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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1018 ***
+
+Transcribed from the 1889 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email
+ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+
+
+
+
+                                   THE
+                               WATER BABIES
+
+
+                       A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                    BY
+                             CHARLES KINGSLEY
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                              _NEW EDITION_
+            WITH ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS BY LINLEY SAMBOURNE
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                  London
+                            MACMILLAN AND CO.
+                               AND NEW YORK
+                                   1889
+
+                          _All rights reserved_
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                 _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                    TO
+
+                             MY YOUNGEST SON
+
+                             GRENVILLE ARTHUR
+
+                                   AND
+
+                      TO ALL OTHER GOOD LITTLE BOYS
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+              COME READ ME MY RIDDLE, EACH GOOD LITTLE MAN;
+               IF YOU CANNOT READ IT, NO GROWN-UP FOLK CAN.
+
+           [Picture: Water babies and frogs playing leap-frog]
+
+    “I heard a thousand blended notes,
+       While in a grove I sate reclined;
+    In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
+       Being sad thoughts to the mind.
+
+    “To her fair works did Nature link
+       The human soul that through me ran;
+    And much it grieved my heart to think,
+       What man has made of man.”
+
+                                                               WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+    “I heard a thousand blended notes,
+       While in a grove I sate reclined;
+    In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
+       Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
+
+    “To her fair works did Nature link
+       The human soul that through me ran;
+    And much it grieved my heart to think,
+       What man has made of man.”
+
+                                                               WORDSWORTH.
+
+                     [Picture: Little chimney-sweep]
+
+ONCE upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, and his name was Tom.
+That is a short name, and you have heard it before, so you will not have
+much trouble in remembering it.  He lived in a great town in the North
+country, where there were plenty of chimneys to sweep, and plenty of
+money for Tom to earn and his master to spend.  He could not read nor
+write, and did not care to do either; and he never washed himself, for
+there was no water up the court where he lived.  He had never been taught
+to say his prayers.  He never had heard of God, or of Christ, except in
+words which you never have heard, and which it would have been well if he
+had never heard.  He cried half his time, and laughed the other half.  He
+cried when he had to climb the dark flues, rubbing his poor knees and
+elbows raw; and when the soot got into his eyes, which it did every day
+in the week; and when his master beat him, which he did every day in the
+week; and when he had not enough to eat, which happened every day in the
+week likewise.  And he laughed the other half of the day, when he was
+tossing halfpennies with the other boys, or playing leap-frog over the
+posts, or bowling stones at the horses’ legs as they trotted by, which
+last was excellent fun, when there was a wall at hand behind which to
+hide.  [Picture: Dogs]  As for chimney-sweeping, and being hungry, and
+being beaten, he took all that for the way of the world, like the rain
+and snow and thunder, and stood manfully with his back to it till it was
+over, as his old donkey did to a hail-storm; and then shook his ears and
+was as jolly as ever; and thought of the fine times coming, when he would
+be a man, and a master sweep, and sit in the public-house with a quart of
+beer and a long pipe, and play cards for silver money, and wear
+velveteens and ankle-jacks, and keep a white bull-dog with one gray ear,
+and carry her puppies in his pocket, just like a man.  And he would have
+apprentices, one, two, three, if he could.  How he would bully them, and
+knock them about, just as his master did to him; and make them carry home
+the soot sacks, while he rode before them on his donkey, with a pipe in
+his mouth and a flower in his button-hole, like a king at the head of his
+army.  Yes, there were good times coming; and, when his master let him
+have a pull at the leavings of his beer, Tom was the jolliest boy in the
+whole town.
+
+                      [Picture: Smart groom and Tom]
+
+One day a smart little groom rode into the court where Tom lived.  Tom
+was just hiding behind a wall, to heave half a brick at his horse’s legs,
+as is the custom of that country when they welcome strangers; but the
+groom saw him, and halloed to him to know where Mr. Grimes, the
+chimney-sweep, lived.  Now, Mr. Grimes was Tom’s own master, and Tom was
+a good man of business, and always civil to customers, so he put the
+half-brick down quietly behind the wall, and proceeded to take orders.
+
+Mr. Grimes was to come up next morning to Sir John Harthover’s, at the
+Place, for his old chimney-sweep was gone to prison, and the chimneys
+wanted sweeping.  And so he rode away, not giving Tom time to ask what
+the sweep had gone to prison for, which was a matter of interest to Tom,
+as he had been in prison once or twice himself.  Moreover, the groom
+looked so very neat and clean, with his drab gaiters, drab breeches, drab
+jacket, snow-white tie with a smart pin in it, and clean round ruddy
+face, that Tom was offended and disgusted at his appearance, and
+considered him a stuck-up fellow, who gave himself airs because he wore
+smart clothes, and other people paid for them; and went behind the wall
+to fetch the half-brick after all; but did not, remembering that he had
+come in the way of business, and was, as it were, under a flag of truce.
+
+His master was so delighted at his new customer that he knocked Tom down
+out of hand, and drank more beer that night than he usually did in two,
+in order to be sure of getting up in time next morning; for the more a
+man’s head aches when he wakes, the more glad he is to turn out, and have
+a breath of fresh air.  And, when he did get up at four the next morning,
+he knocked Tom down again, in order to teach him (as young gentlemen used
+to be taught at public schools) that he must be an extra good boy that
+day, as they were going to a very great house, and might make a very good
+thing of it, if they could but give satisfaction.
+
+And Tom thought so likewise, and, indeed, would have done and behaved his
+best, even without being knocked down.  For, of all places upon earth,
+Harthover Place (which he had never seen) was the most wonderful, and, of
+all men on earth, Sir John (whom he had seen, having been sent to gaol by
+him twice) was the most awful.
+
+                      [Picture: Sir John Harthover]
+
+Harthover Place was really a grand place, even for the rich North
+country; with a house so large that in the frame-breaking riots, which
+Tom could just remember, the Duke of Wellington, and ten thousand
+soldiers to match, were easily housed therein; at least, so Tom believed;
+with a park full of deer, which Tom believed to be monsters who were in
+the habit of eating children; with miles of game-preserves, in which Mr.
+Grimes and the collier lads poached at times, on which occasions Tom saw
+pheasants, and wondered what they tasted like; with a noble salmon-river,
+in which Mr. Grimes and his friends would have liked to poach; but then
+they must have got into cold water, and that they did not like at all.
+In short, Harthover was a grand place, and Sir John a grand old man, whom
+even Mr. Grimes respected; for not only could he send Mr. Grimes to
+prison when he deserved it, as he did once or twice a week; not only did
+he own all the land about for miles; not only was he a jolly, honest,
+sensible squire, as ever kept a pack of hounds, who would do what he
+thought right by his neighbours, as well as get what he thought right for
+himself; but, what was more, he weighed full fifteen stone, was nobody
+knew how many inches round the chest, and could have thrashed Mr. Grimes
+himself in fair fight, which very few folk round there could do, and
+which, my dear little boy, would not have been right for him to do, as a
+great many things are not which one both can do, and would like very much
+to do.  So Mr. Grimes touched his hat to him when he rode through the
+town, and called him a “buirdly awd chap,” and his young ladies “gradely
+lasses,” which are two high compliments in the North country; and thought
+that that made up for his poaching Sir John’s pheasants; whereby you may
+perceive that Mr. Grimes had not been to a properly-inspected Government
+National School.
+
+Now, I dare say, you never got up at three o’clock on a midsummer
+morning.  Some people get up then because they want to catch salmon; and
+some because they want to climb Alps; and a great many more because they
+must, like Tom.  But, I assure you, that three o’clock on a midsummer
+morning is the pleasantest time of all the twenty-four hours, and all the
+three hundred and sixty-five days; and why every one does not get up
+then, I never could tell, save that they are all determined to spoil
+their nerves and their complexions by doing all night what they might
+just as well do all day.  But Tom, instead of going out to dinner at
+half-past eight at night, and to a ball at ten, and finishing off
+somewhere between twelve and four, went to bed at seven, when his master
+went to the public-house, and slept like a dead pig; for which reason he
+was as piert as a game-cock (who always gets up early to wake the maids),
+and just ready to get up when the fine gentlemen and ladies were just
+ready to go to bed.
+
+[Picture: Grimes and Tom] So he and his master set out; Grimes rode the
+donkey in front, and Tom and the brushes walked behind; out of the court,
+and up the street, past the closed window-shutters, and the winking weary
+policemen, and the roofs all shining gray in the gray dawn.
+
+They passed through the pitmen’s village, all shut up and silent now, and
+through the turnpike; and then the were out in the real country, and
+plodding along the black dusty road, between black slag walls, with no
+sound but the groaning and thumping of the pit-engine in the next field.
+But soon the road grew white, and the walls likewise; and at the wall’s
+foot grew long grass and gay flowers, all drenched with dew; and instead
+of the groaning of the pit-engine, they heard the skylark saying his
+matins high up in the air, and the pit-bird warbling in the sedges, as he
+had warbled all night long.
+
+All else was silent.  For old Mrs. Earth was still fast asleep; and, like
+many pretty people, she looked still prettier asleep than awake.  The
+great elm-trees in the gold-green meadows were fast asleep above, and the
+cows fast asleep beneath them; nay, the few clouds which were about were
+fast asleep likewise, and so tired that they had lain down on the earth
+to rest, in long white flakes and bars, among the stems of the elm-trees,
+and along the tops of the alders by the stream, waiting for the sun to
+bid them rise and go about their day’s business in the clear blue
+overhead.
+
+On they went; and Tom looked, and looked, for he never had been so far
+into the country before; and longed to get over a gate, and pick
+buttercups, and look for birds’ nests in the hedge; but Mr. Grimes was a
+man of business, and would not have heard of that.
+
+Soon they came up with a poor Irishwoman, trudging along with a bundle at
+her back.  She had a gray shawl over her head, and a crimson madder
+petticoat; so you may be sure she came from Galway.  She had neither
+shoes nor stockings, and limped along as if she were tired and footsore;
+but she was a very tall handsome woman, with bright gray eyes, and heavy
+black hair hanging about her cheeks.  And she took Mr. Grimes’ fancy so
+much, that when he came alongside he called out to her:
+
+[Picture: The poor Irishwomen] “This is a hard road for a gradely foot
+like that.  Will ye up, lass, and ride behind me?”
+
+But, perhaps, she did not admire Mr. Grimes’ look and voice; for she
+answered quietly:
+
+“No, thank you: I’d sooner walk with your little lad here.”
+
+“You may please yourself,” growled Grimes, and went on smoking.
+
+So she walked beside Tom, and talked to him, and asked him where he
+lived, and what he knew, and all about himself, till Tom thought he had
+never met such a pleasant-spoken woman.  And she asked him, at last,
+whether he said his prayers! and seemed sad when he told her that he knew
+no prayers to say.
+
+Then he asked her where she lived, and she said far away by the sea.  And
+Tom asked her about the sea; and she told him how it rolled and roared
+over the rocks in winter nights, and lay still in the bright summer days,
+for the children to bathe and play in it; and many a story more, till Tom
+longed to go and see the sea, and bathe in it likewise.
+
+At last, at the bottom of a hill, they came to a spring; not such a
+spring as you see here, which soaks up out of a white gravel in the bog,
+among red fly-catchers, and pink bottle-heath, and sweet white orchis;
+nor such a one as you may see, too, here, which bubbles up under the warm
+sandbank in the hollow lane by the great tuft of lady ferns, and makes
+the sand dance reels at the bottom, day and night, all the year round;
+not such a spring as either of those; but a real North country limestone
+fountain, like one of those in Sicily or Greece, where the old heathen
+fancied the nymphs sat cooling themselves the hot summer’s day, while the
+shepherds peeped at them from behind the bushes.  Out of a low cave of
+rock, at the foot of a limestone crag, the great fountain rose, quelling,
+and bubbling, and gurgling, so clear that you could not tell where the
+water ended and the air began; and ran away under the road, a stream
+large enough to turn a mill; among blue geranium, and golden
+globe-flower, and wild raspberry, and the bird-cherry with its tassels of
+snow.
+
+And there Grimes stopped, and looked; and Tom looked too.  Tom was
+wondering whether anything lived in that dark cave, and came out at night
+to fly in the meadows.  But Grimes was not wondering at all.  Without a
+word, he got off his donkey, and clambered over the low road wall, and
+knelt down, and began dipping his ugly head into the spring—and very
+dirty he made it.
+
+Tom was picking the flowers as fast as he could.  The Irishwoman helped
+him, and showed him how to tie them up; and a very pretty nosegay they
+had made between them.  But when he saw Grimes actually wash, he stopped,
+quite astonished; and when Grimes had finished, and began shaking his
+ears to dry them, he said:
+
+“Why, master, I never saw you do that before.”
+
+“Nor will again, most likely.  ’Twasn’t for cleanliness I did it, but for
+coolness.  I’d be ashamed to want washing every week or so, like any
+smutty collier lad.”
+
+“I wish I might go and dip my head in,” said poor little Tom.  “It must
+be as good as putting it under the town-pump; and there is no beadle here
+to drive a chap away.”
+
+“Thou come along,” said Grimes; “what dost want with washing thyself?
+Thou did not drink half a gallon of beer last night, like me.”
+
+“I don’t care for you,” said naughty Tom, and ran down to the stream, and
+began washing his face.
+
+Grimes was very sulky, because the woman preferred Tom’s company to his;
+so he dashed at him with horrid words, and tore him up from his knees,
+and began beating him.  But Tom was accustomed to that, and got his head
+safe between Mr. Grimes’ legs, and kicked his shins with all his might.
+
+“Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes?” cried the Irishwoman
+over the wall.
+
+Grimes looked up, startled at her knowing his name; but all he answered
+was, “No, nor never was yet;” and went on beating Tom.
+
+“True for you.  If you ever had been ashamed of yourself, you would have
+gone over into Vendale long ago.”
+
+“What do you know about Vendale?” shouted Grimes; but he left off beating
+Tom.
+
+“I know about Vendale, and about you, too.  I know, for instance, what
+happened in Aldermire Copse, by night, two years ago come Martinmas.”
+
+“You do?” shouted Grimes; and leaving Tom, he climbed up over the wall,
+and faced the woman.  Tom thought he was going to strike her; but she
+looked him too full and fierce in the face for that.
+
+“Yes; I was there,” said the Irishwoman quietly.
+
+“You are no Irishwoman, by your speech,” said Grimes, after many bad
+words.
+
+“Never mind who I am.  I saw what I saw; and if you strike that boy
+again, I can tell what I know.”
+
+Grimes seemed quite cowed, and got on his donkey without another word.
+
+“Stop!” said the Irishwoman.  “I have one more word for you both; for you
+will both see me again before all is over.  Those that wish to be clean,
+clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be.
+Remember.”
+
+          [Picture: Griffin status with shield saying “Salvtem”]
+
+And she turned away, and through a gate into the meadow.  Grimes stood
+still a moment, like a man who had been stunned.  Then he rushed after
+her, shouting, “You come back.”  But when he got into the meadow, the
+woman was not there.
+
+Had she hidden away?  There was no place to hide in.  But Grimes looked
+about, and Tom also, for he was as puzzled as Grimes himself at her
+disappearing so suddenly; but look where they would, she was not there.
+
+Grimes came back again, as silent as a post, for he was a little
+frightened; and, getting on his donkey, filled a fresh pipe, and smoked
+away, leaving Tom in peace.
+
+          [Picture: Griffin status with shield saying “Amicis”]
+
+And now they had gone three miles and more, and came to Sir John’s
+lodge-gates.
+
+Very grand lodges they were, with very grand iron gates and stone
+gate-posts, and on the top of each a most dreadful bogy, all teeth,
+horns, and tail, which was the crest which Sir John’s ancestors wore in
+the Wars of the Roses; and very prudent men they were to wear it, for all
+their enemies must have run for their lives at the very first sight of
+them.
+
+Grimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper on the spot, and opened.
+
+“I was told to expect thee,” he said.  “Now thou’lt be so good as to keep
+to the main avenue, and not let me find a hare or a rabbit on thee when
+thou comest back.  I shall look sharp for one, I tell thee.”
+
+“Not if it’s in the bottom of the soot-bag,” quoth Grimes, and at that he
+laughed; and the keeper laughed and said:
+
+“If that’s thy sort, I may as well walk up with thee to the hall.”
+
+“I think thou best had.  It’s thy business to see after thy game, man,
+and not mine.”
+
+So the keeper went with them; and, to Tom’s surprise, he and Grimes
+chatted together all the way quite pleasantly.  He did not know that a
+keeper is only a poacher turned outside in, and a poacher a keeper turned
+inside out.
+
+They walked up a great lime avenue, a full mile long, and between their
+stems Tom peeped trembling at the horns of the sleeping deer, which stood
+up among the ferns.  Tom had never seen such enormous trees, and as he
+looked up he fancied that the blue sky rested on their heads.  But he was
+puzzled very much by a strange murmuring noise, which followed them all
+the way.  So much puzzled, that at last he took courage to ask the keeper
+what it was.
+
+                     [Picture: The keeper and Grimes]
+
+He spoke very civilly, and called him Sir, for he was horribly afraid of
+him, which pleased the keeper, and he told him that they were the bees
+about the lime flowers.
+
+“What are bees?” asked Tom.
+
+“What make honey.”
+
+“What is honey?” asked Tom.
