, theoretical, deductive, prophesying Prometheus, who wasalways settling what was going to happen, would have nothing to dowith pretty Pandora and her box. 

"But Epimetheus took her and it, as he took everything that came;and married her for better for worse, as every man ought, wheneverhe has even the chance of a good wife. And they opened the boxbetween them, of course, to see what was inside: for, else, ofwhat possible use could it have been to them?

"And out flew all the ills which flesh is heir to; all the childrenof the four great bogies, Self-will, Ignorance, Fear, and Dirt--forinstance:

Measles, Famines, Monks, Quacks, Scarlatina, Unpaid bills, Idols, Tight stays, Hooping-coughs, Potatoes, Popes, Bad Wine, Wars, Despots, Peacemongers, Demagogues, And, worst of all, Naughty Boys and Girls. 

But one thing remained at the bottom of the box, and that was, Hope. 

"So Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, as most men do in thisworld: but he got the three best things in the world into thebargain--a good wife, and experience, and hope: while Prometheushad just as much trouble, and a great deal more (as you will hear), of his own making; with nothing beside, save fancies spun out ofhis own brain, as a spider spins her web out of her stomach. 

"And Prometheus kept on looking before him so far ahead, that as hewas running about with a box of lucifers (which were the onlyuseful things he ever invented, and do as much harm as good), hetrod on his own nose, and tumbled down (as most deductivephilosophers do), whereby he set the Thames on fire; and they havehardly put it out again yet. So he had to be chained to the top ofa mountain, with a vulture by him to give him a peck whenever hestirred, lest he should turn the whole world upside down with hisprophecies and his theories. 

"But stupid old Epimetheus went working and grubbing on, with thehelp of his wife Pandora, always looking behind him to see what hadhappened, till he really learnt to know now and then what wouldhappen next; and understood so well which side his bread wasbuttered, and which way the cat jumped, that he began to makethings which would work, and go on working, too; to till and drainthe ground, and to make looms, and ships, and railroads, and steamploughs, and electric telegraphs, and all the things which you seein the Great Exhibition; and to foretell famine, and bad weather, and the price of stocks and (what is hardest of all) the nextvagary of the great idol Whirligig, which some call Public Opinion;till at last he grew as rich as a Jew, and as fat as a farmer, andpeople thought twice before they meddled with him, but only oncebefore they asked him to help them; for, because he earned hismoney well, he could afford to spend it well likewise. 

"And his children are the men of science, who get good lasting workdone in the world; but the children of Prometheus are the fanatics, and the theorists, and the bigots, and the bores, and the noisywindy people, who go telling silly folk what will happen, insteadof looking to see what has happened already. "

Now, was not Mother Carey's a wonderful story? And, I am happy tosay, Tom believed it every word. 

For so it happened to Tom likewise. He was very sorely tried; forthough, by keeping the dog to heels (or rather to toes, for he hadto walk backward), he could see pretty well which way the dog washunting, yet it was much slower work to go backwards than to goforwards. But, what was more trying still, no sooner had he gotout of Peacepool, than there came running to him all the conjurors, fortune-tellers, astrologers, prophesiers, projectors, prestigiators, as many as were in those parts (and there are toomany of them everywhere), Old Mother Shipton on her broomstick, with Merlin, Thomas the Rhymer, Gerbertus, Rabanus Maurus, Nostradamus, Zadkiel, Raphael, Moore, Old Nixon, and a good many inblack coats and white ties who might have known better, consideringin what century they were born, all bawling and screaming at him, "Look a-head, only look a-head; and we will show you what man neversaw before, and right away to the end of the world!"

But I am proud to say that, though Tom had not been to Cambridge--for, if he had, he would have certainly been senior wrangler--hewas such a little dogged, hard, gnarly, foursquare brick of anEnglish boy, that he never turned his head round once all the wayfrom Peacepool to the Other-end-of-Nowhere: but kept his eye onthe dog, and let him pick out the scent, hot or cold, straight orcrooked, wet or dry, up hill or down dale; by which means he nevermade a single mistake, and saw all the wonderful and hitherto by-no-mortal-man-imagined things, which it is my duty to relate to youin the next chapter. 

CHAPTER VIII AND LAST

"Come to me, O ye children!For I hear you at your play;And the questions that perplexed meHave vanished quite away. 

"Ye open the Eastern windows, That look towards the sun, Where thoughts are singing swallows, And the brooks of morning run. 

* * * * *

"For what are all our contrivingsAnd the wisdom of our books, When compared with your caresses, And the gladness of your looks?

"Ye are better than all the balladsThat ever were sung or said;For ye are living poems, And all the rest are dead. "

LONGFELLOW. 

Here begins the never-to-be-too-much-studied account of the nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth part of the wonderful things which Tom sawon his journey to the Other-end-of-Nowhere; which all good littlechildren are requested to read; that, if ever they get to theOther-end-of-Nowhere, as they may very probably do, they may notburst out laughing, or try to run away, or do any other sillyvulgar thing which may offend Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. 

Now, as soon as Tom had left Peacepool, he came to the white lap ofthe great sea-mother, ten thousand fathoms deep; where she makesworld-pap all day long, for the steam-giants to knead, and thefire-giants to bake, till it has risen and hardened into mountain-loaves and island-cakes. 

And there Tom was very near being kneaded up in the world-pap, andturned into a fossil water-baby; which would have astonished theGeological Society of New Zealand some hundreds of thousands ofyears hence. 

For, as he walked along in the silence of the sea-twilight, on thesoft white ocean floor, he was aware of a hissing, and a roaring, and a thumping, and a pumping, as of all the steam-engines in theworld at once. And, when he came near, the water grew boiling-hot;not that that hurt him in the least: but it also grew as foul asgruel; and every moment he stumbled over dead shells, and fish, andsharks, and seals, and whales, which had been killed by the hotwater. 

And at last he came to the great sea-serpent himself, lying dead atthe bottom; and as he was too thick to scramble over, Tom had towalk round him three-quarters of a mile and more, which put him outof his path sadly; and, when he had got round, he came to the placecalled Stop. And there he stopped, and just in time. 

For he was on the edge of a vast hole in the bottom of the sea, upwhich was rushing and roaring clear steam enough to work all theengines in the world at once; so clear, indeed, that it was quitelight at moments; and Tom could see almost up to the top of thewater above, and down below into the pit for nobody knows how far. 

But, as soon as he bent his head over the edge, he got such a rapon the nose from pebbles, that he jumped back again; for the steam, as it rushed up, rasped away the sides of the hole, and hurled itup into the sea in a shower of mud and gravel and ashes; and thenit spread all around, and sank again, and covered in the dead fishso fast, that before Tom had stood there five minutes he was buriedin silt up to his ankles, and began to be afraid that he shouldhave been buried alive. 