+
+“Thou hold thy noise,” said Grimes.
+
+“Let the boy be,” said the keeper.  “He’s a civil young chap now, and
+that’s more than he’ll be long if he bides with thee.”
+
+Grimes laughed, for he took that for a compliment.
+
+“I wish I were a keeper,” said Tom, “to live in such a beautiful place,
+and wear green velveteens, and have a real dog-whistle at my button, like
+you.”
+
+The keeper laughed; he was a kind-hearted fellow enough.
+
+“Let well alone, lad, and ill too at times.  Thy life’s safer than mine
+at all events, eh, Mr. Grimes?”
+
+And Grimes laughed again, and then the two men began talking, quite low.
+Tom could hear, though, that it was about some poaching fight; and at
+last Grimes said surlily, “Hast thou anything against me?”
+
+“Not now.”
+
+“Then don’t ask me any questions till thou hast, for I am a man of
+honour.”
+
+And at that they both laughed again, and thought it a very good joke.
+
+And by this time they were come up to the great iron gates in front of
+the house; and Tom stared through them at the rhododendrons and azaleas,
+which were all in flower; and then at the house itself, and wondered how
+many chimneys there were in it, and how long ago it was built, and what
+was the man’s name that built it, and whether he got much money for his
+job?
+
+These last were very difficult questions to answer.  For Harthover had
+been built at ninety different times, and in nineteen different styles,
+and looked as if somebody had built a whole street of houses of every
+imaginable shape, and then stirred them together with a spoon.
+
+    _For the attics were Anglo-Saxon_.
+
+    _The third door Norman_.
+
+    _The second Cinque-cento_.
+
+    _The first-floor Elizabethan_.
+
+    _The right wing Pure Doric_.
+
+    _The centre Early English_, _with a huge portico copied from the
+    Parthenon_.
+
+    _The left wing pure Bœotian_, _which the country folk admired most of
+    all_, _became it was just like the new barracks in the town_, _only
+    three times as big_.
+
+    _The grand staircase was copied from the Catacombs at Rome_.
+
+    _The back staircase from the Tajmahal at Agra_.  _This was built by
+    Sir John’s great-great-great-uncle_, _who won_, _in Lord Clive’s
+    Indian Wars_, _plenty of money_, _plenty of wounds_, _and no more
+    taste than his betters_.
+
+    _The cellars were copied from the caves of Elephanta_.
+
+    _The offices from the Pavilion at Brighton_.
+
+And the rest from nothing in heaven, or earth, or under the earth.
+
+So that Harthover House was a great puzzle to antiquarians, and a
+thorough Naboth’s vineyard to critics, and architects, and all persons
+who like meddling with other men’s business, and spending other men’s
+money.  So they were all setting upon poor Sir John, year after year, and
+trying to talk him into spending a hundred thousand pounds or so, in
+building, to please them and not himself.  But he always put them off,
+like a canny North-countryman as he was.  One wanted him to build a
+Gothic house, but he said he was no Goth; and another to build an
+Elizabethan, but he said he lived under good Queen Victoria, and not good
+Queen Bess; and another was bold enough to tell him that his house was
+ugly, but he said he lived inside it, and not outside; and another, that
+there was no unity in it, but he said that that was just why he liked the
+old place.  For he liked to see how each Sir John, and Sir Hugh, and Sir
+Ralph, and Sir Randal, had left his mark upon the place, each after his
+own taste; and he had no more notion of disturbing his ancestors’ work
+than of disturbing their graves.  For now the house looked like a real
+live house, that had a history, and had grown and grown as the world
+grew; and that it was only an upstart fellow who did not know who his own
+grandfather was, who would change it for some spick and span new Gothic
+or Elizabethan thing, which looked as if it bad been all spawned in a
+night, as mushrooms are.  From which you may collect (if you have wit
+enough) that Sir John was a very sound-headed, sound-hearted squire, and
+just the man to keep the country side in order, and show good sport with
+his hounds.
+
+[Picture: The housekeeper] But Tom and his master did not go in through
+the great iron gates, as if they had been Dukes or Bishops, but round the
+back way, and a very long way round it was; and into a little back-door,
+where the ash-boy let them in, yawning horribly; and then in a passage
+the housekeeper met them, in such a flowered chintz dressing-gown, that
+Tom mistook her for My Lady herself, and she gave Grimes solemn orders
+about “You will take care of this, and take care of that,” as if he was
+going up the chimneys, and not Tom.  And Grimes listened, and said every
+now and then, under his voice, “You’ll mind that, you little beggar?” and
+Tom did mind, all at least that he could.  And then the housekeeper
+turned them into a grand room, all covered up in sheets of brown paper,
+and bade them begin, in a lofty and tremendous voice; and so after a
+whimper or two, and a kick from his master, into the grate Tom went, and
+up the chimney, while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the
+furniture; to whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous
+compliments, but met with very slight encouragement in return.
+
+                   [Picture: Grimes paying complements]
+
+How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say; but he swept so many that he
+got quite tired, and puzzled too, for they were not like the town flues
+to which he was accustomed, but such as you would find—if you would only
+get up them and look, which perhaps you would not like to do—in old
+country-houses, large and crooked chimneys, which had been altered again
+and again, till they ran one into another, anastomosing (as Professor
+Owen would say) considerably.  So Tom fairly lost his way in them; not
+that he cared much for that, though he was in pitchy darkness, for he was
+as much at home in a chimney as a mole is underground; but at last,
+coming down as he thought the right chimney, he came down the wrong one,
+and found himself standing on the hearthrug in a room the like of which
+he had never seen before.
+
+Tom had never seen the like.  He had never been in gentlefolks’ rooms but
+when the carpets were all up, and the curtains down, and the furniture
+huddled together under a cloth, and the pictures covered with aprons and
+dusters; and he had often enough wondered what the rooms were like when
+they were all ready for the quality to sit in.  And now he saw, and he
+thought the sight very pretty.
+
+The room was all dressed in white,—white window-curtains, white
+bed-curtains, white furniture, and white walls, with just a few lines of
+pink here and there.  The carpet was all over gay little flowers; and the
+walls were hung with pictures in gilt frames, which amused Tom very much.
+There were pictures of ladies and gentlemen, and pictures of horses and
+dogs.  The horses he liked; but the dogs he did not care for much, for
+there were no bull-dogs among them, not even a terrier.  But the two
+pictures which took his fancy most were, one a man in long garments, with
+little children and their mothers round him, who was laying his hand upon
+the children’s heads.  That was a very pretty picture, Tom thought, to
+hang in a lady’s room.  For he could see that it was a lady’s room by the
+dresses which lay about.
+
+The other picture was that of a man nailed to a cross, which surprised
+Tom much.  He fancied that he had seen something like it in a
+shop-window.  But why was it there?  “Poor man,” thought Tom, “and he
+looks so kind and quiet.  But why should the lady have such a sad picture
+as that in her room?  Perhaps it was some kinsman of hers, who had been
+murdered by the savages in foreign parts, and she kept it there for a
+remembrance.”  And Tom felt sad, and awed, and turned to look at
+something else.
+
+The next thing he saw, and that too puzzled him, was a washing-stand,
+with ewers and basins, and soap and brushes, and towels, and a large bath
+full of clean water—what a heap of things all for washing!  “She must be
+a very dirty lady,” thought Tom, “by my master’s rule, to want as much
+scrubbing as all that.  But she must be very cunning to put the dirt out
+of the way so well afterwards, for I don’t see a speck about the room,
+not even on the very towels.”
+
+And then, looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty lady, and held his
+breath with astonishment.
+
+Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white pillow, lay the most
+beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen.  Her cheeks were almost as
+white as the pillow, and her hair was like threads of gold spread all
+about over the bed.  She might have been as old as Tom, or maybe a year
+or two older; but Tom did not think of that.  He thought only of her
+delicate skin and golden hair, and wondered whether she was a real live
+person, or one of the wax dolls he had seen in the shops.  But when he
+saw her breathe, he made up his mind that she was alive, and stood
+staring at her, as if she had been an angel out of heaven.
+
+                        [Picture: The girl asleep]
+
+No.  She cannot be dirty.  She never could have been dirty, thought Tom
+to himself.  And then he thought, “And are all people like that when they
+are washed?”  And he looked at his own wrist, and tried to rub the soot
+off, and wondered whether it ever would come off.  “Certainly I should
+look much prettier then, if I grew at all like her.”
+
+And looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close to him, a little ugly,
+black, ragged figure, with bleared eyes and grinning white teeth.  He
+turned on it angrily.  What did such a little black ape want in that
+sweet young lady’s room?  And behold, it was himself, reflected in a
+great mirror, the like of which Tom had never seen before.
+
+And Tom, for the first time in his life, found out that he was dirty; and
+burst into tears with shame and anger; and turned to sneak up the chimney
+again and hide; and upset the fender and threw the fire-irons down, with
+a noise as of ten thousand tin kettles tied to ten thousand mad dogs’
+tails.
+
+Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, seeing Tom, screamed as
+shrill as any peacock.  In rushed a stout old nurse from the next room,
+and seeing Tom likewise, made up her mind that he had come to rob,
+plunder, destroy, and burn; and dashed at him, as he lay over the fender,
+so fast that she caught him by the jacket.
+
+But she did not hold him.  Tom had been in a policeman’s hands many a
+time, and out of them too, what is more; and he would have been ashamed
+to face his friends for ever if he had been stupid enough to be caught by
+an old woman; so he doubled under the good lady’s arm, across the room,
+and out of the window in a moment.
+
+He did not need to drop out, though he would have done so bravely enough.
+Nor even to let himself down a spout, which would have been an old game
+to him; for once he got up by a spout to the church roof, he said to take
+jackdaws’ eggs, but the policeman said to steal lead; and, when he was
+seen on high, sat there till the sun got too hot, and came down by
+another spout, leaving the policemen to go back to the stationhouse and
+eat their dinners.
+
+But all under the window spread a tree, with great leaves and sweet white
+flowers, almost as big as his head.  It was magnolia, I suppose; but Tom
+knew nothing about that, and cared less; for down the tree he went, like
+a cat, and across the garden lawn, and over the iron railings and up the
+park towards the wood, leaving the old nurse to scream murder and fire at
+the window.
+
+                      [Picture: The under gardener]
+
+The under gardener, mowing, saw Tom, and threw down his scythe; caught
+his leg in it, and cut his shin open, whereby he kept his bed for a week;
+but in his hurry he never knew it, and gave chase to poor Tom.  The
+dairymaid heard the noise, got the churn between her knees, and tumbled
+over it, spilling all the cream; and yet she jumped up, and gave chase to
+Tom.  [Picture: The diarymaid]  A groom cleaning Sir John’s hack at the
+stables let him go loose, whereby he kicked himself lame in five minutes;
+but he ran out and gave chase to Tom.  Grimes upset the soot-sack in the
+new-gravelled yard, and spoilt it all utterly; but he ran out and gave
+chase to Tom.  The old steward opened the park-gate in such a hurry, that
+he hung up his pony’s chin upon the spikes, and, for aught I know, it
+hangs there still; but he jumped off, and gave chase to Tom.  The
+ploughman left his horses at the headland, and one jumped over the fence,
+and pulled the other into the ditch, plough and all; but he ran on, and
+gave chase to Tom.  The keeper, who was taking a stoat out of a trap, let
+the stoat go, and caught his own finger; but he jumped up, and ran after
+Tom; and considering what he said, and how he looked, I should have been
+sorry for Tom if he had caught him.  Sir John looked out of his study
+window (for he was an early old gentleman) and up at the nurse, and a
+marten dropped mud in his eye, so that he had at last to send for the
+doctor; and yet he ran out, and gave chase to Tom.  The Irishwoman, too,
+was walking up to the house to beg,—she must have got round by some
+byway—but she threw away her bundle, and gave chase to Tom likewise.
+Only my Lady did not give chase; for when she had put her head out of the
+window, her night-wig fell into the garden, and she had to ring up her
+lady’s-maid, and send her down for it privately, which quite put her out
+of the running, so that she came in nowhere, and is consequently not
+placed.
+
+                        [Picture: The old steward]
+
+In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place—not even when the fox was
+killed in the conservatory, among acres of broken glass, and tons of
+smashed flower-pots—such a noise, row, hubbub, babel, shindy, hullabaloo,
+stramash, charivari, and total contempt of dignity, repose, and order, as
+that day, when Grimes, gardener, the groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the
+steward, the ploughman, the keeper, and the Irishwoman, all ran up the
+park, shouting, “Stop thief,” in the belief that Tom had at least a
+thousand pounds’ worth of jewels in his empty pockets; and the very
+magpies and jays followed Tom up, screaking and screaming, as if he were
+a hunted fox, beginning to droop his brush.
+
+                            [Picture: Grimes]
+
+And all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with his little bare feet,
+like a small black gorilla fleeing to the forest.  Alas for him! there
+was no big father gorilla therein to take his part—to scratch out the
+gardener’s inside with one paw, toss the dairymaid into a tree with
+another, and wrench off Sir John’s head with a third, while he cracked
+the keeper’s skull with his teeth as easily as if it had been a cocoa-nut
+or a paving-stone.
+
+                         [Picture: Man on horse]
+
+However, Tom did not remember ever having had a father; so he did not
+look for one, and expected to have to take care of himself; while as for
+running, he could keep up for a couple of miles with any stage-coach, if
+there was the chance of a copper or a cigar-end, and turn coach-wheels on
+his hands and feet ten times following, which is more than you can do.
+Wherefore his pursuers found it very difficult to catch him; and we will
+hope that they did not catch him at all.
+
+                          [Picture: Man chasing]
+
+Tom, of course, made for the woods.  He had never been in a wood in his
+life; but he was sharp enough to know that he might hide in a bush, or
+swarm up a tree, and, altogether, had more chance there than in the open.
+If he had not known that, he would have been foolisher than a mouse or a
+minnow.
+
+                         [Picture: Man on knees]
+
+But when he got into the wood, he found it a very different sort of place
+from what he had fancied.  He pushed into a thick cover of rhododendrons,
+and found himself at once caught in a trap.  The boughs laid hold of his
+legs and arms, poked him in his face and his stomach, made him shut his
+eyes tight (though that was no great loss, for he could not see at best a
+yard before his nose); and when he got through the rhododendrons, the
+hassock-grass and sedges tumbled him over, and cut his poor little
+fingers afterwards most spitefully; the birches birched him as soundly as
+if he had been a nobleman at Eton, and over the face too (which is not
+fair swishing as all brave boys will agree); and the lawyers tripped him
+up, and tore his shins as if they had sharks’ teeth—which lawyers are
+likely enough to have.
+
+“I must get out of this,” thought Tom, “or I shall stay here till
+somebody comes to help me—which is just what I don’t want.”
+
+But how to get out was the difficult matter.  And indeed I don’t think he
+would ever have got out at all, but have stayed there till the
+cock-robins covered him with leaves, if he had not suddenly run his head
+against a wall.
+
+                   [Picture: Man looking out of window]
+
+Now running your head against a wall is not pleasant, especially if it is
+a loose wall, with the stones all set on edge, and a sharp cornered one
+hits you between the eyes and makes you see all manner of beautiful
+stars.  The stars are very beautiful, certainly; but unfortunately they
+go in the twenty-thousandth part of a split second, and the pain which
+comes after them does not.  And so Tom hurt his head; but he was a brave
+boy, and did not mind that a penny.  He guessed that over the wall the
+cover would end; and up it he went, and over like a squirrel.
+
+And there he was, out on the great grouse-moors, which the country folk
+called Harthover Fell—heather and bog and rock, stretching away and up,
+up to the very sky.
+
+Now, Tom was a cunning little fellow—as cunning as an old Exmoor stag.
+Why not?  Though he was but ten years old, he had lived longer than most
+stags, and had more wits to start with into the bargain.
+
+He knew as well as a stag, that if he backed he might throw the hounds
+out.  So the first thing he did when he was over the wall was to make the
+neatest double sharp to his right, and run along under the wall for
+nearly half a mile.
+
+Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the steward, and the gardener, and
+the ploughman, and the dairymaid, and all the hue-and-cry together, went
+on ahead half a mile in the very opposite direction, and inside the wall,
+leaving him a mile off on the outside; while Tom heard their shouts die
+away in the woods and chuckled to himself merrily.
+
+At last he came to a dip in the land, and went to the bottom of it, and
+then he turned bravely away from the wall and up the moor; for he knew
+that he had put a hill between him and his enemies, and could go on
+without their seeing him.
+
+But the Irishwoman, alone of them all, had seen which way Tom went.  She
+had kept ahead of every one the whole time; and yet she neither walked
+nor ran.  She went along quite smoothly and gracefully, while her feet
+twinkled past each other so fast that you could not see which was
+foremost; till every one asked the other who the strange woman was; and
+all agreed, for want of anything better to say, that she must be in
+league with Tom.
+
+But when she came to the plantation, they lost sight of her; and they
+could do no less.  For she went quietly over the wall after Tom, and
+followed him wherever he went.  Sir John and the rest saw no more of her;
+and out of sight was out of mind.
+
+And now Tom was right away into the heather, over just such a moor as
+those in which you have been bred, except that there were rocks and
+stones lying about everywhere, and that, instead of the moor growing flat
+as he went upwards, it grew more and more broken and hilly, but not so
+rough but that little Tom could jog along well enough, and find time,
+too, to stare about at the strange place, which was like a new world to
+him.
+
+He saw great spiders there, with crowns and crosses marked on their
+backs, who sat in the middle of their webs, and when they saw Tom coming,
+shook them so fast that they became invisible.  Then he saw lizards,
+brown and gray and green, and thought they were snakes, and would sting
+him; but they were as much frightened as he, and shot away into the
+heath.  And then, under a rock, he saw a pretty sight—a great brown,
+sharp-nosed creature, with a white tag to her brush, and round her four
+or five smutty little cubs, the funniest fellows Tom ever saw.  She lay
+on her back, rolling about, and stretching out her legs and head and tail
+in the bright sunshine; and the cubs jumped over her, and ran round her,
+and nibbled her paws, and lugged her about by the tail; and she seemed to
+enjoy it mightily.  But one selfish little fellow stole away from the
+rest to a dead crow close by, and dragged it off to hide it, though it
+was nearly as big as he was.  Whereat all his little brothers set off
+after him in full cry, and saw Tom; and then all ran back, and up jumped
+Mrs. Vixen, and caught one up in her mouth, and the rest toddled after
+her, and into a dark crack in the rocks; and there was an end of the
+show.
+
+                         [Picture: Fox with cubs]
+
+And next he had a fright; for, as he scrambled up a sandy
+brow—whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock-kick—something went off in his face, with
+a most horrid noise.  He thought the ground had blown up, and the end of
+the world come.
+
+And when he opened his eyes (for he shut them very tight) it was only an
+old cock-grouse, who had been washing himself in sand, like an Arab, for
+want of water; and who, when Tom had all but trodden on him, jumped up
+with a noise like the express train, leaving his wife and children to
+shift for themselves, like an old coward, and went off, screaming
+“Cur-ru-u-uck, cur-ru-u-uck—murder, thieves, fire—cur-u-uck-cock-kick—the
+end of the world is come—kick-kick-cock-kick.”  He was always fancying
+that the end of the world was come, when anything happened which was
+farther off than the end of his own nose.  But the end of the world was
+not come, any more than the twelfth of August was; though the old
+grouse-cock was quite certain of it.
+
+                          [Picture: The grouse]
+
+So the old grouse came back to his wife and family an hour afterwards,
+and said solemnly, “Cock-cock-kick; my dears, the end of the world is not
+quite come; but I assure you it is coming the day after to-morrow—cock.”
+But his wife had heard that so often that she knew all about it, and a
+little more.  And, besides, she was the mother of a family, and had seven
+little poults to wash and feed every day; and that made her very
+practical, and a little sharp-tempered; so all she answered was:
+“Kick-kick-kick—go and catch spiders, go and catch spiders—kick.”
+
+So Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why; but he liked the great wide
+strange place, and the cool fresh bracing air.  But he went more and more
+slowly as he got higher up the hill; for now the ground grew very bad
+indeed.  Instead of soft turf and springy heather, he met great patches
+of flat limestone rock, just like ill-made pavements, with deep cracks
+between the stones and ledges, filled with ferns; so he had to hop from
+stone to stone, and now and then he slipped in between, and hurt his
+little bare toes, though they were tolerably tough ones; but still he
+would go on and up, he could not tell why.
+
+What would Tom have said if he had seen, walking over the moor behind
+him, the very same Irishwoman who had taken his part upon the road?  But
+whether it was that he looked too little behind him, or whether it was
+that she kept out of sight behind the rocks and knolls, he never saw her,
+though she saw him.
+
+And now he began to get a little hungry, and very thirsty; for he had run
+a long way, and the sun had risen high in heaven, and the rock was as hot
+as an oven, and the air danced reels over it, as it does over a limekiln,
+till everything round seemed quivering and melting in the glare.
+
+But he could see nothing to eat anywhere, and still less to drink.
+
+The heath was full of bilberries and whimberries; but they were only in
+flower yet, for it was June.  And as for water; who can find that on the
+top of a limestone rock?  Now and then he passed by a deep dark
+swallow-hole, going down into the earth, as if it was the chimney of some
+dwarfs house underground; and more than once, as he passed, he could hear
+water falling, trickling, tinkling, many many feet below.  How he longed
+to get down to it, and cool his poor baked lips!  But, brave little
+chimney-sweep as he was, he dared not climb down such chimneys as those.
+
+So he went on and on, till his head spun round with the heat, and he
+thought he heard church-bells ringing a long way off.
+
+“Ah!” he thought, “where there is a church there will be houses and
+people; and, perhaps, some one will give me a bit and a sup.”  So he set
+off again, to look for the church; for he was sure that he heard the
+bells quite plain.
+
+And in a minute more, when he looked round, he stopped again, and said,
+“Why, what a big place the world is!”
+
+And so it was; for, from the top of the mountain he could see—what could
+he not see?
+
+Behind him, far below, was Harthover, and the dark woods, and the shining
+salmon river; and on his left, far below, was the town, and the smoking
+chimneys of the collieries; and far, far away, the river widened to the
+shining sea; and little white specks, which were ships, lay on its bosom.
+Before him lay, spread out like a map, great plains, and farms, and
+villages, amid dark knots of trees.  They all seemed at his very feet;
+but he had sense to see that they were long miles away.
+
+And to his right rose moor after moor, hill after hill, till they faded
+away, blue into blue sky.  But between him and those moors, and really at
+his very feet, lay something, to which, as soon as Tom saw it, he
+determined to go, for that was the place for him.
+
+A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow, and filled with wood;
+but through the wood, hundreds of feet below him, he could see a clear
+stream glance.  Oh, if he could but get down to that stream!  Then, by
+the stream, he saw the roof of a little cottage, and a little garden set
+out in squares and beds.  And there was a tiny little red thing moving in
+the garden, no bigger than a fly.  As Tom looked down, he saw that it was
+a woman in a red petticoat.  Ah! perhaps she would give him something to
+eat.  And there were the church-bells ringing again.  Surely there must
+be a village down there.  Well, nobody would know him, or what had
+happened at the Place.  The news could not have got there yet, even if
+Sir John had set all the policemen in the county after him; and he could
+get down there in five minutes.
+
+Tom was quite right about the hue-and-cry not having got thither; for he
+had come without knowing it, the best part of ten miles from Harthover;
+but he was wrong about getting down in five minutes, for the cottage was
+more than a mile off, and a good thousand feet below.
+
+                  [Picture: Youth reclining near stream]
+
+However, down he went; like a brave little man as he was, though he was
+very footsore, and tired, and hungry, and thirsty; while the church-bells
+rang so loud, he began to think that they must be inside his own head,
+and the river chimed and tinkled far below; and this was the song which
+it sang:—
+
+          _Clear and cool_, _clear and cool_,
+       _By laughing shallow_, _and dreaming pool_;
+          _Cool and clear_, _cool and clear_,
+       _By shining shingle_, _and foaming wear_;
+    _Under the crag where the ouzel sings_,
+    _And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings_,
+                _Undefiled_, _for the undefiled_;
+             _Play by me_, _bathe in me_, _mother and child_.
+
+          _Dank and foul_, _dank and foul_,
+       _By the smoky town in its murky cowl_;
+          _Foul and dank_, _foul and dank_,
+       _By wharf and sewer and slimy bank_;
+    _Darker and darker the farther I go_,
+    _Baser and baser the richer I grow_;
+                _Who dares sport with the sin-defiled_?
+             _Shrink from me_, _turn from me_, _mother and child_.
+
+          _Strong and free_, _strong and free_,
+       _The floodgates are open_, _away to the sea_,
+          _Free and strong_, _free and strong_,
+       _Cleansing my streams as I hurry along_,
+    _To the golden sands_, _and the leaping bar_,
+    _And the taintless tide that awaits me afar_.
+    _As I lose myself in the infinite main_,
+    _Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again_.
+             _Undefiled_, _for the undefiled_;
+          _Play by me_, _bathe in me_, _mother and child_.
+
+So Tom went down; and all the while he never saw the Irishwoman going
+down behind him.
+
+                [Picture: Girl and woman walking on beech]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+    “And is there care in heaven? and is there love
+    In heavenly spirits to these creatures base
+    That may compassion of their evils move?
+    There is:—else much more wretched were the case
+    Of men than beasts: But oh! the exceeding grace
+    Of Highest God that loves His creatures so,
+    And all His works with mercy doth embrace,
+    That blessed Angels He sends to and fro,
+    To serve to wicked man, to serve His wicked foe!”
+
+                                                                  SPENSER.
+
+[Picture: Tom at the old dame’s house] A MILE off, and a thousand feet
+down.
+
+So Tom found it; though it seemed as if he could have chucked a pebble on
+to the back of the woman in the red petticoat who was weeding in the
+garden, or even across the dale to the rocks beyond.  For the bottom of
+the valley was just one field broad, and on the other side ran the
+stream; and above it, gray crag, gray down, gray stair, gray moor walled
+up to heaven.
+
+A quiet, silent, rich, happy place; a narrow crack cut deep into the
+earth; so deep, and so out of the way, that the bad bogies can hardly
+find it out.  The name of the place is Vendale; and if you want to see it
+for yourself, you must go up into the High Craven, and search from
+Bolland Forest north by Ingleborough, to the Nine Standards and Cross
+Fell; and if you have not found it, you must turn south, and search the
+Lake Mountains, down to Scaw Fell and the sea; and then, if you have not
+found it, you must go northward again by merry Carlisle, and search the
+Cheviots all across, from Annan Water to Berwick Law; and then, whether
+you have found Vendale or not, you will have found such a country, and
+such a people, as ought to make you proud of being a British boy.
+
+So Tom went to go down; and first he went down three hundred feet of
+steep heather, mixed up with loose brown gritstone, as rough as a file;
+which was not pleasant to his poor little heels, as he came bump, stump,
+jump, down the steep.  And still he thought he could throw a stone into
+the garden.
+
+Then he went down three hundred feet of lime-stone terraces, one below
+the other, as straight as if a carpenter had ruled them with his ruler
+and then cut them out with his chisel.  There was no heath there, but—
+
+First, a little grass slope, covered with the prettiest flowers, rockrose
+and saxifrage, and thyme and basil, and all sorts of sweet herbs.
+
+Then bump down a two-foot step of limestone.
+
+Then another bit of grass and flowers.
+
+Then bump down a one-foot step.
+
+Then another bit of grass and flowers for fifty yards, as steep as the
+house-roof, where he had to slide down on his dear little tail.
+
+Then another step of stone, ten feet high; and there he had to stop
+himself, and crawl along the edge to find a crack; for if he had rolled
+over, he would have rolled right into the old woman’s garden, and
+frightened her out of her wits.
+
+Then, when he had found a dark narrow crack, full of green-stalked fern,
+such as hangs in the basket in the drawing-room, and had crawled down
+through it, with knees and elbows, as he would down a chimney, there was
+another grass slope, and another step, and so on, till—oh, dear me!  I
+wish it was all over; and so did he.  And yet he thought he could throw a
+stone into the old woman’s garden.
+
+At last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs; white-beam with its great
+silver-backed leaves, and mountain-ash, and oak; and below them cliff and
+crag, cliff and crag, with great beds of crown-ferns and wood-sedge;
+while through the shrubs he could see the stream sparkling, and hear it
+murmur on the white pebbles.  He did not know that it was three hundred
+feet below.
+
+You would have been giddy, perhaps, at looking down: but Tom was not.  He
+was a brave little chimney-sweep; and when he found himself on the top of
+a high cliff, instead of sitting down and crying for his baba (though he
+never had had any baba to cry for), he said, “Ah, this will just suit
+me!” though he was very tired; and down he went, by stock and stone,
+sedge and ledge, bush and rush, as if he had been born a jolly little
+black ape, with four hands instead of two.
+
+And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman coming down behind him.
+
+But he was getting terribly tired now.  The burning sun on the fells had
+sucked him up; but the damp heat of the woody crag sucked him up still
+more; and the perspiration ran out of the ends of his fingers and toes,
+and washed him cleaner than he had been for a whole year.  But, of
+course, he dirtied everything, terribly as he went.  There has been a
+great black smudge all down the crag ever since.  And there have been
+more black beetles in Vendale since than ever were known before; all, of
+course, owing to Tom’s having blacked the original papa of them all, just
+as he was setting off to be married, with a sky-blue coat and scarlet
+leggins, as smart as a gardener’s dog with a polyanthus in his mouth.
+
+At last he got to the bottom.  But, behold, it was not the bottom—as
+people usually find when they are coming down a mountain.  For at the
+foot of the crag were heaps and heaps of fallen limestone of every size
+from that of your head to that of a stage-waggon, with holes between them
+full of sweet heath-fern; and before Tom got through them, he was out in
+the bright sunshine again; and then he felt, once for all and suddenly,
+as people generally do, that he was b-e-a-t, beat.
+
+You must expect to be beat a few times in your life, little man, if you
+live such a life as a man ought to live, let you be as strong and healthy
+as you may: and when you are, you will find it a very ugly feeling.  I
+hope that that day you may have a stout staunch friend by you who is not
+beat; for, if you have not, you had best lie where you are, and wait for
+better times, as poor Tom did.
+
+He could not get on.  The sun was burning, and yet he felt chill all
+over.  He was quite empty, and yet he felt quite sick.  There was but two
+hundred yards of smooth pasture between him and the cottage, and yet he
+could not walk down it.  He could hear the stream murmuring only one
+field beyond it, and yet it seemed to him as if it was a hundred miles
+off.
+
+He lay down on the grass till the beetles ran over him, and the flies
+settled on his nose.  I don’t know when he would have got up again, if
+the gnats and the midges had not taken compassion on him.  But the gnats
+blew their trumpets so loud in his ear, and the midges nibbled so at his
+hands and face wherever they could find a place free from soot, that at
+last he woke up, and stumbled away, down over a low wall, and into a
+narrow road, and up to the cottage-door.
+
+And a neat pretty cottage it was, with clipped yew hedges all round the
+garden, and yews inside too, cut into peacocks and trumpets and teapots
+and all kinds of queer shapes.  And out of the open door came a noise
+like that of the frogs on the Great-A, when they know that it is going to
+be scorching hot to-morrow—and how they know that I don’t know, and you
+don’t know, and nobody knows.
+
+He came slowly up to the open door, which was all hung round with
+clematis and roses; and then peeped in, half afraid.
+
+And there sat by the empty fireplace, which was filled with a pot of
+sweet herbs, the nicest old woman that ever was seen, in her red
+petticoat, and short dimity bedgown, and clean white cap, with a black
+silk handkerchief over it, tied under her chin.  At her feet sat the
+grandfather of all the cats; and opposite her sat, on two benches, twelve
+or fourteen neat, rosy, chubby little children, learning their
+Chris-cross-row; and gabble enough they made about it.
+
+Such a pleasant cottage it was, with a shiny clean stone floor, and
+curious old prints on the walls, and an old black oak sideboard full of
+bright pewter and brass dishes, and a cuckoo clock in the corner, which
+began shouting as soon as Tom appeared: not that it was frightened at
+Tom, but that it was just eleven o’clock.
+
+All the children started at Tom’s dirty black figure,—the girls began to
+cry, and the boys began to laugh, and all pointed at him rudely enough;
+but Tom was too tired to care for that.
+
+“What art thou, and what dost want?” cried the old dame.  “A
+chimney-sweep!  Away with thee!  I’ll have no sweeps here.”
+
+“Water,” said poor little Tom, quite faint.
+
+“Water?  There’s plenty i’ the beck,” she said, quite sharply.
+
+“But I can’t get there; I’m most clemmed with hunger and drought.”  And
+Tom sank down upon the door-step, and laid his head against the post.
+
+And the old dame looked at him through her spectacles one minute, and
+two, and three; and then she said, “He’s sick; and a bairn’s a bairn,
+sweep or none.”
+
+“Water,” said Tom.
+
+“God forgive me!” and she put by her spectacles, and rose, and came to
+Tom.  “Water’s bad for thee; I’ll give thee milk.”  And she toddled off
+into the next room, and brought a cup of milk and a bit of bread.
+
+Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then looked up, revived.
+
+“Where didst come from?” said the dame.
+
+“Over Fell, there,” said Tom, and pointed up into the sky.
+
+“Over Harthover? and down Lewthwaite Crag?  Art sure thou art not lying?”
+
+“Why should I?” said Tom, and leant his head against the post.
+
+“And how got ye up there?”
+
+“I came over from the Place;” and Tom was so tired and desperate he had
+no heart or time to think of a story, so he told all the truth in a few
+words.
+
+“Bless thy little heart!  And thou hast not been stealing, then?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Bless thy little heart! and I’ll warrant not.  Why, God’s guided the
+bairn, because he was innocent!  Away from the Place, and over Harthover
+Fell, and down Lewthwaite Crag!  Who ever heard the like, if God hadn’t
+led him?  Why dost not eat thy bread?”
+
+“I can’t.”
+
+“It’s good enough, for I made it myself.”
+
+“I can’t,” said Tom, and he laid his head on his knees, and then asked—
+
+“Is it Sunday?”
+
+“No, then; why should it be?”
+
+“Because I hear the church-bells ringing so.”
+
+“Bless thy pretty heart!  The bairn’s sick.  Come wi’ me, and I’ll hap
+thee up somewhere.  If thou wert a bit cleaner I’d put thee in my own
+bed, for the Lord’s sake.  But come along here.”