And perhaps he would have been, but that while he was thinking, thewhole piece of ground on which he stood was torn off and blownupwards, and away flew Tom a mile up through the sea, wonderingwhat was coming next. 

At last he stopped--thump! and found himself tight in the legs ofthe most wonderful bogy which he had ever seen. 

It had I don't know how many wings, as big as the sails of awindmill, and spread out in a ring like them; and with them ithovered over the steam which rushed up, as a ball hovers over thetop of a fountain. And for every wing above it had a leg below, with a claw like a comb at the tip, and a nostril at the root; andin the middle it had no stomach and one eye; and as for its mouth, that was all on one side, as the madreporiform tubercle in a star-fish is. Well, it was a very strange beast; but no stranger thansome dozens which you may see. 

"What do you want here, " it cried quite peevishly, "getting in myway?" and it tried to drop Tom: but he held on tight to its claws, thinking himself safer where he was. 

So Tom told him who he was, and what his errand was. And the thingwinked its one eye, and sneered:

"I am too old to be taken in in that way. You are come after gold--I know you are. "

"Gold! What is gold?" And really Tom did not know; but thesuspicious old bogy would not believe him. 

But after a while Tom began to understand a little. For, as thevapours came up out of the hole, the bogy smelt them with hisnostrils, and combed them and sorted them with his combs; and then, when they steamed up through them against his wings, they werechanged into showers and streams of metal. From one wing fellgold-dust, and from another silver, and from another copper, andfrom another tin, and from another lead, and so on, and sank intothe soft mud, into veins and cracks, and hardened there. Wherebyit comes to pass that the rocks are full of metal. 

But, all of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam below, and thehole was left empty in an instant: and then down rushed the waterinto the hole, in such a whirlpool that the bogy spun round andround as fast as a teetotum. But that was all in his day's work, like a fair fall with the hounds; so all he did was to say to Tom -

"Now is your time, youngster, to get down, if you are in earnest, which I don't believe. "

"You'll soon see, " said Tom; and away he went, as bold as BaronMunchausen, and shot down the rushing cataract like a salmon atBallisodare. 

And, when he got to the bottom, he swam till he was washed on shoresafe upon the Other-end-of-Nowhere; and he found it, to hissurprise, as most other people do, much more like This-End-of-Somewhere than he had been in the habit of expecting

And first he went through Waste-paper-land, where all the stupidbooks lie in heaps, up hill and down dale, like leaves in a winterwood; and there he saw people digging and grubbing among them, tomake worse books out of bad ones, and thrashing chaff to save thedust of it; and a very good trade they drove thereby, especiallyamong children. 

Then he went by the sea of slops, to the mountain of messes, andthe territory of tuck, where the ground was very sticky, for it wasall made of bad toffee (not Everton toffee, of course), and full ofdeep cracks and holes choked with wind-fallen fruit, and greengoose-berries, and sloes, and crabs, and whinberries, and hips andhaws, and all the nasty things which little children will eat, ifthey can get them. But the fairies hide them out of the way inthat country as fast as they can, and very hard work they have, andof very little use it is. For as fast as they hide away the oldtrash, foolish and wicked people make fresh trash full of lime andpoisonous paints, and actually go and steal receipts out of oldMadame Science's big book to invent poisons for little children, and sell them at wakes and fairs and tuck-shops. Very well. Letthem go on. Dr. Letheby and Dr. Hassall cannot catch them, thoughthey are setting traps for them all day long. But the Fairy withthe birch-rod will catch them all in time, and make them begin atone corner of their shops, and eat their way out at the other: bywhich time they will have got such stomach-aches as will cure themof poisoning little children. 

Next he saw all the little people in the world, writing all thelittle books in the world, about all the other little people in theworld; probably because they had no great people to write about:and if the names of the books were not Squeeky, nor the Pump-lighter, nor the Narrow Narrow World, nor the Hills of theChattermuch, nor the Children's Twaddeday, why then they weresomething else. And, all the rest of the little people in theworld read the books, and thought themselves each as good as thePresident; and perhaps they were right, for every one knows his ownbusiness best. But Tom thought he would sooner have a jolly goodfairy tale, about Jack the Giant-killer or Beauty and the Beast, which taught him something that he didn't know already. 

And next he came to the centre of Creation (the hub, they call itthere), which lies in latitude 42. 21 degrees south, and longitude108. 56 degrees east. 

And there he found all the wise people instructing mankind in thescience of spirit-rapping, while their house was burning over theirheads: and when Tom told them of the fire, they held anindignation meeting forthwith, and unanimously determined to hangTom's dog for coming into their country with gunpowder in hismouth. Tom couldn't help saying that though they did fancy theyhad carried all the wit away with them out of Lincolnshire twohundred years ago, yet if they had had one such Lincolnshirenobleman among them as good old Lord Yarborough, he would havecalled for the fire-engines before he hanged other people's dogs. But it was of no use, and the dog was hanged: and Tom couldn'teven have his carcase; for they had abolished the have-his-carcaseact in that country, for fear lest when rogues fell out, honest menshould come by their own. And so they would have succeededperfectly, as they always do, only that (as they also always do)they failed in one little particular, viz. That the dog would notdie, being a water-dog, but bit their fingers so abominably thatthey were forced to let him go, and Tom likewise, as Britishsubjects. Whereon they recommenced rapping for the spirits oftheir fathers; and very much astonished the poor old spirits werewhen they came, and saw how, according to the laws of Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, their descendants had weakened their constitutionby hard living. 

Then came Tom to the Island of Polupragmosyne (which some callRogues' Harbour; but they are wrong; for that is in the middle ofBramshill Bushes, and the county police have cleared it out longago). There every one knows his neighbour's business better thanhis own; and a very noisy place it is, as might be expected, considering that all the inhabitants are ex officio on the wrongside of the house in the "Parliament of Man, and the Federation ofthe World;" and are always making wry mouths, and crying that thefairies' grapes were sour. 

There Tom saw ploughs drawing horses, nails driving hammers, birds'nests taking boys, books making authors, bulls keeping china-shops, monkeys shaving cats, dead dogs drilling live lions, blindbrigadiers shelfed as principals of colleges, play-actors not inthe least shelfed as popular preachers; and, in short, every oneset to do something which he had not learnt, because in what he hadlearnt, or pretended to learn, he had failed. 

There stands the Pantheon of the Great Unsuccessful, from thebuilders of the Tower of Babel to those of the Trafalgar Fountains;in which politicians lecture on the constitutions which ought tohave marched, conspirators on the revolutions which ought to havesucceeded, economists on the schemes which ought to have made everyone's fortune, and projectors on the discoveries which ought tohave set the Thames on fire. There cobblers lecture on orthopedy(whatsoever that may be) because they cannot sell their shoes; andpoets on AEsthetics (whatsoever that may be) because they cannotsell their poetry. There philosophers demonstrate that Englandwould be the freest and richest country in the world, if she wouldonly turn Papist again; penny-a-liners abuse the Times, becausethey have not wit enough to get on its staff; and young ladies walkabout with lockets of Charles the First's hair (or of somebodyelse's, when the Jews' genuine stock is used up), inscribed withthe neat and appropriate legend--which indeed is popular throughall that land, and which, I hope, you will learn to translate indue time and to perpend likewise:-

"Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa puellis. "

When he got into the middle of the town, they all set on him atonce, to show him his way; or rather, to show him that he did notknow his way; for as for asking him what way he wanted to go, noone ever thought of that. 