+
+But when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired and giddy that she had to
+help him and lead him.
+
+She put him in an outhouse upon soft sweet hay and an old rug, and bade
+him sleep off his walk, and she would come to him when school was over,
+in an hour’s time.
+
+And so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall fast asleep at once.
+
+But Tom did not fall asleep.
+
+Instead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about in the strangest way,
+and felt so hot all over that he longed to get into the river and cool
+himself; and then he fell half asleep, and dreamt that he heard the
+little white lady crying to him, “Oh, you’re so dirty; go and be washed;”
+and then that he heard the Irishwoman saying, “Those that wish to be
+clean, clean they will be.”  And then he heard the church-bells ring so
+loud, close to him too, that he was sure it must be Sunday, in spite of
+what the old dame had said; and he would go to church, and see what a
+church was like inside, for he had never been in one, poor little fellow,
+in all his life.  But the people would never let him come in, all over
+soot and dirt like that.  He must go to the river and wash first.  And he
+said out loud again and again, though being half asleep he did not know
+it, “I must be clean, I must be clean.”
+
+And all of a sudden he found himself, not in the outhouse on the hay, but
+in the middle of a meadow, over the road, with the stream just before
+him, saying continually, “I must be clean, I must be clean.”  He had got
+there on his own legs, between sleep and awake, as children will often
+get out of bed, and go about the room, when they are not quite well.  But
+he was not a bit surprised, and went on to the bank of the brook, and lay
+down on the grass, and looked into the clear, clear limestone water, with
+every pebble at the bottom bright and clean, while the little silver
+trout dashed about in fright at the sight of his black face; and he
+dipped his hand in and found it so cool, cool, cool; and he said, “I will
+be a fish; I will swim in the water; I must be clean, I must be clean.”
+
+So he pulled off all his clothes in such haste that he tore some of them,
+which was easy enough with such ragged old things.  And he put his poor
+hot sore feet into the water; and then his legs; and the farther he went
+in, the more the church-bells rang in his head.
+
+“Ah,” said Tom, “I must be quick and wash myself; the bells are ringing
+quite loud now; and they will stop soon, and then the door will be shut,
+and I shall never be able to get in at all.”
+
+Tom was mistaken: for in England the church doors are left open all
+service time, for everybody who likes to come in, Churchman or Dissenter;
+ay, even if he were a Turk or a Heathen; and if any man dared to turn him
+out, as long as he behaved quietly, the good old English law would punish
+that man, as he deserved, for ordering any peaceable person out of God’s
+house, which belongs to all alike.  But Tom did not know that, any more
+than he knew a great deal more which people ought to know.
+
+And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman, not behind him this time,
+but before.
+
+                     [Picture: The Queen of them all]
+
+For just before he came to the river side, she had stept down into the
+cool clear water; and her shawl and her petticoat floated off her, and
+the green water-weeds floated round her sides, and the white water-lilies
+floated round her head, and the fairies of the stream came up from the
+bottom and bore her away and down upon their arms; for she was the Queen
+of them all; and perhaps of more besides.
+
+“Where have you been?” they asked her.
+
+“I have been smoothing sick folks’ pillows, and whispering sweet dreams
+into their ears; opening cottage casements, to let out the stifling air;
+coaxing little children away from gutters, and foul pools where fever
+breeds; turning women from the gin-shop door, and staying men’s hands as
+they were going to strike their wives; doing all I can to help those who
+will not help themselves: and little enough that is, and weary work for
+me.  But I have brought you a new little brother, and watched him safe
+all the way here.”
+
+Then all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought that they had a
+little brother coming.
+
+“But mind, maidens, he must not see you, or know that you are here.  He
+is but a savage now, and like the beasts which perish; and from the
+beasts which perish he must learn.  So you must not play with him, or
+speak to him, or let him see you: but only keep him from being harmed.”
+
+Then the fairies were sad, because they could not play with their new
+brother, but they always did what they were told.
+
+And their Queen floated away down the river; and whither she went,
+thither she came.  But all this Tom, of course, never saw or heard: and
+perhaps if he had it would have made little difference in the story; for
+was so hot and thirsty, and longed so to be clean for once, that he
+tumbled himself as quick as he could into the clear cool stream.
+
+And he had not been in it two minutes before he fell fast asleep, into
+the quietest, sunniest, cosiest sleep that ever he had in his life; and
+he dreamt about the green meadows by which he had walked that morning,
+and the tall elm-trees, and the sleeping cows; and after that he dreamt
+of nothing at all.
+
+The reason of his falling into such a delightful sleep is very simple;
+and yet hardly any one has found it out.  It was merely that the fairies
+took him.
+
+Some people think that there are no fairies.  Cousin Cramchild tells
+little folks so in his Conversations.  Well, perhaps there are none—in
+Boston, U.S., where he was raised.  There are only a clumsy lot of
+spirits there, who can’t make people hear without thumping on the table:
+but they get their living thereby, and I suppose that is all they want.
+And Aunt Agitate, in her Arguments on political economy, says there are
+none.  Well, perhaps there are none—in her political economy.  But it is
+a wide world, my little man—and thank Heaven for it, for else, between
+crinolines and theories, some of us would get squashed—and plenty of room
+in it for fairies, without people seeing them; unless, of course, they
+look in the right place.  The most wonderful and the strongest things in
+the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.  There is
+life in you; and it is the life in you which makes you grow, and move,
+and think: and yet you can’t see it.  And there is steam in a
+steam-engine; and that is what makes it move: and yet you can’t see it;
+and so there may be fairies in the world, and they may be just what makes
+the world go round to the old tune of
+
+    “_C’est l’amour_, _l’amour_, _l’amour_
+    _Qui fait la monde à la ronde_:”
+
+[Picture: Fairy cherub with arrow] and yet no one may be able to see them
+except those whose hearts are going round to that same tune.  At all
+events, we will make believe that there are fairies in the world.  It
+will not be the last time by many a one that we shall have to make
+believe.  And yet, after all, there is no need for that.  There must be
+fairies; for this is a fairy tale: and how can one have a fairy tale if
+there are no fairies?
+
+You don’t see the logic of that?  Perhaps not.  Then please not to see
+the logic of a great many arguments exactly like it, which you will hear
+before your beard is gray.
+
+The kind old dame came back at twelve, when school was over, to look at
+Tom: but there was no Tom there.  She looked about for his footprints;
+but the ground was so hard that there was no slot, as they say in dear
+old North Devon.  And if you grow up to be a brave healthy man, you may
+know some day what no slot means, and know too, I hope, what a slot does
+mean—a broad slot, with blunt claws, which makes a man put out his cigar,
+and set his teeth, and tighten his girths, when he sees it; and what his
+rights mean, if he has them, brow, bay, tray, and points; and see
+something worth seeing between Haddon Wood and Countisbury Cliff, with
+good Mr. Palk Collyns to show you the way, and mend your bones as fast as
+you smash them.  Only when that jolly day comes, please don’t break your
+neck; stogged in a mire you never will be, I trust; for you are a
+heath-cropper bred and born.
+
+So the old dame went in again quite sulky, thinking that little Tom had
+tricked her with a false story, and shammed ill, and then run away again.
+
+But she altered her mind the next day.  For, when Sir John and the rest
+of them had run themselves out of breath, and lost Tom, they went back
+again, looking very foolish.
+
+And they looked more foolish still when Sir John heard more of the story
+from the nurse; and more foolish still, again, when they heard the whole
+story from Miss Ellie, the little lady in white.  All she had seen was a
+poor little black chimney-sweep, crying and sobbing, and going to get up
+the chimney again.  Of course, she was very much frightened: and no
+wonder.  But that was all.  The boy had taken nothing in the room; by the
+mark of his little sooty feet, they could see that he had never been off
+the hearthrug till the nurse caught hold of him.  It was all a mistake.
+
+So Sir John told Grimes to go home, and promised him five shillings if he
+would bring the boy quietly up to him, without beating him, that he might
+be sure of the truth.  For he took for granted, and Grimes too, that Tom
+had made his way home.
+
+But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that evening; and he went to the
+police-office, to tell them to look out for the boy.  But no Tom was
+heard of.  As for his having gone over those great fells to Vendale, they
+no more dreamed of that than of his having gone to the moon.
+
+So Mr. Grimes came up to Harthover next day with a very sour face; but
+when he got there, Sir John was over the hills and far away; and Mr.
+Grimes had to sit in the outer servants’ hall all day, and drink strong
+ale to wash away his sorrows; and they were washed away long before Sir
+John came back.
+
+For good Sir John had slept very badly that night; and he said to his
+lady, “My dear, the boy must have got over into the grouse-moors, and
+lost himself; and he lies very heavily on my conscience, poor little lad.
+But I know what I will do.”
+
+                           [Picture: Sir John]
+
+So, at five the next morning up he got, and into his bath, and into his
+shooting-jacket and gaiters, and into the stableyard, like a fine old
+English gentleman, with a face as red as a rose, and a hand as hard as a
+table, and a back as broad as a bullock’s; and bade them bring his
+shooting pony, and the keeper to come on his pony, and the huntsman, and
+the first whip, and the second whip, and the under-keeper with the
+bloodhound in a leash—a great dog as tall as a calf, of the colour of a
+gravel-walk, with mahogany ears and nose, and a throat like a
+church-bell.  They took him up to the place where Tom had gone into the
+wood; and there the hound lifted up his mighty voice, and told them all
+he knew.
+
+Then he took them to the place where Tom had climbed the wall; and they
+shoved it down, and all got through.
+
+And then the wise dog took them over the moor, and over the fells, step
+by step, very slowly; for the scent was a day old, you know, and very
+light from the heat and drought.  But that was why cunning old Sir John
+started at five in the morning.
+
+And at last he came to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and there he bayed,
+and looked up in their faces, as much as to say, “I tell you he is gone
+down here!”
+
+They could hardly believe that Tom would have gone so far; and when they
+looked at that awful cliff, they could never believe that he would have
+dared to face it.  But if the dog said so, it must be true.
+
+“Heaven forgive us!” said Sir John.  “If we find him at all, we shall
+find him lying at the bottom.”  And he slapped his great hand upon his
+great thigh, and said—
+
+“Who will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, and see if that boy is alive?  Oh
+that I were twenty years younger, and I would go down myself!”  And so he
+would have done, as well as any sweep in the county.  Then he said—
+
+“Twenty pounds to the man who brings me that boy alive!” and as was his
+way, what he said he meant.
+
+Now among the lot was a little groom-boy, a very little groom indeed; and
+he was the same who had ridden up the court, and told Tom to come to the
+Hall; and he said—
+
+“Twenty pounds or none, I will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, if it’s only
+for the poor boy’s sake.  For he was as civil a spoken little chap as
+ever climbed a flue.”
+
+So down over Lewthwaite Crag he went: a very smart groom he was at the
+top, and a very shabby one at the bottom; for he tore his gaiters, and he
+tore his breeches, and he tore his jacket, and he burst his braces, and
+he burst his boots, and he lost his hat, and what was worst of all, he
+lost his shirt pin, which he prized very much, for it was gold, and he
+had won it in a raffle at Malton, and there was a figure at the top of
+it, of t’ould mare, noble old Beeswing herself, as natural as life; so it
+was a really severe loss: but he never saw anything of Tom.
+
+And all the while Sir John and the rest were riding round, full three
+miles to the right, and back again, to get into Vendale, and to the foot
+of the crag.
+
+When they came to the old dame’s school, all the children came out to
+see.  And the old dame came out too; and when she saw Sir John, she
+curtsied very low, for she was a tenant of his.
+
+“Well, dame, and how are you?” said Sir John.
+
+“Blessings on you as broad as your back, Harthover,” says she—she didn’t
+call him Sir John, but only Harthover, for that is the fashion in the
+North country—“and welcome into Vendale: but you’re no hunting the fox
+this time of the year?”
+
+“I am hunting, and strange game too,” said he.
+
+“Blessings on your heart, and what makes you look so sad the morn?”
+
+“I’m looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep, that is run away.”
+
+“Oh, Harthover, Harthover,” says she, “ye were always a just man and a
+merciful; and ye’ll no harm the poor little lad if I give you tidings of
+him?”
+
+“Not I, not I, dame.  I’m afraid we hunted him out of the house all on a
+miserable mistake, and the hound has brought him to the top of Lewthwaite
+Crag, and—”
+
+Whereat the old dame broke out crying, without letting him finish his
+story.
+
+“So he told me the truth after all, poor little dear!  Ah, first thoughts
+are best, and a body’s heart’ll guide them right, if they will but
+hearken to it.”  And then she told Sir John all.
+
+“Bring the dog here, and lay him on,” said Sir John, without another
+word, and he set his teeth very hard.
+
+And the dog opened at once; and went away at the back of the cottage,
+over the road, and over the meadow, and through a bit of alder copse; and
+there, upon an alder stump, they saw Tom’s clothes lying.  And then they
+knew as much about it all as there was any need to know.
+
+And Tom?
+
+Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this wonderful story.  Tom, when
+he woke, for of course he woke—children always wake after they have slept
+exactly as long as is good for them—found himself swimming about in the
+stream, being about four inches, or—that I may be accurate—3.87902 inches
+long and having round the parotid region of his fauces a set of external
+gills (I hope you understand all the big words) just like those of a
+sucking eft, which he mistook for a lace frill, till he pulled at them,
+found he hurt himself, and made up his mind that they were part of
+himself, and best left alone.
+
+In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.
+
+A water-baby?  You never heard of a water-baby.  Perhaps not.  That is
+the very reason why this story was written.  There are a great many
+things in the world which you never heard of; and a great many more which
+nobody ever heard of; and a great many things, too, which nobody will
+ever hear of, at least until the coming of the Cocqcigrues, when man
+shall be the measure of all things.
+
+“But there are no such things as water-babies.”
+
+How do you know that?  Have you been there to see?  And if you had been
+there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that there were
+none.  If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley Wood—as folks
+sometimes fear he never will—that does not prove that there are no such
+things as foxes.  And as is Eversley Wood to all the woods in England, so
+are the waters we know to all the waters in the world.  And no one has a
+right to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen no
+water-babies existing; which is quite a different thing, mind, from not
+seeing water-babies; and a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps ever
+will do.
+
+                          [Picture: Water baby]
+
+“But surely if there were water-babies, somebody would have caught one at
+least?”
+
+Well.  How do you know that somebody has not?
+
+“But they would have put it into spirits, or into the _Illustrated News_,
+or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing, and sent one
+to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see what they would
+each say about it.”
+
+Ah, my dear little man! that does not follow at all, as you will see
+before the end of the story.
+
+“But a water-baby is contrary to nature.”
+
+Well, but, my dear little man, you must learn to talk about such things,
+when you grow older, in a very different way from that.  You must not
+talk about “ain’t” and “can’t” when you speak of this great wonderful
+world round you, of which the wisest man knows only the very smallest
+corner, and is, as the great Sir Isaac Newton said, only a child picking
+up pebbles on the shore of a boundless ocean.
+
+                [Picture: Examining a water baby in a jar]
+
+You must not say that this cannot be, or that that is contrary to nature.
+You do not know what Nature is, or what she can do; and nobody knows; not
+even Sir Roderick Murchison, or Professor Owen, or Professor Sedgwick, or
+Professor Huxley, or Mr. Darwin, or Professor Faraday, or Mr. Grove, or
+any other of the great men whom good boys are taught to respect.  They
+are very wise men; and you must listen respectfully to all they say: but
+even if they should say, which I am sure they never would, “That cannot
+exist.  That is contrary to nature,” you must wait a little, and see; for
+perhaps even they may be wrong.  It is only children who read Aunt
+Agitate’s Arguments, or Cousin Cramchild’s Conversations; or lads who go
+to popular lectures, and see a man pointing at a few big ugly pictures on
+the wall, or making nasty smells with bottles and squirts, for an hour or
+two, and calling that anatomy or chemistry—who talk about “cannot exist,”
+and “contrary to nature.”  Wise men are afraid to say that there is
+anything contrary to nature, except what is contrary to mathematical
+truth; for two and two cannot make five, and two straight lines cannot
+join twice, and a part cannot be as great as the whole, and so on (at
+least, so it seems at present): but the wiser men are, the less they talk
+about “cannot.”  That is a very rash, dangerous word, that “cannot”; and
+if people use it too often, the Queen of all the Fairies, who makes the
+clouds thunder and the fleas bite, and takes just as much trouble about
+one as about the other, is apt to astonish them suddenly by showing them,
+that though they say she cannot, yet she can, and what is more, will,
+whether they approve or not.
+
+And therefore it is, that there are dozens and hundreds of things in the
+world which we should certainly have said were contrary to nature, if we
+did not see them going on under our eyes all day long.  If people had
+never seen little seeds grow into great plants and trees, of quite
+different shape from themselves, and these trees again produce fresh
+seeds, to grow into fresh trees, they would have said, “The thing cannot
+be; it is contrary to nature.”  And they would have been quite as right
+in saying so, as in saying that most other things cannot be.