But one pulled him hither, and another poked him thither, and athird cried -

"You mustn't go west, I tell you; it is destruction to go west. "

"But I am not going west, as you may see, " said Tom. 

And another, "The east lies here, my dear; I assure you this is theeast. "

"But I don't want to go east, " said Tom. 

"Well, then, at all events, whichever way you are going, you aregoing wrong, " cried they all with one voice--which was the onlything which they ever agreed about; and all pointed at once to allthe thirty-and-two points of the compass, till Tom thought all thesign-posts in England had got together, and fallen fighting. 

And whether he would have ever escaped out of the town, it is hardto say, if the dog had not taken it into his head that they weregoing to pull his master in pieces, and tackled them so sharplyabout the gastrocnemius muscle, that he gave them some business oftheir own to think of at last; and while they were rubbing theirbitten calves, Tom and the dog got safe away. 

On the borders of that island he found Gotham, where the wise menlive; the same who dragged the pond because the moon had falleninto it, and planted a hedge round the cuckoo, to keep spring allthe year. And he found them bricking up the town gate, because itwas so wide that little folks could not get through. And, when heasked why, they told him they were expanding their liturgy. So hewent on; for it was no business of his: only he could not helpsaying that in his country, if the kitten could not get in at thesame hole as the cat, she might stay outside and mew. 

But he saw the end of such fellows, when he came to the island ofthe Golden Asses, where nothing but thistles grow. For there theywere all turned into mokes with ears a yard long, for meddling withmatters which they do not understand, as Lucius did in the story. And like him, mokes they must remain, till, by the laws ofdevelopment, the thistles develop into roses. Till then, they mustcomfort themselves with the thought, that the longer their earsare, the thicker their hides; and so a good beating don't hurtthem. 

Then came Tom to the great land of Hearsay, in which are no lessthan thirty and odd kings, beside half a dozen Republics, andperhaps more by next mail. 

And there he fell in with a deep, dark, deadly, and destructivewar, waged by the princes and potentates of those parts, bothspiritual and temporal, against what do you think? One thing I amsure of. That unless I told you, you would never know; nor howthey waged that war either; for all their strategy and art militaryconsisted in the safe and easy process of stopping their ears andscreaming, "Oh, don't tell us!" and then running away. 

So when Tom came into that land, he found them all, high and low, man, woman, and child, running for their lives day and nightcontinually, and entreating not to be told they didn't know what:only the land being an island, and they having a dislike to thewater (being a musty lot for the most part), they ran round andround the shore for ever, which (as the island was exactly of thesame circumference as the planet on which we have the honour ofliving) was hard work, especially to those who had business to lookafter. But before them, as bandmaster and fugleman, ran agentleman shearing a pig; the melodious strains of which animal ledthem for ever, if not to conquest, still to flight; and kept uptheir spirits mightily with the thought that they would at leasthave the pig's wool for their pains. 

And running after them, day and night, came such a poor, lean, seedy, hard-worked old giant, as ought to have been cockered up, and had a good dinner given him, and a good wife found him, andbeen set to play with little children; and then he would have beena very presentable old fellow after all; for he had a heart, thoughit was considerably overgrown with brains. 

He was made up principally of fish bones and parchment, puttogether with wire and Canada balsam; and smelt strongly ofspirits, though he never drank anything but water: but spirits heused somehow, there was no denying. He had a great pair ofspectacles on his nose, and a butterfly-net in one hand, and ageological hammer in the other; and was hung all over with pockets, full of collecting boxes, bottles, microscopes, telescopes, barometers, ordnance maps, scalpels, forceps, photographicapparatus, and all other tackle for finding out everything abouteverything, and a little more too. And, most strange of all, hewas running not forwards but backwards, as fast as he could. 

Away all the good folks ran from him, except Tom, who stood hisground and dodged between his legs; and the giant, when he hadpassed him, looked down, and cried, as if he was quite pleased andcomforted, -

"What? who are you? And you actually don't run away, like all therest?" But he had to take his spectacles off, Tom remarked, inorder to see him plainly. 

Tom told him who he was; and the giant pulled out a bottle and acork instantly, to collect him with. 

But Tom was too sharp for that, and dodged between his legs and infront of him; and then the giant could not see him at all. 

"No, no, no!" said Tom, "I've not been round the world, and throughthe world, and up to Mother Carey's haven, beside being caught in anet and called a Holothurian and a Cephalopod, to be bottled up byany old giant like you. "

And when the giant understood what a great traveller Tom had been, he made a truce with him at once, and would have kept him there tothis day to pick his brains, so delighted was he at finding any oneto tell him what he did not know before. 

"Ah, you lucky little dog!" said he at last, quite simply--for hewas the simplest, pleasantest, honestest, kindliest old DominieSampson of a giant that ever turned the world upside down withoutintending it--"ah, you lucky little dog! If I had only been whereyou have been, to see what you have seen!"

"Well, " said Tom, "if you want to do that, you had best put yourhead under water for a few hours, as I did, and turn into a water-baby, or some other baby, and then you might have a chance. "

"Turn into a baby, eh? If I could do that, and know what washappening to me for but one hour, I should know everything then, and be at rest. But I can't; I can't be a little child again; andI suppose if I could, it would be no use, because then I shouldthen know nothing about what was happening to me. Ah, you luckylittle dog!" said the poor old giant. 

"But why do you run after all these poor people?" said Tom, wholiked the giant very much. 

"My dear, it's they that have been running after me, father andson, for hundreds and hundreds of years, throwing stones at me tillthey have knocked off my spectacles fifty times, and calling me amalignant and a turbaned Turk, who beat a Venetian and traduced theState--goodness only knows what they mean, for I never read poetry--and hunting me round and round--though catch me they can't, forevery time I go over the same ground, I go the faster, and grow thebigger. While all I want is to be friends with them, and to tellthem something to their advantage, like Mr. Joseph Ady: onlysomehow they are so strangely afraid of hearing it. But, I supposeI am not a man of the world, and have no tact. "

"But why don't you turn round and tell them so?"

"Because I can't. You see, I am one of the sons of Epimetheus, andmust go backwards, if I am to go at all. "

"But why don't you stop, and let them come up to you?"