+
+Or suppose again, that you had come, like M. Du Chaillu, a traveller from
+unknown parts; and that no human being had ever seen or heard of an
+elephant.  And suppose that you described him to people, and said, “This
+is the shape, and plan, and anatomy of the beast, and of his feet, and of
+his trunk, and of his grinders, and of his tusks, though they are not
+tusks at all, but two fore teeth run mad; and this is the section of his
+skull, more like a mushroom than a reasonable skull of a reasonable or
+unreasonable beast; and so forth, and so forth; and though the beast
+(which I assure you I have seen and shot) is first cousin to the little
+hairy coney of Scripture, second cousin to a pig, and (I suspect)
+thirteenth or fourteenth cousin to a rabbit, yet he is the wisest of all
+beasts, and can do everything save read, write, and cast accounts.”
+People would surely have said, “Nonsense; your elephant is contrary to
+nature;” and have thought you were telling stories—as the French thought
+of Le Vaillant when he came back to Paris and said that he had shot a
+giraffe; and as the king of the Cannibal Islands thought of the English
+sailor, when he said that in his country water turned to marble, and rain
+fell as feathers.  They would tell you, the more they knew of science,
+“Your elephant is an impossible monster, contrary to the laws of
+comparative anatomy, as far as yet known.”  To which you would answer the
+less, the more you thought.
+
+Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last twenty-five years,
+that a flying dragon was an impossible monster?  And do we not now know
+that there are hundreds of them found fossil up and down the world?
+People call them Pterodactyles: but that is only because they are ashamed
+to call them flying dragons, after denying so long that flying dragons
+could exist.
+
+The truth is, that folks’ fancy that such and such things cannot be,
+simply because they have not seen them, is worth no more than a savage’s
+fancy that there cannot be such a thing as a locomotive, because he never
+saw one running wild in the forest.  Wise men know that their business is
+to examine what is, and not to settle what is not.  They know that there
+are elephants; they know that there have been flying dragons; and the
+wiser they are, the less inclined they will be to say positively that
+there are no water-babies.
+
+No water-babies, indeed?  Why, wise men of old said that everything on
+earth had its double in the water; and you may see that that is, if not
+quite true, still quite as true as most other theories which you are
+likely to hear for many a day.  There are land-babies—then why not
+water-babies?  _Are there not water-rats_, _water-flies_,
+_water-crickets_, _water-crabs_, _water-tortoises_, _water-scorpions_,
+_water-tigers and water-hogs_, _water-cats and water-dogs_, _sea-lions
+and sea-bears_, _sea-horses and sea-elephants_, _sea-mice and
+sea-urchins_, _sea-razors and sea-pens_, _sea-combs and sea-fans_; _and
+of plants_, _are there not water-grass_, _and water-crowfoot_,
+_water-milfoil_, _and so on_, _without end_?
+
+“But all these things are only nicknames; the water things are not really
+akin to the land things.”
+
+That’s not always true.  They are, in millions of cases, not only of the
+same family, but actually the same individual creatures.  Do not even you
+know that a green drake, and an alder-fly, and a dragon-fly, live under
+water till they change their skins, just as Tom changed his?  And if a
+water animal can continually change into a land animal, why should not a
+land animal sometimes change into a water animal?  Don’t be put down by
+any of Cousin Cramchild’s arguments, but stand up to him like a man, and
+answer him (quite respectfully, of course) thus:—
+
+If Cousin Cramchild says, that if there are water-babies, they must grow
+into water-men, ask him how he knows that they do not? and then, how he
+knows that they must, any more than the Proteus of the Adelsberg caverns
+grows into a perfect newt.
+
+If he says that it is too strange a transformation for a land-baby to
+turn into a water-baby, ask him if he ever heard of the transformation of
+Syllis, or the Distomas, or the common jelly-fish, of which M.
+Quatrefages says excellently well—“Who would not exclaim that a miracle
+had come to pass, if he saw a reptile come out of the egg dropped by the
+hen in his poultry-yard, and the reptile give birth at once to an
+indefinite number of fishes and birds?  Yet the history of the jelly-fish
+is quite as wonderful as that would be.”  Ask him if he knows about all
+this; and if he does not, tell him to go and look for himself; and advise
+him (very respectfully, of course) to settle no more what strange things
+cannot happen, till he has seen what strange things do happen every day.
+
+If he says that things cannot degrade, that is, change downwards into
+lower forms, ask him, who told him that water-babies were lower than
+land-babies?  But even if they were, does he know about the strange
+degradation of the common goose-barnacles, which one finds sticking on
+ships’ bottoms; or the still stranger degradation of some cousins of
+theirs, of which one hardly likes to talk, so shocking and ugly it is?
+
+And, lastly, if he says (as he most certainly will) that these
+transformations only take place in the lower animals, and not in the
+higher, say that that seems to little boys, and to some grown people, a
+very strange fancy.  For if the changes of the lower animals are so
+wonderful, and so difficult to discover, why should not there be changes
+in the higher animals far more wonderful, and far more difficult to
+discover?  And may not man, the crown and flower of all things, undergo
+some change as much more wonderful than all the rest, as the Great
+Exhibition is more wonderful than a rabbit-burrow?  Let him answer that.
+And if he says (as he will) that not having seen such a change in his
+experience, he is not bound to believe it, ask him respectfully, where
+his microscope has been?  Does not each of us, in coming into this world,
+go through a transformation just as wonderful as that of a sea-egg, or a
+butterfly? and do not reason and analogy, as well as Scripture, tell us
+that that transformation is not the last? and that, though what we shall
+be, we know not, yet we are here but as the crawling caterpillar, and
+shall be hereafter as the perfect fly.  The old Greeks, heathens as they
+were, saw as much as that two thousand years ago; and I care very little
+for Cousin Cramchild, if he sees even less than they.  And so forth, and
+so forth, till he is quite cross.  And then tell him that if there are no
+water-babies, at least there ought to be; and that, at least, he cannot
+answer.
+
+And meanwhile, my dear little man, till you know a great deal more about
+nature than Professor Owen and Professor Huxley put together, don’t tell
+me about what cannot be, or fancy that anything is too wonderful to be
+true.  “We are fearfully and wonderfully made,” said old David; and so we
+are; and so is everything around us, down to the very deal table.  Yes;
+much more fearfully and wonderfully made, already, is the table, as it
+stands now, nothing but a piece of dead deal wood, than if, as foxes say,
+and geese believe, spirits could make it dance, or talk to you by rapping
+on it.
+
+Am I in earnest?  Oh dear no!  Don’t you know that this is a fairy tale,
+and all fun and pretence; and that you are not to believe one word of it,
+even if it is true?
+
+But at all events, so it happened to Tom.  And, therefore, the keeper,
+and the groom, and Sir John made a great mistake, and were very unhappy
+(Sir John at least) without any reason, when they found a black thing in
+the water, and said it was Tom’s body, and that he had been drowned.
+They were utterly mistaken.  Tom was quite alive; and cleaner, and
+merrier, than he ever had been.  The fairies had washed him, you see, in
+the swift river, so thoroughly, that not only his dirt, but his whole
+husk and shell had been washed quite off him, and the pretty little real
+Tom was washed out of the inside of it, and swam away, as a caddis does
+when its case of stones and silk is bored through, and away it goes on
+its back, paddling to the shore, there to split its skin, and fly away as
+a caperer, on four fawn-coloured wings, with long legs and horns.  They
+are foolish fellows, the caperers, and fly into the candle at night, if
+you leave the door open.  We will hope Tom will be wiser, now he has got
+safe out of his sooty old shell.
+
+                       [Picture: Collage of events]
+
+But good Sir John did not understand all this, not being a fellow of the
+Linnæan Society; and he took it into his head that Tom was drowned.  When
+they looked into the empty pockets of his shell, and found no jewels
+there, nor money—nothing but three marbles, and a brass button with a
+string to it—then Sir John did something as like crying as ever he did in
+his life, and blamed himself more bitterly than he need have done.  So he
+cried, and the groom-boy cried, and the huntsman cried, and the dame
+cried, and the little girl cried, and the dairymaid cried, and the old
+nurse cried (for it was somewhat her fault), and my lady cried, for
+though people have wigs, that is no reason why they should not have
+hearts; but the keeper did not cry, though he had been so good-natured to
+Tom the morning before; for he was so dried up with running after
+poachers, that you could no more get tears out of him than milk out of
+leather: and Grimes did not cry, for Sir John gave him ten pounds, and he
+drank it all in a week.  Sir John sent, far and wide, to find Tom’s
+father and mother: but he might have looked till Doomsday for them, for
+one was dead, and the other was in Botany Bay.  And the little girl would
+not play with her dolls for a whole week, and never forgot poor little
+Tom.  And soon my lady put a pretty little tombstone over Tom’s shell in
+the little churchyard in Vendale, where the old dalesmen all sleep side
+by side between the lime-stone crags.  And the dame decked it with
+garlands every Sunday, till she grew so old that she could not stir
+abroad; then the little children decked it, for her.  And always she sang
+an old old song, as she sat spinning what she called her wedding-dress.
+The children could not understand it, but they liked it none the less for
+that; for it was very sweet, and very sad; and that was enough for them.
+And these are the words of it:—
+
+    _When all the world is young_, _lad_,
+       _And all the trees are green_;
+    _And every goose a swan_, _lad_,
+       _And every lass a queen_;
+    _Then hey for boot and horse_, _lad_,
+       _And round the world away_;
+    _Young blood must have its course_, _lad_,
+       _And every dog his day_.
+
+    _When all the world is old_, _lad_,
+       _And all the trees are brown_;
+    _And all the sport is stale_, _lad_,
+       _And all the wheels run down_;
+    _Creep home_, _and take your place there_,
+       _The spent and maimed among_:
+    _God grant you find one face there_,
+       _You loved when all was young_.
+
+                     [Picture: Time and the old man]
+
+Those are the words: but they are only the body of it: the soul of the
+song was the dear old woman’s sweet face, and sweet voice, and the sweet
+old air to which she sang; and that, alas! one cannot put on paper.  And
+at last she grew so stiff and lame, that the angels were forced to carry
+her; and they helped her on with her wedding-dress, and carried her up
+over Harthover Fells, and a long way beyond that too; and there was a new
+schoolmistress in Vendale, and we will hope that she was not
+certificated.
+
+And all the while Tom was swimming about in the river, with a pretty
+little lace-collar of gills about his neck, as lively as a grig, and as
+clean as a fresh-run salmon.
+
+Now if you don’t like my story, then go to the schoolroom and learn your
+multiplication-table, and see if you like that better.  Some people, no
+doubt, would do so.  So much the better for us, if not for them.  It
+takes all sorts, they say, to make a world.
+
+                      [Picture: Water baby and sums]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+    “He prayeth well who loveth well
+    Both men and bird and beast;
+    He prayeth best who loveth best
+    All things both great and small:
+    For the dear God who loveth us,
+    He made and loveth all.”
+
+                                                                COLERIDGE.
+
+[Picture: Mermaid] TOM was now quite amphibious.  You do not know what
+that means?  You had better, then, ask the nearest Government
+pupil-teacher, who may possibly answer you smartly enough, thus—
+
+“Amphibious.  Adjective, derived from two Greek words, _amphi_, a fish,
+and _bios_, a beast.  An animal supposed by our ignorant ancestors to be
+compounded of a fish and a beast; which therefore, like the hippopotamus,
+can’t live on the land, and dies in the water.”
+
+However that may be, Tom was amphibious: and what is better still, he was
+clean.  For the first time in his life, he felt how comfortable it was to
+have nothing on him but himself.  But he only enjoyed it: he did not know
+it, or think about it; just as you enjoy life and health, and yet never
+think about being alive and healthy; and may it be long before you have
+to think about it!
+
+He did not remember having ever been dirty.  Indeed, he did not remember
+any of his old troubles, being tired, or hungry, or beaten, or sent up
+dark chimneys.  Since that sweet sleep, he had forgotten all about his
+master, and Harthover Place, and the little white girl, and in a word,
+all that had happened to him when he lived before; and what was best of
+all, he had forgotten all the bad words which he had learned from Grimes,
+and the rude boys with whom he used to play.
+
+That is not strange: for you know, when you came into this world, and
+became a land-baby, you remembered nothing.  So why should he, when he
+became a water-baby?
+
+Then have you lived before?
+
+My dear child, who can tell?  One can only tell that, by remembering
+something which happened where we lived before; and as we remember
+nothing, we know nothing about it; and no book, and no man, can ever tell
+us certainly.
+
+There was a wise man once, a very wise man, and a very good man, who
+wrote a poem about the feelings which some children have about having
+lived before; and this is what he said—
+
+    “_Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting_;
+    _The soul that rises with us_, _our life’s star_,
+                _Hath elsewhere had its setting_,
+                   _And cometh from afar_:
+             _Not in entire forgetfulness_,
+             _And not in utter nakedness_,
+    _But trailing clouds of glory_, _do we come_
+                _From God_, _who is our home_.”
+
+                         [Picture: Woman teacher]
+
+There, you can know no more than that.  But if I was you, I would believe
+that.  For then the great fairy Science, who is likely to be queen of all
+the fairies for many a year to come, can only do you good, and never do
+you harm; and instead of fancying with some people, that your body makes
+your soul, as if a steam-engine could make its own coke; or, with some
+people, that your soul has nothing to do with your body, but is only
+stuck into it like a pin into a pincushion, to fall out with the first
+shake;—you will believe the one true,
+
+_orthodox_,         _inductive_,
+_rational_,         _deductive_,
+_philosophical_,    _seductive_,
+_logical_,          _productive_,
+_irrefragable_,     _salutary_,
+_nominalistic_,     _comfortable_,
+_realistic_,
+_and
+on-all-accounts-to-be-received_
+
+doctrine of this wonderful fairy tale; which is, that your soul makes
+your body, just as a snail makes his shell.  For the rest, it is enough
+for us to be sure that whether or not we lived before, we shall live
+again; though not, I hope, as poor little heathen Tom did.  For he went
+downward into the water: but we, I hope, shall go upward to a very
+different place.
+
+                       [Picture: Tom in the stream]
+
+But Tom was very happy in the water.  He had been sadly overworked in the
+land-world; and so now, to make up for that, he had nothing but holidays
+in the water-world for a long, long time to come.  He had nothing to do
+now but enjoy himself, and look at all the pretty things which are to be
+seen in the cool clear water-world, where the sun is never too hot, and
+the frost is never too cold.
+
+[Picture: Insect] And what did he live on?  Water-cresses, perhaps; or
+perhaps water-gruel, and water-milk; too many land-babies do so likewise.
+But we do not know what one-tenth of the water-things eat; so we are not
+answerable for the water-babies.
+
+Sometimes he went along the smooth gravel water-ways, looking at the
+crickets which ran in and out among the stones, as rabbits do on land; or
+he climbed over the ledges of rock, and saw the sand-pipes hanging in
+thousands, with every one of them a pretty little head and legs peeping
+out; or he went into a still corner, and watched the caddises eating dead
+sticks as greedily as you would eat plum-pudding, and building their
+houses with silk and glue.  Very fanciful ladies they were; none of them
+would keep to the same materials for a day.  One would begin with some
+pebbles; then she would stick on a piece of green wood; then she found a
+shell, and stuck it on too; and the poor shell was alive, and did not
+like at all being taken to build houses with: but the caddis did not let
+him have any voice in the matter, being rude and selfish, as vain people
+are apt to be; then she stuck on a piece of rotten wood, then a very
+smart pink stone, and so on, till she was patched all over like an
+Irishman’s coat.  Then she found a long straw, five times as long as
+herself, and said, “Hurrah! my sister has a tail, and I’ll have one too;”
+and she stuck it on her back, and marched about with it quite proud,
+though it was very inconvenient indeed.  And, at that, tails became all
+the fashion among the caddis-baits in that pool, as they were at the end
+of the Long Pond last May, and they all toddled about with long straws
+sticking out behind, getting between each other’s legs, and tumbling over
+each other, and looking so ridiculous, that Tom laughed at them till he
+cried, as we did.  But they were quite right, you know; for people must
+always follow the fashion, even if it be spoon-bonnets.
+
+[Picture: Lady in 1862 bonnet] Then sometimes he came to a deep still
+reach; and there he saw the water-forests.  They would have looked to you
+only little weeds: but Tom, you must remember, was so little that
+everything looked a hundred times as big to him as it does to you, just
+as things do to a minnow, who sees and catches the little water-creatures
+which you can only see in a microscope.
+
+And in the water-forest he saw the water-monkeys and water-squirrels
+(they had all six legs, though; everything almost has six legs in the
+water, except efts and water-babies); and nimbly enough they ran among
+the branches.  There were water-flowers there too, in thousands; and Tom
+tried to pick them: but as soon as he touched them, they drew themselves
+in and turned into knots of jelly; and then Tom saw that they were all
+alive—bells, and stars, and wheels, and flowers, of all beautiful shapes
+and colours; and all alive and busy, just as Tom was.  So now he found
+that there was a great deal more in the world than he had fancied at
+first sight.
+
+There was one wonderful little fellow, too, who peeped out of the top of
+a house built of round bricks.  He had two big wheels, and one little
+one, all over teeth, spinning round and round like the wheels in a
+thrashing-machine; and Tom stood and stared at him, to see what he was
+going to make with his machinery.  And what do you think he was doing?
+Brick-making.  With his two big wheels he swept together all the mud
+which floated in the water: all that was nice in it he put into his
+stomach and ate; and all the mud he put into the little wheel on his
+breast, which really was a round hole set with teeth; and there he spun
+it into a neat hard round brick; and then he took it and stuck it on the
+top of his house-wall, and set to work to make another. Now was not he a
+clever little fellow?
+
+Tom thought so: but when he wanted to talk to him the brick-maker was
+much too busy and proud of his work to take notice of him.
+
+Now you must know that all the things under the water talk; only not such
+a language as ours; but such as horses, and dogs, and cows, and birds
+talk to each other; and Tom soon learned to understand them and talk to
+them; so that he might have had very pleasant company if he had only been
+a good boy.  But I am sorry to say, he was too like some other little
+boys, very fond of hunting and tormenting creatures for mere sport.  Some
+people say that boys cannot help it; that it is nature, and only a proof
+that we are all originally descended from beasts of prey.  But whether it
+is nature or not, little boys can help it, and must help it.  For if they
+have naughty, low, mischievous tricks in their nature, as monkeys have,
+that is no reason why they should give way to those tricks like monkeys,
+who know no better.  And therefore they must not torment dumb creatures;
+for if they do, a certain old lady who is coming will surely give them
+exactly what they deserve.
+
+But Tom did not know that; and he pecked and howked the poor water-things
+about sadly, till they were all afraid of him, and got out of his way, or
+crept into their shells; so he had no one to speak to or play with.
+
+The water-fairies, of course, were very sorry to see him so unhappy, and
+longed to take him, and tell him how naughty he was, and teach him to be
+good, and to play and romp with him too: but they had been forbidden to
+do that.  Tom had to learn his lesson for himself by sound and sharp
+experience, as many another foolish person has to do, though there may be
+many a kind heart yearning over them all the while, and longing to teach
+them what they can only teach themselves.
+
+At last one day he found a caddis, and wanted it to peep out of its
+house: but its house-door was shut.  He had never seen a caddis with a
+house-door before: so what must he do, the meddlesome little fellow, but
+pull it open, to see what the poor lady was doing inside.  What a shame!
+How should you like to have any one breaking your bedroom-door in, to see
+how you looked when you where in bed?  So Tom broke to pieces the door,
+which was the prettiest little grating of silk, stuck all over with
+shining bits of crystal; and when he looked in, the caddis poked out her
+head, and it had turned into just the shape of a bird’s.  But when Tom
+spoke to her she could not answer; for her mouth and face were tight tied
+up in a new night-cap of neat pink skin.  However, if she didn’t answer,
+all the other caddises did; for they held up their hands and shrieked
+like the cats in Struwelpeter: “_Oh_, _you nasty horrid boy_; _there you
+are at it again_!  _And she had just laid herself up for a fortnight’s
+sleep_, _and then she would have come out with such beautiful wings_,
+_and flown about_, _and laid such lots of eggs_: _and now you have broken
+her door_, _and she can’t mend it because her mouth is tied up for a
+fortnight_, _and she will die_.  _Who sent you here to worry us out of
+our lives_?”
+
+                        [Picture: Tom and a fish]
+
+So Tom swam away.  He was very much ashamed of himself, and felt all the
+naughtier; as little boys do when they have done wrong and won’t say so.
+
+Then he came to a pool full of little trout, and began tormenting them,
+and trying to catch them: but they slipped through his fingers, and
+jumped clean out of water in their fright.  But as Tom chased them, he
+came close to a great dark hover under an alder root, and out floushed a
+huge old brown trout ten times as big as he was, and ran right against
+him, and knocked all the breath out of his body; and I don’t know which
+was the more frightened of the two.
+
+Then he went on sulky and lonely, as he deserved to be; and under a bank
+he saw a very ugly dirty creature sitting, about half as big as himself;
+which had six legs, and a big stomach, and a most ridiculous head with
+two great eyes and a face just like a donkey’s.
+
+“Oh,” said Tom, “you are an ugly fellow to be sure!” and he began making
+faces at him; and put his nose close to him, and halloed at him, like a
+very rude boy.
+
+When, hey presto; all the thing’s donkey-face came off in a moment, and
+out popped a long arm with a pair of pincers at the end of it, and caught
+Tom by the nose.  It did not hurt him much; but it held him quite tight.
+
+“Yah, ah!  Oh, let me go!” cried Tom.
+
+“Then let me go,” said the creature.  “I want to be quiet.  I want to
+split.”
+
+Tom promised to let him alone, and he let go.
+
+“Why do you want to split?” said Tom.
+
+“Because my brothers and sisters have all split, and turned into
+beautiful creatures with wings; and I want to split too.  Don’t speak to
+me.  I am sure I shall split.  I will split!”
+
+Tom stood still, and watched him.  And he swelled himself, and puffed,
+and stretched himself out stiff, and at last—crack, puff, bang—he opened
+all down his back, and then up to the top of his head.
+
+And out of his inside came the most slender, elegant, soft creature, as
+soft and smooth as Tom: but very pale and weak, like a little child who
+has been ill a long time in a dark room.  It moved its legs very feebly;
+and looked about it half ashamed, like a girl when she goes for the first
+time into a ballroom; and then it began walking slowly up a grass stem to
+the top of the water.
+
+Tom was so astonished that he never said a word but he stared with all
+his eyes.  And he went up to the top of the water too, and peeped out to
+see what would happen.
+
+And as the creature sat in the warm bright sun, a wonderful change came
+over it.  It grew strong and firm; the most lovely colours began to show
+on its body, blue and yellow and black, spots and bars and rings; out of
+its back rose four great wings of bright brown gauze; and its eyes grew
+so large that they filled all its head, and shone like ten thousand
+diamonds.
+
+“Oh, you beautiful creature!” said Tom; and he put out his hand to catch
+it.
+
+But the thing whirred up into the air, and hung poised on its wings a
+moment, and then settled down again by Tom quite fearless.
+
+                    [Picture: Tom and the dragon-fly]
+
+“No!” it said, “you cannot catch me.  I am a dragon-fly now, the king of
+all the flies; and I shall dance in the sunshine, and hawk over the
+river, and catch gnats, and have a beautiful wife like myself.  I know
+what I shall do.  Hurrah!”  And he flew away into the air, and began
+catching gnats.
+
+“Oh! come back, come back,” cried Tom, “you beautiful creature.  I have
+no one to play with, and I am so lonely here.  If you will but come back
+I will never try to catch you.”
+
+“I don’t care whether you do or not,” said the dragon-fly; “for you
+can’t.  But when I have had my dinner, and looked a little about this
+pretty place, I will come back, and have a little chat about all I have
+seen in my travels.  Why, what a huge tree this is! and what huge leaves
+on it!”
+
+It was only a big dock: but you know the dragon-fly had never seen any
+but little water-trees; starwort, and milfoil, and water-crowfoot, and
+such like; so it did look very big to him.  Besides, he was very
+short-sighted, as all dragon-flies are; and never could see a yard before
+his nose; any more than a great many other folks, who are not half as
+handsome as he.
+
+The dragon-fly did come back, and chatted away with Tom.  He was a little
+conceited about his fine colours and his large wings; but you know, he
+had been a poor dirty ugly creature all his life before; so there were
+great excuses for him.  He was very fond of talking about all the
+wonderful things he saw in the trees and the meadows; and Tom liked to
+listen to him, for he had forgotten all about them.  So in a little while
+they became great friends.
+
+And I am very glad to say, that Tom learned such a lesson that day, that
+he did not torment creatures for a long time after.  And then the
+caddises grew quite tame, and used to tell him strange stories about the
+way they built their houses, and changed their skins, and turned at last
+into winged flies; till Tom began to long to change his skin, and have
+wings like them some day.
+
+[Picture: Acrobat] And the trout and he made it up (for trout very soon
+forget if they have been frightened and hurt).  So Tom used to play with
+them at hare and hounds, and great fun they had; and he used to try to
+leap out of the water, head over heels, as they did before a shower came
+on; but somehow he never could manage it.  He liked most, though, to see
+them rising at the flies, as they sailed round and round under the shadow
+of the great oak, where the beetles fell flop into the water, and the
+green caterpillars let themselves down from the boughs by silk ropes for
+no reason at all; and then changed their foolish minds for no reason at
+all either; and hauled themselves up again into the tree, rolling up the
+rope in a ball between their paws; which is a very clever rope-dancer’s
+trick, and neither Blondin nor Leotard could do it: but why they should
+take so much trouble about it no one can tell; for they cannot get their
+living, as Blondin and Leotard do, by trying to break their necks on a
+string.
+
+And very often Tom caught them just as they touched the water; and caught
+the alder-flies, and the caperers, and the cock-tailed duns and spinners,
+yellow, and brown, and claret, and gray, and gave them to his friends the
+trout.  Perhaps he was not quite kind to the flies; but one must do a
+good turn to one’s friends when one can.
+
+And at last he gave up catching even the flies; for he made acquaintance
+with one by accident and found him a very merry little fellow.  And this
+was the way it happened; and it is all quite true.
+
+He was basking at the top of the water one hot day in July, catching duns
+and feeding the trout, when he saw a new sort, a dark gray little fellow
+with a brown head.  He was a very little fellow indeed: but he made the
+most of himself, as people ought to do.  He cocked up his head, and he
+cocked up his wings, and he cocked up his tail, and he cocked up the two
+whisks at his tail-end, and, in short, he looked the cockiest little man
+of all little men.  And so he proved to be; for instead of getting away,
+he hopped upon Tom’s finger, and sat there as bold as nine tailors; and
+he cried out in the tiniest, shrillest, squeakiest little voice you ever
+heard,
+
+“Much obliged to you, indeed; but I don’t want it yet.”
+
+“Want what?” said Tom, quite taken aback by his impudence.
+
+“Your leg, which you are kind enough to hold out for me to sit on.  I
+must just go and see after my wife for a few minutes.  Dear me! what a
+troublesome business a family is!” (though the idle little rogue did
+nothing at all, but left his poor wife to lay all the eggs by herself).
+“When I come back, I shall be glad of it, if you’ll be so good as to keep
+it sticking out just so;” and off he flew.
+
+Tom thought him a very cool sort of personage; and still more so, when,
+in five minutes he came back, and said—“Ah, you were tired waiting?
+Well, your other leg will do as well.”
+
+And he popped himself down on Tom’s knee, and began chatting away in his
+squeaking voice.
+
+“So you live under the water?  It’s a low place.  I lived there for some
+time; and was very shabby and dirty.  But I didn’t choose that that
+should last.  So I turned respectable, and came up to the top, and put on
+this gray suit.  It’s a very business-like suit, you think, don’t you?”
+
+“Very neat and quiet indeed,” said Tom.
+
+“Yes, one must be quiet and neat and respectable, and all that sort of
+thing for a little, when one becomes a family man.  But I’m tired of it,
+that’s the truth.  I’ve done quite enough business, I consider, in the
+last week, to last me my life.  So I shall put on a ball dress, and go
+out and be a smart man, and see the gay world, and have a dance or two.
+Why shouldn’t one be jolly if one can?”
+
+“And what will become of your wife?”
+
+“Oh! she is a very plain stupid creature, and that’s the truth; and
+thinks about nothing but eggs.  If she chooses to come, why she may; and
+if not, why I go without her;—and here I go.”
+
+And, as he spoke, he turned quite pale, and then quite white.
+
+“Why, you’re ill!” said Tom.  But he did not answer.
+
+“You’re dead,” said Tom, looking at him as he stood on his knee as white
+as a ghost.
+
+“No, I ain’t!” answered a little squeaking voice over his head.  “This is
+me up here, in my ball-dress; and that’s my skin.  Ha, ha! you could not
+do such a trick as that!”
+
+And no more Tom could, nor Houdin, nor Robin, nor Frikell, nor all the
+conjurors in the world.  For the little rogue had jumped clean out of his
+own skin, and left it standing on Tom’s knee, eyes, wings, legs, tail,
+exactly as if it had been alive.
+
+“Ha, ha!” he said, and he jerked and skipped up and down, never stopping
+an instant, just as if he had St. Vitus’s dance.  “Ain’t I a pretty
+fellow now?”
+
+And so he was; for his body was white, and his tail orange, and his eyes
+all the colours of a peacock’s tail.  And what was the oddest of all, the
+whisks at the end of his tail had grown five times as long as they were
+before.
+
+“Ah!” said he, “now I will see the gay world.  My living, won’t cost me
+much, for I have no mouth, you see, and no inside; so I can never be
+hungry nor have the stomach-ache neither.”
+
+No more he had.  He had grown as dry and hard and empty as a quill, as
+such silly shallow-hearted fellows deserve to grow.
+
+But, instead of being ashamed of his emptiness, he was quite proud of it,
+as a good many fine gentlemen are, and began flirting and flipping up and
+down, and singing—
+
+    “_My wife shall dance_, _and I shall sing_,
+       _So merrily pass the day_;
+    _For I hold it for quite the wisest thing_,
+       _To drive dull care away_.”
+
+And he danced up and down for three days and three nights, till he grew
+so tired, that he tumbled into the water, and floated down.  But what
+became of him Tom never knew, and he himself never minded; for Tom heard
+him singing to the last, as he floated down—
+
+    “_To drive dull care away-ay-ay_!”
+
+And if he did not care, why nobody else cared either.
+
+But one day Tom had a new adventure.  He was sitting on a water-lily
+leaf, he and his friend the dragon-fly, watching the gnats dance.  The
+dragon-fly had eaten as many as he wanted, and was sitting quite still
+and sleepy, for it was very hot and bright.  The gnats (who did not care
+the least for their poor brothers’ death) danced a foot over his head
+quite happily, and a large black fly settled within an inch of his nose,
+and began washing his own face and combing his hair with his paws: but
+the dragon-fly never stirred, and kept on chatting to Tom about the times
+when he lived under the water.
+
+Suddenly, Tom heard the strangest noise up the stream; cooing, and
+grunting, and whining, and squeaking, as if you had put into a bag two
+stock-doves, nine mice, three guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy, and left
+them there to settle themselves and make music.
+
+He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as the noise;
+a great ball rolling over and over down the stream, seeming one moment of
+soft brown fur, and the next of shining glass: and yet it was not a ball;
+for sometimes it broke up and streamed away in pieces, and then it joined
+again; and all the while the noise came out of it louder and louder.
+
+Tom asked the dragon-fly what it could be: but, of course, with his short
+sight, he could not even see it, though it was not ten yards away.  So he
+took the neatest little header into the water, and started off to see for
+himself; and, when he came near, the ball turned out to be four or five
+beautiful creatures, many times larger than Tom, who were swimming about,
+and rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling, and cuddling, and
+kissing and biting, and scratching, in the most charming fashion that
+ever was seen.  And if you don’t believe me, you may go to the Zoological
+Gardens (for I am afraid that you won’t see it nearer, unless, perhaps,
+you get up at five in the morning, and go down to Cordery’s Moor, and
+watch by the great withy pollard which hangs over the backwater, where
+the otters breed sometimes), and then say, if otters at play in the water
+are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creatures you ever saw.
+
+But, when the biggest of them saw Tom, she darted out from the rest, and
+cried in the water-language sharply enough, “Quick, children, here is
+something to eat, indeed!” and came at poor Tom, showing such a wicked
+pair of eyes, and such a set of sharp teeth in a grinning mouth, that
+Tom, who had thought her very handsome, said to himself, _Handsome is
+that handsome does_, and slipped in between the water-lily roots as fast
+as he could, and then turned round and made faces at her.
+
+“Come out,” said the wicked old otter, “or it will be worse for you.”
+
+But Tom looked at her from between two thick roots, and shook them with
+all his might, making horrible faces all the while, just as he used to
+grin through the railings at the old women, when he lived before.  It was
+not quite well bred, no doubt; but you know, Tom had not finished his
+education yet.
+
+                           [Picture: The otter]
+
+“Come, away, children,” said the otter in disgust, “it is not worth
+eating, after all.  It is only a nasty eft, which nothing eats, not even
+those vulgar pike in the pond.”
+
+“I am not an eft!” said Tom; “efts have tails.”
+
+“You are an eft,” said the otter, very positively; “I see your two hands
+quite plain, and I know you have a tail.”
+
+“I tell you I have not,” said Tom.  “Look here!” and he turned his pretty
+little self quite round; and, sure enough, he had no more tail than you.
+
+The otter might have got out of it by saying that Tom was a frog: but,
+like a great many other people, when she had once said a thing, she stood
+to it, right or wrong; so she answered:
+
+“I say you are an eft, and therefore you are, and not fit food for
+gentlefolk like me and my children.  You may stay there till the salmon
+eat you (she knew the salmon would not, but she wanted to frighten poor
+Tom).  Ha! ha! they will eat you, and we will eat them;” and the otter
+laughed such a wicked cruel laugh—as you may hear them do sometimes; and
+the first time that you hear it you will probably think it is bogies.
+
+“What are salmon?” asked Tom.
+
+“Fish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat.  They are the lords of the
+fish, and we are lords of the salmon;” and she laughed again.  “We hunt
+them up and down the pools, and drive them up into a corner, the silly
+things; they are so proud, and bully the little trout, and the minnows,
+till they see us coming, and then they are so meek all at once, and we
+catch them, but we disdain to eat them all; we just bite out their soft
+throats and suck their sweet juice—Oh, so good!”—(and she licked her
+wicked lips)—“and then throw them away, and go and catch another.  They
+are coming soon, children, coming soon; I can smell the rain coming up
+off the sea, and then hurrah for a fresh, and salmon, and plenty of
+eating all day long.”