"Why, my dear, only think. If I did, all the butterflies andcockyolybirds would fly past me, and then I should catch no morenew species, and should grow rusty and mouldy, and die. And Idon't intend to do that, my dear; for I have a destiny before me, they say: though what it is I don't know, and don't care. "

"Don't care?" said Tom. 

"No. Do the duty which lies nearest you, and catch the firstbeetle you come across, is my motto; and I have thriven by it forsome hundred years. Now I must go on. Dear me, while I have beentalking to you, at least nine new species have escaped me. "

And on went the giant, behind before, like a bull in a china-shop, till he ran into the steeple of the great idol temple (for they areall idolaters in those parts, of course, else they would never beafraid of giants), and knocked the upper half clean off, hurtinghimself horribly about the small of the back. 

But little he cared; for as soon as the ruins of the steeple werewell between his legs, he poked and peered among the fallingstones, and shifted his spectacles, and pulled out his pocket-magnifier, and cried -

"An entirely new Oniscus, and three obscure Podurellae! Besides amoth which M. Le Roi des Papillons (though he, like all Frenchmen, is given to hasty inductions) says is confined to the limits of theGlacial Drift. This is most important!"

And down he sat on the nave of the temple (not being a man of theworld) to examine his Podurellae. Whereon (as was to be expected)the roof caved in bodily, smashing the idols, and sending thepriests flying out of doors and windows, like rabbits out of aburrow when a ferret goes in. 

But he never heeded; for out of the dust flew a bat, and the gianthad him in a moment. 

"Dear me! This is even more important! Here is a cognate speciesto that which Macgilliwaukie Brown insists is confined to theBuddhist temples of Little Thibet; and now when I look at it, itmay be only a variety produced by difference of climate!"

And having bagged his bat, up he got, and on he went; while all thepeople ran, being in none the better humour for having their templesmashed for the sake of three obscure species of Podurella, and aBuddhist bat. 

"Well, " thought Tom, "this is a very pretty quarrel, with a gooddeal to be said on both sides. But it is no business of mine. "

And no more it was, because he was a water-baby, and had theoriginal sow by the right ear; which you will never have, unlessyou be a baby, whether of the water, the land, or the air, mattersnot, provided you can only keep on continually being a baby. 

So the giant ran round after the people, and the people ran roundafter the giant, and they are running, unto this day for aught Iknow, or do not know; and will run till either he, or they, orboth, turn into little children. And then, as Shakespeare says(and therefore it must be true) -

"Jack shall have GillNought shall go illThe man shall have his mare again, and all go well. "

Then Tom came to a very famous island, which was called, in thedays of the great traveller Captain Gulliver, the Isle of Laputa. But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has named it over again the Isle ofTomtoddies, all heads and no bodies. 

And when Tom came near it, he heard such a grumbling and gruntingand growling and wailing and weeping and whining that he thoughtpeople must be ringing little pigs, or cropping puppies' ears, ordrowning kittens: but when he came nearer still, he began to hearwords among the noise; which was the Tomtoddies' song which theysing morning and evening, and all night too, to their great idolExamination -

"I can't learn my lesson: the examiner's coming!"

And that was the only song which they knew. 

And when Tom got on shore the first thing he saw was a greatpillar, on one side of which was inscribed, "Playthings not allowedhere;" at which he was so shocked that he would not stay to seewhat was written on the other side. Then he looked round for thepeople of the island: but instead of men, women, and children, hefound nothing but turnips and radishes, beet and mangold wurzel, without a single green leaf among them, and half of them burst anddecayed, with toad-stools growing out of them. Those which wereleft began crying to Tom, in half a dozen different languages atonce, and all of them badly spoken, "I can't learn my lesson; docome and help me!" And one cried, "Can you show me how to extractthis square root?"

And another, "Can you tell me the distance between [alpha] Lyraeand [beta] Camelopardis?"

And another, "What is the latitude and longitude of Snooksville, inNoman's County, Oregon, U. S. ?"

And another, "What was the name of Mutius Scaevola's thirteenthcousin's grandmother's maid's cat?"

And another, "How long would it take a school-inspector of averageactivity to tumble head over heels from London to York?"

And another, "Can you tell me the name of a place that nobody everheard of, where nothing ever happened, in a country which has notbeen discovered yet?"

And another, "Can you show me how to correct this hopelesslycorrupt passage of Graidiocolosyrtus Tabenniticus, on the cause whycrocodiles have no tongues?"

And so on, and so on, and so on, till one would have thought theywere all trying for tide-waiters' places, or cornetcies in theheavy dragoons. 

"And what good on earth will it do you if I did tell you?" quothTom. 

Well, they didn't know that: all they knew was the examiner wascoming. 

Then Tom stumbled on the hugest and softest nimblecomequick turnipyou ever saw filling a hole in a crop of swedes, and it cried tohim, "Can you tell me anything at all about anything you like?"

"About what?" says Tom. 

"About anything you like; for as fast as I learn things I forgetthem again. So my mamma says that my intellect is not adapted formethodic science, and says that I must go in for generalinformation. "

Tom told him that he did not know general information, nor anyofficers in the army; only he had a friend once that went for adrummer: but he could tell him a great many strange things whichhe had seen in his travels. 

So he told him prettily enough, while the poor turnip listened verycarefully; and the more he listened, the more he forgot, and themore water ran out of him. 

Tom thought he was crying: but it was only his poor brains runningaway, from being worked so hard; and as Tom talked, the unhappyturnip streamed down all over with juice, and split and shrank tillnothing was left of him but rind and water; whereat Tom ran away ina fright, for he thought he might be taken up for killing theturnip. 

But, on the contrary, the turnip's parents were highly delighted, and considered him a saint and a martyr, and put up a longinscription over his tomb about his wonderful talents, earlydevelopment, and unparalleled precocity. Were they not a foolishcouple? But there was a still more foolish couple next to them, who were beating a wretched little radish, no bigger than my thumb, for sullenness and obstinacy and wilful stupidity, and never knewthat the reason why it couldn't learn or hardly even speak was, that there was a great worm inside it eating out all its brains. But even they are no foolisher than some hundred score of papas andmammas, who fetch the rod when they ought to fetch a new toy, andsend to the dark cupboard instead of to the doctor. 

Tom was so puzzled and frightened with all he saw, that he waslonging to ask the meaning of it; and at last he stumbled over arespectable old stick lying half covered with earth. But a verystout and worthy stick it was, for it belonged to good Roger Aschamin old time, and had carved on its head King Edward the Sixth, withthe Bible in his hand. 