+
+                       [Picture: Tom and the otter]
+
+And the otter grew so proud that she turned head over heels twice, and
+then stood upright half out of the water, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
+
+“And where do they come from?” asked Tom, who kept himself very close,
+for he was considerably frightened.
+
+“Out of the sea, eft, the great wide sea, where they might stay and be
+safe if they liked.  But out of the sea the silly things come, into the
+great river down below, and we come up to watch for them; and when they
+go down again we go down and follow them.  And there we fish for the bass
+and the pollock, and have jolly days along the shore, and toss and roll
+in the breakers, and sleep snug in the warm dry crags.  Ah, that is a
+merry life too, children, if it were not for those horrid men.”
+
+“What are men?” asked Tom; but somehow he seemed to know before he asked.
+
+“Two-legged things, eft: and, now I come to look at you, they are
+actually something like you, if you had not a tail” (she was determined
+that Tom should have a tail), “only a great deal bigger, worse luck for
+us; and they catch the fish with hooks and lines, which get into our feet
+sometimes, and set pots along the rocks to catch lobsters.  They speared
+my poor dear husband as he went out to find something for me to eat.  I
+was laid up among the crags then, and we were very low in the world, for
+the sea was so rough that no fish would come in shore.  But they speared
+him, poor fellow, and I saw them carrying him away upon a pole.  All, he
+lost his life for your sakes, my children, poor dear obedient creature
+that he was.”
+
+And the otter grew so sentimental (for otters can be very sentimental
+when they choose, like a good many people who are both cruel and greedy,
+and no good to anybody at all) that she sailed solemnly away down the
+burn, and Tom saw her no more for that time.  And lucky it was for her
+that she did so; for no sooner was she gone, than down the bank came
+seven little rough terrier doors, snuffing and yapping, and grubbing and
+splashing, in full cry after the otter.  Tom hid among the water-lilies
+till they were gone; for he could not guess that they were the
+water-fairies come to help him.
+
+But he could not help thinking of what the otter had said about the great
+river and the broad sea.  And, as he thought, he longed to go and see
+them.  He could not tell why; but the more he thought, the more he grew
+discontented with the narrow little stream in which he lived, and all his
+companions there; and wanted to get out into the wide wide world, and
+enjoy all the wonderful sights of which he was sure it was full.
+
+And once he set off to go down the stream.  But the stream was very low;
+and when he came to the shallows he could not keep under water, for there
+was no water left to keep under.  So the sun burned his back and made him
+sick; and he went back again and lay quiet in the pool for a whole week
+more.
+
+And then, on the evening of a very hot day, he saw a sight.
+
+He had been very stupid all day, and so had the trout; for they would not
+move an inch to take a fly, though there were thousands on the water, but
+lay dozing at the bottom under the shade of the stones; and Tom lay
+dozing too, and was glad to cuddle their smooth cool sides, for the water
+was quite warm and unpleasant.
+
+But toward evening it grew suddenly dark, and Tom looked up and saw a
+blanket of black clouds lying right across the valley above his head,
+resting on the crags right and left.  He felt not quite frightened, but
+very still; for everything was still.  There was not a whisper of wind,
+nor a chirp of a bird to be heard; and next a few great drops of rain
+fell plop into the water, and one hit Tom on the nose, and made him pop
+his head down quickly enough.
+
+And then the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed, and leapt across
+Vendale and back again, from cloud to cloud, and cliff to cliff, till the
+very rocks in the stream seemed to shake: and Tom looked up at it through
+the water, and thought it the finest thing he ever saw in his life.
+
+But out of the water he dared not put his head; for the rain came down by
+bucketsful, and the hail hammered like shot on the stream, and churned it
+into foam; and soon the stream rose, and rushed down, higher and higher,
+and fouler and fouler, full of beetles, and sticks; and straws, and
+worms, and addle-eggs, and wood-lice, and leeches, and odds and ends, and
+omnium-gatherums, and this, that, and the other, enough to fill nine
+museums.
+
+Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and hid behind a rock.  But
+the trout did not; for out they rushed from among the stones, and began
+gobbling the beetles and leeches in the most greedy and quarrelsome way,
+and swimming about with great worms hanging out of their mouths, tugging
+and kicking to get them away from each other.
+
+And now, by the flashes of the lightning, Tom saw a new sight—all the
+bottom of the stream alive with great eels, turning and twisting along,
+all down stream and away.  They had been hiding for weeks past in the
+cracks of the rocks, and in burrows in the mud; and Tom had hardly ever
+seen them, except now and then at night: but now they were all out, and
+went hurrying past him so fiercely and wildly that he was quite
+frightened.  And as they hurried past he could hear them say to each
+other, “We must run, we must run.  What a jolly thunderstorm!  Down to
+the sea, down to the sea!”
+
+And then the otter came by with all her brood, twining and sweeping along
+as fast as the eels themselves; and she spied Tom as she came by, and
+said “Now is your time, eft, if you want to see the world.  Come along,
+children, never mind those nasty eels: we shall breakfast on salmon
+to-morrow.  Down to the sea, down to the sea!”
+
+                       [Picture: Tom with the eels]
+
+Then came a flash brighter than all the rest, and by the light of it—in
+the thousandth part of a second they were gone again—but he had seen
+them, he was certain of it—Three beautiful little white girls, with their
+arms twined round each other’s necks, floating down the torrent, as they
+sang, “Down to the sea, down to the sea!”
+
+“Oh stay!  Wait for me!” cried Tom; but they were gone: yet he could hear
+their voices clear and sweet through the roar of thunder and water and
+wind, singing as they died away, “Down to the sea!”
+
+“Down to the sea?” said Tom; “everything is going to the sea, and I will
+go too.  Good-bye, trout.”  But the trout were so busy gobbling worms
+that they never turned to answer him; so that Tom was spared the pain of
+bidding them farewell.
+
+And now, down the rushing stream, guided by the bright flashes of the
+storm; past tall birch-fringed rocks, which shone out one moment as clear
+as day, and the next were dark as night; past dark hovers under swirling
+banks, from which great trout rushed out on Tom, thinking him to be good
+to eat, and turned back sulkily, for the fairies sent them home again
+with a tremendous scolding, for daring to meddle with a water-baby; on
+through narrow strids and roaring cataracts, where Tom was deafened and
+blinded for a moment by the rushing waters; along deep reaches, where the
+white water-lilies tossed and flapped beneath the wind and hail; past
+sleeping villages; under dark bridge-arches, and away and away to the
+sea.  And Tom could not stop, and did not care to stop; he would see the
+great world below, and the salmon, and the breakers, and the wide wide
+sea.
+
+And when the daylight came, Tom found himself out in the salmon river.
+
+And what sort of a river was it?  Was it like an Irish stream, winding
+through the brown bogs, where the wild ducks squatter up from among the
+white water-lilies, and the curlews flit to and fro, crying
+“Tullie-wheep, mind your sheep;” and Dennis tells you strange stories of
+the Peishtamore, the great bogy-snake which lies in the black peat pools,
+among the old pine-stems, and puts his head out at night to snap at the
+cattle as they come down to drink?—But you must not believe all that
+Dennis tells you, mind; for if you ask him:
+
+“Is there a salmon here, do you think, Dennis?”
+
+“Is it salmon, thin, your honour manes?  Salmon?  Cartloads it is of
+thim, thin, an’ ridgmens, shouldthering ache out of water, av’ ye’d but
+the luck to see thim.”
+
+Then you fish the pool all over, and never get a rise.
+
+“But there can’t be a salmon here, Dennis! and, if you’ll but think, if
+one had come up last tide, he’d be gone to the higher pools by now.”
+
+                       [Picture: Dennis with pigs]
+
+“Shure thin, and your honour’s the thrue fisherman, and understands it
+all like a book.  Why, ye spake as if ye’d known the wather a thousand
+years!  As I said, how could there be a fish here at all, just now?”
+
+“But you said just now they were shouldering each other out of water?”
+
+And then Dennis will look up at you with his handsome, sly, soft, sleepy,
+good-natured, untrustable, Irish gray eye, and answer with the prettiest
+smile:
+
+“Shure, and didn’t I think your honour would like a pleasant answer?”
+
+So you must not trust Dennis, because he is in the habit of giving
+pleasant answers: but, instead of being angry with him, you must remember
+that he is a poor Paddy, and knows no better; so you must just burst out
+laughing; and then he will burst out laughing too, and slave for you, and
+trot about after you, and show you good sport if he can—for he is an
+affectionate fellow, and as fond of sport as you are—and if he can’t,
+tell you fibs instead, a hundred an hour; and wonder all the while why
+poor ould Ireland does not prosper like England and Scotland, and some
+other places, where folk have taken up a ridiculous fancy that honesty is
+the best policy.
+
+Or was it like a Welsh salmon river, which is remarkable chiefly (at
+least, till this last year) for containing no salmon, as they have been
+all poached out by the enlightened peasantry, to prevent the _Cythrawl
+Sassenach_ (which means you, my little dear, your kith and kin, and
+signifies much the same as the Chinese _Fan Quei_) from coming bothering
+into Wales, with good tackle, and ready money, and civilisation, and
+common honesty, and other like things of which the Cymry stand in no need
+whatsoever?
+
+Or was it such a salmon stream as I trust you will see among the
+Hampshire water-meadows before your hairs are gray, under the wise new
+fishing-laws?—when Winchester apprentices shall covenant, as they did
+three hundred years ago, not to be made to eat salmon more than three
+days a week; and fresh-run fish shall be as plentiful under Salisbury
+spire as they are in Holly-hole at Christchurch; in the good time coming,
+when folks shall see that, of all Heaven’s gifts of food, the one to be
+protected most carefully is that worthy gentleman salmon, who is generous
+enough to go down to the sea weighing five ounces, and to come back next
+year weighing five pounds, without having cost the soil or the state one
+farthing?
+
+Or was it like a Scotch stream, such as Arthur Clough drew in his
+“Bothie”:—
+
+             “_Where over a ledge of granite_
+    _Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended_. . . . .
+    _Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under_;
+    _Beautiful most of all_, _where beads of foam uprising_
+    _Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the
+    stillness_. . . .
+    _Cliff over cliff for its sides_, _with rowan and pendant birch
+    boughs_.” . . .
+
+Ah, my little man, when you are a big man, and fish such a stream as
+that, you will hardly care, I think, whether she be roaring down in full
+spate, like coffee covered with scald cream, while the fish are swirling
+at your fly as an oar-blade swirls in a boat-race, or flashing up the
+cataract like silver arrows, out of the fiercest of the foam; or whether
+the fall be dwindled to a single thread, and the shingle below be as
+white and dusty as a turnpike road, while the salmon huddle together in
+one dark cloud in the clear amber pool, sleeping away their time till the
+rain creeps back again off the sea.  You will not care much, if you have
+eyes and brains; for you will lay down your rod contentedly, and drink in
+at your eyes the beauty of that glorious place; and listen to the
+water-ouzel piping on the stones, and watch the yellow roes come down to
+drink and look up at you with their great soft trustful eyes, as much as
+to say, “You could not have the heart to shoot at us?”  And then, if you
+have sense, you will turn and talk to the great giant of a gilly who lies
+basking on the stone beside you.  He will tell you no fibs, my little
+man; for he is a Scotchman, and fears God, and not the priest; and, as
+you talk with him, you will be surprised more and more at his knowledge,
+his sense, his humour, his courtesy; and you will find out—unless you
+have found it out before—that a man may learn from his Bible to be a more
+thorough gentleman than if he had been brought up in all the
+drawing-rooms in London.
+
+                           [Picture: Scotsman]
+
+No.  It was none of these, the salmon stream at Harthover.  It was such a
+stream as you see in dear old Bewick; Bewick, who was born and bred upon
+them.  A full hundred yards broad it was, sliding on from broad pool to
+broad shallow, and broad shallow to broad pool, over great fields of
+shingle, under oak and ash coverts, past low cliffs of sandstone, past
+green meadows, and fair parks, and a great house of gray stone, and brown
+moors above, and here and there against the sky the smoking chimney of a
+colliery.  You must look at Bewick to see just what it was like, for he
+has drawn it a hundred times with the care and the love of a true north
+countryman; and, even if you do not care about the salmon river, you
+ought, like all good boys, to know your Bewick.
+
+At least, so old Sir John used to say, and very sensibly he put it too,
+as he was wont to do:
+
+“If they want to describe a finished young gentleman in France, I hear,
+they say of him, ‘_Il sait son Rabelais_.’  But if I want to describe one
+in England, I say, ‘_He knows his Bewick_.’  And I think that is the
+higher compliment.”
+
+But Tom thought nothing about what the river was like.  All his fancy
+was, to get down to the wide wide sea.
+
+And after a while he came to a place where the river spread out into
+broad still shallow reaches, so wide that little Tom, as he put his head
+out of the water, could hardly see across.
+
+And there he stopped.  He got a little frightened.  “This must be the
+sea,” he thought.  “What a wide place it is!  If I go on into it I shall
+surely lose my way, or some strange thing will bite me.  I will stop here
+and look out for the otter, or the eels, or some one to tell me where I
+shall go.”
+
+So he went back a little way, and crept into a crack of the rock, just
+where the river opened out into the wide shallows, and watched for some
+one to tell him his way: but the otter and the eels were gone on miles
+and miles down the stream.
+
+There he waited, and slept too, for he was quite tired with his night’s
+journey; and, when he woke, the stream was clearing to a beautiful amber
+hue, though it was still very high.  And after a while he saw a sight
+which made him jump up; for he knew in a moment it was one of the things
+which he had come to look for.
+
+Such a fish! ten times as big as the biggest trout, and a hundred times
+as big as Tom, sculling up the stream past him, as easily as Tom had
+sculled down.
+
+Such a fish! shining silver from head to tail, and here and there a
+crimson dot; with a grand hooked nose and grand curling lip, and a grand
+bright eye, looking round him as proudly as a king, and surveying the
+water right and left as if all belonged to him.  Surely he must be the
+salmon, the king of all the fish.
+
+                      [Picture: Tom and the salmon]
+
+Tom was so frightened that he longed to creep into a hole; but he need
+not have been; for salmon are all true gentlemen, and, like true
+gentlemen, they look noble and proud enough, and yet, like true
+gentlemen, they never harm or quarrel with any one, but go about their
+own business, and leave rude fellows to themselves.
+
+The salmon looked at him full in the face, and then went on without
+minding him, with a swish or two of his tail which made the stream boil
+again. And in a few minutes came another, and then four or five, and so
+on; and all passed Tom, rushing and plunging up the cataract with strong
+strokes of their silver tails, now and then leaping clean out of water
+and up over a rock, shining gloriously for a moment in the bright sun;
+while Tom was so delighted that he could have watched them all day long.
+
+And at last one came up bigger than all the rest; but he came slowly, and
+stopped, and looked back, and seemed very anxious and busy.  And Tom saw
+that he was helping another salmon, an especially handsome one, who had
+not a single spot upon it, but was clothed in pure silver from nose to
+tail.
+
+“My dear,” said the great fish to his companion, “you really look
+dreadfully tired, and you must not over-exert yourself at first.  Do rest
+yourself behind this rock;” and he shoved her gently with his nose, to
+the rock where Tom sat.
+
+You must know that this was the salmon’s wife.  For salmon, like other
+true gentlemen, always choose their lady, and love her, and are true to
+her, and take care of her and work for her, and fight for her, as every
+true gentleman ought; and are not like vulgar chub and roach and pike,
+who have no high feelings, and take no care of their wives.
+
+Then he saw Tom, and looked at him very fiercely one moment, as if he was
+going to bite him.
+
+“What do you want here?” he said, very fiercely.
+
+“Oh, don’t hurt me!” cried Tom.  “I only want to look at you; you are so
+handsome.”
+
+“Ah?” said the salmon, very stately but very civilly.  “I really beg your
+pardon; I see what you are, my little dear.  I have met one or two
+creatures like you before, and found them very agreeable and
+well-behaved.  Indeed, one of them showed me a great kindness lately,
+which I hope to be able to repay.  I hope we shall not be in your way
+here.  As soon as this lady is rested, we shall proceed on our journey.”
+
+What a well-bred old salmon he was!
+
+“So you have seen things like me before?” asked Tom.
+
+“Several times, my dear.  Indeed, it was only last night that one at the
+river’s mouth came and warned me and my wife of some new stake-nets which
+had got into the stream, I cannot tell how, since last winter, and showed
+us the way round them, in the most charmingly obliging way.”
+
+“So there are babies in the sea?” cried Tom, and clapped his little
+hands.  “Then I shall have some one to play with there?  How delightful!”
+
+“Were there no babies up this stream?” asked the lady salmon.
+
+“No! and I grew so lonely.  I thought I saw three last night; but they
+were gone in an instant, down to the sea.  So I went too; for I had
+nothing to play with but caddises and dragon-flies and trout.”
+
+“Ugh!” cried the lady, “what low company!”
+
+“My dear, if he has been in low company, he has certainly not learnt
+their low manners,” said the salmon.