"You see, " said the stick, "there were as pretty little childrenonce as you could wish to see, and might have been so still if theyhad been only left to grow up like human beings, and then handedover to me; but their foolish fathers and mothers, instead ofletting them pick flowers, and make dirt-pies, and get birds'nests, and dance round the gooseberry bush, as little childrenshould, kept them always at lessons, working, working, working, learning week-day lessons all week-days, and Sunday lessons allSunday, and weekly examinations every Saturday, and monthlyexaminations every month, and yearly examinations every year, everything seven times over, as if once was not enough, and enoughas good as a feast--till their brains grew big, and their bodiesgrew small, and they were all changed into turnips, with little butwater inside; and still their foolish parents actually pick theleaves off them as fast as they grow, lest they should haveanything green about them. "

"Ah!" said Tom, "if dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby knew of it shewould send them a lot of tops, and balls, and marbles, andninepins, and make them all as jolly as sand-boys. "

"It would be no use, " said the stick. "They can't play now, ifthey tried. Don't you see how their legs have turned to roots andgrown into the ground, by never taking any exercise, but sappingand moping always in the same place? But here comes the Examiner-of-all-Examiners. So you had better get away, I warn you, or hewill examine you and your dog into the bargain, and set him toexamine all the other dogs, and you to examine all the other water-babies. There is no escaping out of his hands, for his nose isnine thousand miles long, and can go down chimneys, and throughkeyholes, upstairs, downstairs, in my lady's chamber, examining alllittle boys, and the little boys' tutors likewise. But when he isthrashed--so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has promised me--I shall havethe thrashing of him: and if I don't lay it on with a will it's apity. "

Tom went off: but rather slowly and surlily; for he was somewhatminded to face this same Examiner-of-all-Examiners, who camestriding among the poor turnips, binding heavy burdens and grievousto be borne, and laying them on little children's shoulders, likethe Scribes and Pharisees of old, and not touching the same withone of his fingers; for he had plenty of money, and a fine house tolive in, and so forth; which was more than the poor little turnipshad. 

But when he got near, he looked so big and burly and dictatorial, and shouted so loud to Tom, to come and be examined, that Tom ranfor his life, and the dog too. And really it was time; for thepoor turnips, in their hurry and fright, crammed themselves so fastto be ready for the Examiner, that they burst and popped by dozensall round him, till the place sounded like Aldershot on a field-day, and Tom thought he should be blown into the air, dog and all. 

As he went down to the shore he passed the poor turnip's new tomb. But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid had taken away the epitaph about talentsand precocity and development, and put up one of her own insteadwhich Tom thought much more sensible:-

"Instruction sore long time I bore, And cramming was in vain;Till heaven did please my woes to easeWith water on the brain. "

So Tom jumped into the sea, and swam on his way, singing:-

"Farewell, Tomtoddies all; I thank my starsThat nought I know save those three royal r's:Reading and riting sure, with rithmetick, Will help a lad of sense through thin and thick. "

Whereby you may see that Tom was no poet: but no more was JohnBunyan, though he was as wise a man as you will meet in a month ofSundays. 

And next he came to Oldwivesfabledom, where the folks were allheathens, and worshipped a howling ape. And there he found alittle boy sitting in the middle of the road, and crying bitterly. 

"What are you crying for?" said Tom. 

"Because I am not as frightened as I could wish to be. "

"Not frightened? You are a queer little chap: but, if you want tobe frightened, here goes--Boo!"

"Ah, " said the little boy, "that is very kind of you; but I don'tfeel that it has made any impression. "

Tom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on him, fettle him overthe head with a brick, or anything else whatsoever which would givehim the slightest comfort. 

But he only thanked Tom very civilly, in fine long words which hehad heard other folk use, and which therefore, he thought were fitand proper to use himself; and cried on till his papa and mammacame, and sent off for the Powwow man immediately. And a verygood-natured gentleman and lady they were, though they wereheathens; and talked quite pleasantly to Tom about his travels, till the Powwow man arrived, with his thunderbox under his arm. 

And a well-fed, ill-favoured gentleman he was, as ever served HerMajesty at Portland. Tom was a little frightened at first; for hethought it was Grimes. But he soon saw his mistake: for Grimesalways looked a man in the face; and this fellow never did. Andwhen he spoke, it was fire and smoke; and when he sneezed, it wassquibs and crackers; and when he cried (which he did whenever itpaid him), it was boiling pitch; and some of it was sure to stick. 

"Here we are again!" cried he, like the clown in a pantomime. "Soyou can't feel frightened, my little dear--eh? I'll do that foryou. I'll make an impression on you! Yah! Boo! Whirroo!Hullabaloo!"

And he rattled, thumped, brandished his thunder-box, yelled, shouted, raved, roared, stamped, and danced corrobory like anyblack fellow; and then he touched a spring in the thunderbox, andout popped turnip-ghosts and magic-lanthorns and pasteboard bogiesand spring-heeled Jacks, and sallaballas, with such a horrid din, clatter, clank, roll, rattle, and roar, that the little boy turnedup the whites of his eyes, and fainted right away. 

And at that his poor heathen papa and mamma were as much delightedas if they had found a gold mine; and fell down upon their kneesbefore the Powwow man, and gave him a palanquin with a pole ofsolid silver and curtains of cloth of gold; and carried him aboutin it on their own backs: but as soon as they had taken him up, the pole stuck to their shoulders, and they could not set him downany more, but carried him on willynilly, as Sinbad carried the oldman of the sea: which was a pitiable sight to see; for the fatherwas a very brave officer, and wore two swords and a blue button;and the mother was as pretty a lady as ever had pinched feet like aChinese. But you see, they had chosen to do a foolish thing justonce too often; so, by the laws of Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, they hadto go on doing it whether they chose or not, till the coming of theCocqcigrues. 

Ah! don't you wish that some one would go and convert those poorheathens, and teach them not to frighten their little children intofits?

"Now, then, " said the Powwow man to Tom, "wouldn't you like to befrightened, my little dear? For I can see plainly that you are avery wicked, naughty, graceless, reprobate boy. "

"You're another, " quoth Tom, very sturdily. And when the man ranat him, and cried "Boo!" Tom ran at him in return, and cried"Boo!" likewise, right in his face, and set the little dog uponhim; and at his legs the dog went. 

At which, if you will believe it, the fellow turned tail, thunderbox and all, with a "Woof!" like an old sow on the common;and ran for his life, screaming, "Help! thieves! murder! fire! Heis going to kill me! I am a ruined man! He will murder me; andbreak, burn, and destroy my precious and invaluable thunderbox; andthen you will have no more thunder-showers in the land. Help!help! help!"

At which the papa and mamma and all the people of Oldwivesfabledomflew at Tom, shouting, "Oh, the wicked, impudent, hard-hearted, graceless boy! Beat him, kick him, shoot him, drown him, hang him, burn him!" and so forth: but luckily they had nothing to shoot, hang, or burn him with, for the fairies had hid all the killing-tackle out of the way a little while before; so they could onlypelt him with stones; and some of the stones went clean throughhim, and came out the other side. But he did not mind that a bit;for the holes closed up again as fast as they were made, because hewas a water-baby. However, he was very glad when he was safe outof the country, for the noise there made him all but deaf. 

Then he came to a very quiet place, called Leaveheavenalone. Andthere the sun was drawing water out of the sea to make steam-threads, and the wind was twisting them up to make cloud-patterns, till they had worked between them the loveliest wedding veil ofChantilly lace, and hung it up in their own Crystal Palace for anyone to buy who could afford it; while the good old sea nevergrudged, for she knew they would pay her back honestly. So the sunspan, and the wind wove, and all went well with the great steam-loom; as is likely, considering--and considering--and considering -

And at last, after innumerable adventures, each more wonderful thanthe last, he saw before him a huge building, much bigger, and--whatis most surprising--a little uglier than a certain new lunaticasylum, but not built quite of the same materials. None of it, atleast--or, indeed, for aught that I ever saw, any part of any otherbuilding whatsoever--is cased with nine-inch brick inside and out, and filled up with rubble between the walls, in order that anygentleman who has been confined during Her Majesty's pleasure maybe unconfined during his own pleasure, and take a walk in theneighbouring park to improve his spirits, after an hour's light andwholesome labour with his dinner-fork or one of the legs of hisiron bedstead. No. The walls of this building were built on anentirely different principle, which need not be described, as ithas not yet been discovered. 

Tom walked towards this great building, wondering what it was, andhaving a strange fancy that he might find Mr. Grimes inside it, till he saw running toward him, and shouting "Stop!" three or fourpeople, who, when they came nearer, were nothing else thanpolicemen's truncheons, running along without legs or arms. 

Tom was not astonished. He was long past that. Besides, he hadseen the naviculae in the water move nobody knows how, a hundredtimes, without arms, or legs, or anything to stand in their stead. Neither was he frightened for he had been doing no harm. 

So he stopped; and, when the foremost truncheon came up and askedhis business, he showed Mother Carey's pass; and the truncheonlooked at it in the oddest fashion; for he had one eye in themiddle of his upper end, so that when he looked at anything, beingquite stiff, he had to slope himself, and poke himself, till it wasa wonder why he did not tumble over; but, being quite full of thespirit of justice (as all policemen, and their truncheons, ought tobe), he was always in a position of stable equilibrium, whicheverway he put himself. 

"All right--pass on, " said he at last. And then he added: "I hadbetter go with you, young man. " And Tom had no objection, for suchcompany was both respectable and safe; so the truncheon coiled itsthong neatly round its handle, to prevent tripping itself up--forthe thong had got loose in running--and marched on by Tom's side. 

"Why have you no policeman to carry you?" asked Tom, after a while. 

"Because we are not like those clumsy-made truncheons in the land-world, which cannot go without having a whole man to carry themabout. We do our own work for ourselves; and do it very well, though I say it who should not. "

"Then why have you a thong to your handle?" asked Tom. 

"To hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are off duty. "

Tom had got his answer, and had no more to say, till they came upto the great iron door of the prison. And there the truncheonknocked twice, with its own head. 

A wicket in the door opened, and out looked a tremendous old brassblunderbuss charged up to the muzzle with slugs, who was theporter; and Tom started back a little at the sight of him. 

"What case is this?" he asked in a deep voice, out of his broadbell mouth. 

"If you please, sir, it is no case; only a young gentleman from herladyship, who wants to see Grimes, the master-sweep. "

"Grimes?" said the blunderbuss. And he pulled in his muzzle, perhaps to look over his prison-lists. 

"Grimes is up chimney No. 345, " he said from inside. "So the younggentleman had better go on to the roof. "

Tom looked up at the enormous wall, which seemed at least ninetymiles high, and wondered how he should ever get up: but, when hehinted that to the truncheon, it settled the matter in a moment. For it whisked round, and gave him such a shove behind as sent himup to the roof in no time, with his little dog under his arm. 

And there he walked along the leads, till he met another truncheon, and told him his errand. 

"Very good, " it said. "Come along: but it will be of no use. Heis the most unremorseful, hard-hearted, foul-mouthed fellow I havein charge; and thinks about nothing but beer and pipes, which arenot allowed here, of course. "

So they walked along over the leads, and very sooty they were, andTom thought the chimneys must want sweeping very much. But he wassurprised to see that the soot did not stick to his feet, or dirtythem in the least. Neither did the live coals, which were lyingabout in plenty, burn him; for, being a water-baby, his radicalhumours were of a moist and cold nature, as you may read at largein Lemnius, Cardan, Van Helmont, and other gentlemen, who knew asmuch as they could, and no man can know more. 

And at last they came to chimney No. 345. Out of the top of it, his head and shoulders just showing, stuck poor Mr. Grimes, sosooty, and bleared, and ugly, that Tom could hardly bear to look athim. And in his mouth was a pipe; but it was not a-light; thoughhe was pulling at it with all his might. 

"Attention, Mr. Grimes, " said the truncheon; "here is a gentlemancome to see you. "

But Mr. Grimes only said bad words; and kept grumbling, "My pipewon't draw. My pipe won't draw. "

"Keep a civil tongue, and attend!" said the truncheon; and poppedup just like Punch, hitting Grimes such a crack over the head withitself, that his brains rattled inside like a dried walnut in itsshell. He tried to get his hands out, and rub the place: but hecould not, for they were stuck fast in the chimney. Now he wasforced to attend. 

"Hey!" he said, "why, it's Tom! I suppose you have come here tolaugh at me, you spiteful little atomy?"

Tom assured him he had not, but only wanted to help him. 

"I don't want anything except beer, and that I can't get; and alight to this bothering pipe, and that I can't get either. "

"I'll get you one, " said Tom; and he took up a live coal (therewere plenty lying about) and put it to Grimes' pipe: but it wentout instantly. 

"It's no use, " said the truncheon, leaning itself up against thechimney and looking on. "I tell you, it is no use. His heart isso cold that it freezes everything that comes near him. You willsee that presently, plain enough. "

"Oh, of course, it's my fault. Everything's always my fault, " saidGrimes. "Now don't go to hit me again" (for the truncheon startedupright, and looked very wicked); "you know, if my arms were onlyfree, you daren't hit me then. "

The truncheon leant back against the chimney, and took no notice ofthe personal insult, like a well-trained policeman as it was, though he was ready enough to avenge any transgression againstmorality or order. 

"But can't I help you in any other way? Can't I help you to getout of this chimney?" said Tom. 

"No, " interposed the truncheon; "he has come to the place whereeverybody must help themselves; and he will find it out, I hope, before he has done with me. "

"Oh, yes, " said Grimes, "of course it's me. Did I ask to bebrought here into the prison? Did I ask to be set to sweep yourfoul chimneys? Did I ask to have lighted straw put under me tomake me go up? Did I ask to stick fast in the very first chimneyof all, because it was so shamefully clogged up with soot? Did Iask to stay here--I don't know how long--a hundred years, I dobelieve, and never get my pipe, nor my beer, nor nothing fit for abeast, let alone a man?"

"No, " answered a solemn voice behind. "No more did Tom, when youbehaved to him in the very same way. "

It was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. And, when the truncheon saw her, itstarted bolt upright--Attention!--and made such a low bow, that ifit had not been full of the spirit of justice, it must have tumbledon its end, and probably hurt its one eye. And Tom made his bowtoo. 

"Oh, ma'am, " he said, "don't think about me; that's all past andgone, and good times and bad times and all times pass over. Butmay not I help poor Mr. Grimes? Mayn't I try and get some of thesebricks away, that he may move his arms?"

"You may try, of course, " she said. 

So Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks: but he could not move one. And then he tried to wipe Mr. Grimes' face: but the soot would notcome off. 

"Oh, dear!" he said. "I have come all this way, through all theseterrible places, to help you, and now I am of no use at all. "

"You had best leave me alone, " said Grimes; "you are a good-naturedforgiving little chap, and that's truth; but you'd best be off. The hail's coming on soon, and it will beat the eyes out of yourlittle head. "

"What hail?"

"Why, hail that falls every evening here; and, till it comes closeto me, it's like so much warm rain: but then it turns to hail overmy head, and knocks me about like small shot. "

"That hail will never come any more, " said the strange lady. "Ihave told you before what it was. It was your mother's tears, those which she shed when she prayed for you by her bedside; butyour cold heart froze it into hail. But she is gone to heaven now, and will weep no more for her graceless son. "

Then Grimes was silent awhile; and then he looked very sad. 

"So my old mother's gone, and I never there to speak to her! Ah! agood woman she was, and might have been a happy one, in her littleschool there in Vendale, if it hadn't been for me and my bad ways. "

"Did she keep the school in Vendale?" asked Tom. And then he toldGrimes all the story of his going to her house, and how she couldnot abide the sight of a chimney-sweep, and then how kind she was, and how he turned into a water-baby. 

"Ah!" said Grimes, "good reason she had to hate the sight of achimney-sweep. I ran away from her and took up with the sweeps, and never let her know where I was, nor sent her a penny to helpher, and now it's too late--too late!" said Mr. Grimes. 

And he began crying and blubbering like a great baby, till his pipedropped out of his mouth, and broke all to bits. 

"Oh, dear, if I was but a little chap in Vendale again, to see theclear beck, and the apple-orchard, and the yew-hedge, how differentI would go on! But it's too late now. So you go along, you kindlittle chap, and don't stand to look at a man crying, that's oldenough to be your father, and never feared the face of man, nor ofworse neither. But I'm beat now, and beat I must be. I've made mybed, and I must lie on it. Foul I would be, and foul I am, as anIrishwoman said to me once; and little I heeded it. It's all myown fault: but it's too late. " And he cried so bitterly that Tombegan crying too. 

"Never too late, " said the fairy, in such a strange soft new voicethat Tom looked up at her; and she was so beautiful for the moment, that Tom half fancied she was her sister. 

No more was it too late. For, as poor Grimes cried and blubberedon, his own tears did what his mother's could not do, and Tom'scould not do, and nobody's on earth could do for him; for theywashed the soot off his face and off his clothes; and then theywashed the mortar away from between the bricks; and the chimneycrumbled down; and Grimes began to get out of it. 

Up jumped the truncheon, and was going to hit him on the crown atremendous thump, and drive him down again like a cork into abottle. But the strange lady put it aside. 

"Will you obey me if I give you a chance?"

"As you please, ma'am. You're stronger than me--that I know toowell, and wiser than me, I know too well also. And, as for beingmy own master, I've fared ill enough with that as yet. So whateveryour ladyship pleases to order me; for I'm beat, and that's thetruth. "

"Be it so then--you may come out. But remember, disobey me again, and into a worse place still you go. "

"I beg pardon ma'am, but I never disobeyed you that I know of. Inever had the honour of setting eyes upon you till I came to theseugly quarters. "

"Never saw me? Who said to you, Those that will be foul, foul theywill be?"

Grimes looked up; and Tom looked up too; for the voice was that ofthe Irishwoman who met them the day that they went out together toHarthover. "I gave you your warning then: but you gave ityourself a thousand times before and since. Every bad word thatyou said--every cruel and mean thing that you did--every time thatyou got tipsy--every day that you went dirty--you were disobeyingme, whether you knew it or not. "

"If I'd only known, ma'am--"

"You knew well enough that you were disobeying something, thoughyou did not know it was me. But come out and take your chance. Perhaps it may be your last. "

So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, if it had notbeen for the scars on his face, he looked as clean and respectableas a master-sweep need look. 

"Take him away, " said she to the truncheon, "and give him histicket-of-leave. "

"And what is he to do, ma'am?"

"Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will find some verysteady men working out their time there, who will teach him hisbusiness: but mind, if that crater gets choked again, and there isan earthquake in consequence, bring them all to me, and I shallinvestigate the case very severely. "

So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking as meek as adrowned worm. 

And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweeping the crater ofEtna to this very day. 

"And now, " said the fairy to Tom, "your work here is done. You mayas well go back again. "

"I should be glad enough to go, " said Tom, "but how am I to get upthat great hole again, now the steam has stopped blowing?"

"I will take you up the backstairs: but I must bandage your eyesfirst; for I never allow anybody to see those backstairs of mine. "

"I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, ma'am, if you bidme not. "

"Aha! So you think, my little man. But you would soon forget yourpromise if you got back into the land-world. For, if people onlyonce found out that you had been up my backstairs, you would haveall the fine ladies kneeling to you, and the rich men emptyingtheir purses before you, and statesmen offering you place andpower; and young and old, rich and poor, crying to you, 'Only tellus the great backstairs secret, and we will be your slaves; we willmake you lord, king, emperor, bishop, archbishop, pope, if youlike--only tell us the secret of the backstairs. For thousands ofyears we have been paying, and petting, and obeying, andworshipping quacks who told us they had the key of the backstairs, and could smuggle us up them; and in spite of all ourdisappointments, we will honour, and glorify, and adore, andbeatify, and translate, and apotheotise you likewise, on the chanceof your knowing something about the backstairs, that we may all goon pilgrimage to it; and, even if we cannot get up it, lie at thefoot of it, and cry -

'Oh, backstairs, precious backstairs, invaluable backstairs, requisite backstairs, necessary backstairs, good-natured backstairs, cosmopolitan backstairs, comprehensive backstairs, accommodating backstairs, well-bred backstairs, commercial backstairs, economical backstairs, practical backstairs, logical backstairs, deductive backstairs, comfortable backstairs, humane backstairs, reasonable backstairs, long-sought backstairs, coveted backstairs, aristocratic backstairs, respectable backstairs, gentlenmanlike backstairs, ladylike backstairs, orthodox backstairs, probable backstairs, credible backstairs, demonstrable backstairs, irrefragable backstairs, potent backstairs, all-but-omnipotent backstairs, &c. 

Save us from the consequences of our own actions, and from thecruel fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid!' Do not you think that youwould be a little tempted then to tell what you know, laddie?"

Tom thought so certainly. "But why do they want so to know aboutthe backstairs?" asked he, being a little frightened at the longwords, and not understanding them the least; as, indeed, he was notmeant to do, or you either. 

"That I shall not tell you. I never put things into little folks'heads which are but too likely to come there of themselves. Socome--now I must bandage your eyes. " So she tied the bandage onhis eyes with one hand, and with the other she took it off. 

"Now, " she said, "you are safe up the stairs. " Tom opened his eyesvery wide, and his mouth too; for he had not, as he thought, moveda single step. But, when he looked round him, there could be nodoubt that he was safe up the backstairs, whatsoever they may be, which no man is going to tell you, for the plain reason that no manknows. 

The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, high and sharpagainst the rosy dawn; and St. Brandan's Isle reflected double inthe still broad silver sea. The wind sang softly in the cedars, and the water sang among the eaves: the sea-birds sang as theystreamed out into the ocean, and the land-birds as they built amongthe boughs; and the air was so full of song that it stirred St. Brandan and his hermits, as they slumbered in the shade; and theymoved their good old lips, and sang their morning hymn amid theirdreams. But among all the songs one came across the water moresweet and clear than all; for it was the song of a young girl'svoice. 

And what was the song which she sang? Ah, my little man, I am tooold to sing that song, and you too young to understand it. Buthave patience, and keep your eye single, and your hands clean, andyou will learn some day to sing it yourself, without needing anyman to teach you. 

And as Tom neared the island, there sat upon a rock the mostgraceful creature that ever was seen, looking down, with her chinupon her hand, and paddling with her feet in the water. And whenthey came to her she looked up, and behold it was Ellie. 

"Oh, Miss Ellie, " said he, "how you are grown!"

"Oh, Tom, " said she, "how you are grown too!"

And no wonder; they were both quite grown up--he into a tall man, and she into a beautiful woman. 

"Perhaps I may be grown, " she said. "I have had time enough; for Ihave been sitting here waiting for you many a hundred years, till Ithought you were never coming. "

"Many a hundred years?" thought Tom; but he had seen so much in histravels that he had quite given up being astonished; and, indeed, he could think of nothing but Ellie. So he stood and looked atEllie, and Ellie looked at him; and they liked the employment somuch that they stood and looked for seven years more, and neitherspoke nor stirred. 

At last they heard the fairy say: "Attention, children. Are younever going to look at me again?"

"We have been looking at you all this while, " they said. And sothey thought they had been. 

"Then look at me once more, " said she. 

They looked--and both of them cried out at once, "Oh, who are you, after all?"

"You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby. "

"No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid; but you are grown quitebeautiful now!"

"To you, " said the fairy. "But look again. "

"You are Mother Carey, " said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice; forhe had found out something which made him very happy, and yetfrightened him more than all that he had ever seen. 

"But you are grown quite young again. "

"To you, " said the fairy. "Look again. "

"You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to Harthover!"

And when they looked she was neither of them, and yet all of themat once. 

"My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there. "

And they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, and they changedagain and again into every hue, as the light changes in a diamond. 

"Now read my name, " said she, at last. 

And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, blazing light:but the children could not read her name; for they were dazzled, and hid their faces in their hands. 

"Not yet, young things, not yet, " said she, smiling; and then sheturned to Ellie. 

"You may take him home with you now on Sundays, Ellie. He has wonhis spurs in the great battle, and become fit to go with you and bea man; because he has done the thing he did not like. "

So Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and sometimes on week-days, too; and he is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads, and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and soforth; and knows everything about everything, except why a hen'segg don't turn into a crocodile, and two or three other littlethings which no one will know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues. And all this from what he learnt when he was a water-baby, underneath the sea. 

"And of course Tom married Ellie?"

My dear child, what a silly notion! Don't you know that no oneever marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a prince or aprincess?

"And Tom's dog?"

Oh, you may see him any clear night in July; for the old dog-starwas so worn out by the last three hot summers that there have beenno dog-days since; so that they had to take him down and put Tom'sdog up in his place. Therefore, as new brooms sweep clean, we mayhope for some warm weather this year. And that is the end of mystory. 

MORAL. 

And now, my dear little man, what should we learn from thisparable?

We should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things, I am notexactly sure which: but one thing, at least, we may learn, andthat is this--when we see efts in the pond, never to throw stonesat them, or catch them with crooked pins, or put them intovivariums with sticklebacks, that the sticklebacks may prick themin their poor little stomachs, and make them jump out of the glassinto somebody's work-box, and so come to a bad end. For these eftsare nothing else but the water-babies who are stupid and dirty, andwill not learn their lessons and keep themselves clean; and, therefore (as comparative anatomists will tell you fifty yearshence, though they are not learned enough to tell you now), theirskulls grow flat, their jaws grow out, and their brains grow small, and their tails grow long, and they lose all their ribs (which I amsure you would not like to do), and their skins grow dirty andspotted, and they never get into the clear rivers, much less intothe great wide sea, but hang about in dirty ponds, and live in themud, and eat worms, as they deserve to do. 

But that is no reason why you should ill-use them: but only whyyou should pity them, and be kind to them, and hope that some daythey will wake up, and be ashamed of their nasty, dirty, lazy, stupid life, and try to amend, and become something better oncemore. For, perhaps, if they do so, then after 379, 423 years, ninemonths, thirteen days, two hours, and twenty-one minutes (for aughtthat appears to the contrary), if they work very hard and wash veryhard all that time, their brains may grow bigger, and their jawsgrow smaller, and their ribs come back, and their tails wither off, and they will turn into water-babies again, and perhaps after thatinto land-babies; and after that perhaps into grown men. 

You know they won't? Very well, I daresay you know best. But yousee, some folks have a great liking for those poor little efts. They never did anybody any harm, or could if they tried; and theironly fault is, that they do no good--any more than some thousandsof their betters. But what with ducks, and what with pike, andwhat with sticklebacks, and what with water-beetles, and what withnaughty boys, they are "sae sair hadden doun, " as the Scotsmen say, that it is a wonder how they live; and some folks can't helphoping, with good Bishop Butler, that they may have another chance, to make things fair and even, somewhere, somewhen, somehow. 

Meanwhile, do you learn your lessons, and thank God that you haveplenty of cold water to wash in; and wash in it too, like a trueEnglishman. And then, if my story is not true, something betteris; and if I am not quite right, still you will be, as long as youstick to hard work and cold water. 

But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all afairy tale, and only fun and pretence: and, therefore, you are notto believe a word of it, even if it is true.