+
+“No, indeed, poor little dear: but how sad for him to live among such
+people as caddises, who have actually six legs, the nasty things; and
+dragon-flies, too! why they are not even good to eat; for I tried them
+once, and they are all hard and empty; and, as for trout, every one knows
+what they are.”  Whereon she curled up her lip, and looked dreadfully
+scornful, while her husband curled up his too, till he looked as proud as
+Alcibiades.
+
+“Why do you dislike the trout so?” asked Tom.
+
+“My dear, we do not even mention them, if we can help it; for I am sorry
+to say they are relations of ours who do us no credit.  A great many
+years ago they were just like us: but they were so lazy, and cowardly,
+and greedy, that instead of going down to the sea every year to see the
+world and grow strong and fat, they chose to stay and poke about in the
+little streams and eat worms and grubs; and they are very properly
+punished for it; for they have grown ugly and brown and spotted and
+small; and are actually so degraded in their tastes, that they will eat
+our children.”
+
+“And then they pretend to scrape acquaintance with us again,” said the
+lady.  “Why, I have actually known one of them propose to a lady salmon,
+the little impudent little creature.”
+
+                       [Picture: Trout and salmon]
+
+“I should hope,” said the gentleman, “that there are very few ladies of
+our race who would degrade themselves by listening to such a creature for
+an instant.  If I saw such a thing happen, I should consider it my duty
+to put them both to death upon the spot.”  So the old salmon said, like
+an old blue-blooded hidalgo of Spain; and what is more, he would have
+done it too.  For you must know, no enemies are so bitter against each
+other as those who are of the same race; and a salmon looks on a trout,
+as some great folks look on some little folks, as something just too much
+like himself to be tolerated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+    “Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
+    Our meddling intellect
+    Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things
+    We murder to dissect.
+
+    Enough of science and of art:
+    Close up these barren leaves;
+    Come forth, and bring with you a heart
+    That watches and receives.”
+
+                                                               WORDSWORTH.
+
+[Picture: Tom on rock] SO the salmon went up, after Tom had warned them
+of the wicked old otter; and Tom went down, but slowly and cautiously,
+coasting along shore.  He was many days about it, for it was many miles
+down to the sea; and perhaps he would never have found his way, if the
+fairies had not guided him, without his seeing their fair faces, or
+feeling their gentle hands.
+
+And, as he went, he had a very strange adventure.  It was a clear still
+September night, and the moon shone so brightly down through the water,
+that he could not sleep, though he shut his eyes as tight as possible.
+So at last he came up to the top, and sat upon a little point of rock,
+and looked up at the broad yellow moon, and wondered what she was, and
+thought that she looked at him.  And he watched the moonlight on the
+rippling river, and the black heads of the firs, and the silver-frosted
+lawns, and listened to the owl’s hoot, and the snipe’s bleat, and the
+fox’s bark, and the otter’s laugh; and smelt the soft perfume of the
+birches, and the wafts of heather honey off the grouse moor far above;
+and felt very happy, though he could not well tell why.  You, of course,
+would have been very cold sitting there on a September night, without the
+least bit of clothes on your wet back; but Tom was a water-baby, and
+therefore felt cold no more than a fish.
+
+Suddenly, he saw a beautiful sight.  A bright red light moved along the
+river-side, and threw down into the water a long tap-root of flame.  Tom,
+curious little rogue that he was, must needs go and see what it was; so
+he swam to the shore, and met the light as it stopped over a shallow run
+at the edge of a low rock.
+
+And there, underneath the light, lay five or six great salmon, looking up
+at the flame with their great goggle eyes, and wagging their tails, as if
+they were very much pleased at it.
+
+Tom came to the top, to look at this wonderful light nearer, and made a
+splash.
+
+And he heard a voice say:
+
+“There was a fish rose.”
+
+He did not know what the words meant: but he seemed to know the sound of
+them, and to know the voice which spoke them; and he saw on the bank
+three great two-legged creatures, one of whom held the light, flaring and
+sputtering, and another a long pole.  And he knew that they were men, and
+was frightened, and crept into a hole in the rock, from which he could
+see what went on.
+
+The man with the torch bent down over the water, and looked earnestly in;
+and then he said:
+
+“Tak’ that muckle fellow, lad; he’s ower fifteen punds; and haud your
+hand steady.”
+
+Tom felt that there was some danger coming, and longed to warn the
+foolish salmon, who kept staring up at the light as if he was bewitched.
+But before he could make up his mind, down came the pole through the
+water; there was a fearful splash and struggle, and Tom saw that the poor
+salmon was speared right through, and was lifted out of the water.
+
+And then, from behind, there sprang on these three men three other men;
+and there were shouts, and blows, and words which Tom recollected to have
+heard before; and he shuddered and turned sick at them now, for he felt
+somehow that they were strange, and ugly, and wrong, and horrible.  And
+it all began to come back to him.  They were men; and they were fighting;
+savage, desperate, up-and-down fighting, such as Tom had seen too many
+times before.
+
+And he stopped his little ears, and longed to swim away; and was very
+glad that he was a water-baby, and had nothing to do any more with horrid
+dirty men, with foul clothes on their backs, and foul words on their
+lips; but he dared not stir out of his hole: while the rock shook over
+his head with the trampling and struggling of the keepers and the
+poachers.
+
+All of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, and a frightful flash, and
+a hissing, and all was still.
+
+For into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the men; he who held the
+light in his hand.  Into the swift river he sank, and rolled over and
+over in the current.  Tom heard the men above run along seemingly looking
+for him; but he drifted down into the deep hole below, and there lay
+quite still, and they could not find him.
+
+Tom waited a long time, till all was quiet; and then he peeped out, and
+saw the man lying.  At last he screwed up his courage and swam down to
+him.  “Perhaps,” he thought, “the water has made him fall asleep, as it
+did me.”
+
+Then he went nearer.  He grew more and more curious, he could not tell
+why.  He must go and look at him.  He would go very quietly, of course;
+so he swam round and round him, closer and closer; and, as he did not
+stir, at last he came quite close and looked him in the face.
+
+The moon shone so bright that Tom could see every feature; and, as he
+saw, he recollected, bit by bit, it was his old master, Grimes.
+
+Tom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he could.
+
+“Oh dear me!” he thought, “now he will turn into a water-baby.  What a
+nasty troublesome one he will be!  And perhaps he will find me out, and
+beat me again.”
+
+So he went up the river again a little way, and lay there the rest of the
+night under an alder root; but, when morning came, he longed to go down
+again to the big pool, and see whether Mr. Grimes had turned into a
+water-baby yet.
+
+So he went very carefully, peeping round all the rocks, and hiding under
+all the roots.  Mr. Grimes lay there still; he had not turned into a
+water-baby.  In the afternoon Tom went back again.  He could not rest
+till he had found out what had become of Mr. Grimes.  But this time Mr.
+Grimes was gone; and Tom made up his mind that he was turned into a
+water-baby.
+
+He might have made himself easy, poor little man; Mr. Grimes did not turn
+into a water-baby, or anything like one at all.  But he did not make
+himself easy; and a long time he was fearful lest he should meet Grimes
+suddenly in some deep pool.  He could not know that the fairies had
+carried him away, and put him, where they put everything which falls into
+the water, exactly where it ought to be.  But, do you know, what had
+happened to Mr. Grimes had such an effect on him that he never poached
+salmon any more.  And it is quite certain that, when a man becomes a
+confirmed poacher, the only way to cure him is to put him under water for
+twenty-four hours, like Grimes.  So when you grow to be a big man, do you
+behave as all honest fellows should; and never touch a fish or a head of
+game which belongs to another man without his express leave; and then
+people will call you a gentleman, and treat you like one; and perhaps
+give you good sport: instead of hitting you into the river, or calling
+you a poaching snob.
+
+Then Tom went on down, for he was afraid of staying near Grimes: and as
+he went, all the vale looked sad.  The red and yellow leaves showered
+down into the river; the flies and beetles were all dead and gone; the
+chill autumn fog lay low upon the hills, and sometimes spread itself so
+thickly on the river that he could not see his way.  But he felt his way
+instead, following the flow of the stream, day after day, past great
+bridges, past boats and barges, past the great town, with its wharfs, and
+mills, and tall smoking chimneys, and ships which rode at anchor in the
+stream; and now and then he ran against their hawsers, and wondered what
+they were, and peeped out, and saw the sailors lounging on board smoking
+their pipes; and ducked under again, for he was terribly afraid of being
+caught by man and turned into a chimney-sweep once more.  He did not know
+that the fairies were close to him always, shutting the sailors’ eyes
+lest they should see him, and turning him aside from millraces, and
+sewer-mouths, and all foul and dangerous things.  Poor little fellow, it
+was a dreary journey for him; and more than once he longed to be back in
+Vendale, playing with the trout in the bright summer sun.  But it could
+not be.  What has been once can never come over again.  And people can be
+little babies, even water-babies, only once in their lives.
+
+Besides, people who make up their minds to go and see the world, as Tom
+did, must needs find it a weary journey.  Lucky for them if they do not
+lose heart and stop half-way, instead of going on bravely to the end as
+Tom did.  For then they will remain neither boys nor men, neither fish,
+flesh, nor good red-herring: having learnt a great deal too much, and yet
+not enough; and sown their wild oats, without having the advantage of
+reaping them.
+
+But Tom was always a brave, determined, little English bull-dog, who
+never knew when he was beaten; and on and on he held, till he saw a long
+way off the red buoy through the fog.  And then he found to his surprise,
+the stream turned round, and running up inland.
+
+It was the tide, of course: but Tom knew nothing of the tide.  He only
+knew that in a minute more the water, which had been fresh, turned salt
+all round him.  And then there came a change over him.  He felt as
+strong, and light, and fresh, as if his veins had run champagne; and
+gave, he did not know why, three skips out of the water, a yard high, and
+head over heels, just as the salmon do when they first touch the noble
+rich salt water, which, as some wise men tell us, is the mother of all
+living things.
+
+                             [Picture: Seal]
+
+He did not care now for the tide being against him.  The red buoy was in
+sight, dancing in the open sea; and to the buoy he would go, and to it he
+went.  He passed great shoals of bass and mullet, leaping and rushing in
+after the shrimps, but he never heeded them, or they him; and once he
+passed a great black shining seal, who was coming in after the mullet.
+The seal put his head and shoulders out of water, and stared at him,
+looking exactly like a fat old greasy negro with a gray pate.  And Tom,
+instead of being frightened, said, “How d’ye do, sir; what a beautiful
+place the sea is!”  And the old seal, instead of trying to bite him,
+looked at him with his soft sleepy winking eyes, and said, “Good tide to
+you, my little man; are you looking for your brothers and sisters?  I
+passed them all at play outside.”
+
+“Oh, then,” said Tom, “I shall have playfellows at last,” and he swam on
+to the buoy, and got upon it (for he was quite out of breath) and sat
+there, and looked round for water-babies: but there were none to be seen.
+
+[Picture: The old bouy] The sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and
+blew the fog away; and the little waves danced for joy around the buoy,
+and the old buoy danced with them.  The shadows of the clouds ran races
+over the bright blue bay, and yet never caught each other up; and the
+breakers plunged merrily upon the wide white sands, and jumped up over
+the rocks, to see what the green fields inside were like, and tumbled
+down and broke themselves all to pieces, and never minded it a bit, but
+mended themselves and jumped up again.  And the terns hovered over Tom
+like huge white dragon-flies with black heads, and the gulls laughed like
+girls at play, and the sea-pies, with their red bills and legs, flew to
+and fro from shore to shore, and whistled sweet and wild.  And Tom looked
+and looked, and listened; and he would have been very happy, if he could
+only have seen the water-babies.  Then when the tide turned, he left the
+buoy, and swam round and round in search of them: but in vain.  Sometimes
+he thought he heard them laughing: but it was only the laughter of the
+ripples.  And sometimes he thought he saw them at the bottom: but it was
+only white and pink shells.  And once he was sure he had found one, for
+he saw two bright eyes peeping out of the sand.  So he dived down, and
+began scraping the sand away, and cried, “Don’t hide; I do want some one
+to play with so much!”  And out jumped a great turbot with his ugly eyes
+and mouth all awry, and flopped away along the bottom, knocking poor Tom
+over.  And he sat down at the bottom of the sea, and cried salt tears
+from sheer disappointment.
+
+To have come all this way, and faced so many dangers, and yet to find no
+water-babies!  How hard!  Well, it did seem hard: but people, even little
+babies, cannot have all they want without waiting for it, and working for
+it too, my little man, as you will find out some day.
+
+And Tom sat upon the buoy long days, long weeks, looking out to sea, and
+wondering when the water-babies would come back; and yet they never came.
+
+                      [Picture: Tom and a flat-fish]
+
+Then he began to ask all the strange things which came in out of the sea
+if they had seen any; and some said “Yes,” and some said nothing at all.
+
+He asked the bass and the pollock; but they were so greedy after the
+shrimps that they did not care to answer him a word.
+
+Then there came in a whole fleet of purple sea-snails, floating along,
+each on a sponge full of foam, and Tom said, “Where do you come from, you
+pretty creatures? and have you seen the water-babies?”
+
+And the sea-snails answered, “Whence we come we know not; and whither we
+are going, who can tell?  We float out our life in the mid-ocean, with
+the warm sunshine above our heads, and the warm gulf-stream below; and
+that is enough for us.  Yes; perhaps we have seen the water-babies.  We
+have seen many strange things as we sailed along.”  And they floated
+away, the happy stupid things, and all went ashore upon the sands.
+
+Then there came in a great lazy sunfish, as big as a fat pig cut in half;
+and he seemed to have been cut in half too, and squeezed in a
+clothes-press till he was flat; but to all his big body and big fins he
+had only a little rabbit’s mouth, no bigger than Tom’s; and, when Tom
+questioned him, he answered in a little squeaky feeble voice:
+
+“I’m sure I don’t know; I’ve lost my way.  I meant to go to the
+Chesapeake, and I’m afraid I’ve got wrong somehow.  Dear me! it was all
+by following that pleasant warm water.  I’m sure I’ve lost my way.”
+
+[Picture: Sunfish] And, when Tom asked him again, he could only answer,
+“I’ve lost my way.  Don’t talk to me; I want to think.”
+
+But, like a good many other people, the more he tried to think the less
+he could think; and Tom saw him blundering about all day, till the
+coast-guardsmen saw his big fin above the water, and rowed out, and
+struck a boat-hook into him, and took him away.  They took him up to the
+town and showed him for a penny a head, and made a good day’s work of it.
+But of course Tom did not know that.
+
+Then there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling as they went—papas, and
+mammas, and little children—and all quite smooth and shiny, because the
+fairies French-polish them every morning; and they sighed so softly as
+they came by, that Tom took courage to speak to them: but all they
+answered was, “Hush, hush, hush;” for that was all they had learnt to
+say.
+
+And then there came a shoal of basking sharks’ some of them as long as a
+boat, and Tom was frightened at them.  But they were very lazy
+good-natured fellows, not greedy tyrants, like white sharks and blue
+sharks and ground sharks and hammer-heads, who eat men, or saw-fish and
+threshers and ice-sharks, who hunt the poor old whales.  They came and
+rubbed their great sides against the buoy, and lay basking in the sun
+with their backfins out of water; and winked at Tom: but he never could
+get them to speak.  They had eaten so many herrings that they were quite
+stupid; and Tom was glad when a collier brig came by and frightened them
+all away; for they did smell most horribly, certainly, and he had to hold
+his nose tight as long as they were there.
+
+And then there came by a beautiful creature, like a ribbon of pure silver
+with a sharp head and very long teeth; but it seemed very sick and sad.
+Sometimes it rolled helpless on its side; and then it dashed away
+glittering like white fire; and then it lay sick again and motionless.
+
+“Where do you come from?” asked Tom.  “And why are _you_ so sick and
+sad?”
+
+“I come from the warm Carolinas, and the sandbanks fringed with pines;
+where the great owl-rays leap and flap, like giant bats, upon the tide.
+But I wandered north and north, upon the treacherous warm gulf-stream,
+till I met with the cold icebergs, afloat in the mid ocean.  So I got
+tangled among the icebergs, and chilled with their frozen breath.  But
+the water-babies helped me from among them, and set me free again.  And
+now I am mending every day; but I am very sick and sad; and perhaps I
+shall never get home again to play with the owl-rays any more.”
+
+“Oh!” cried Tom.  “And you have seen water-babies?  Have you seen any
+near here?”
+
+“Yes; they helped me again last night, or I should have been eaten by a
+great black porpoise.”
+
+How vexatious!  The water-babies close to him, and yet he could not find
+one.
+
+And then he left the buoy, and used to go along the sands and round the
+rocks, and come out in the night—like the forsaken Merman in Mr. Arnold’s
+beautiful, beautiful poem, which you must learn by heart some day—and sit
+upon a point of rock, among the shining sea-weeds, in the low October
+tides, and cry and call for the water-babies; but he never heard a voice
+call in return.  And at last, with his fretting and crying, he grew quite
+lean and thin.
+
+But one day among the rocks he found a playfellow.  It was not a
+water-baby, alas! but it was a lobster; and a very distinguished lobster
+he was; for he had live barnacles on his claws, which is a great mark of
+distinction in lobsterdom, and no more to be bought for money than a good
+conscience or the Victoria Cross.
+
+                      [Picture: Tom and the lobster]
+
+Tom had never seen a lobster before; and he was mightily taken with this
+one; for he thought him the most curious, odd, ridiculous creature he had
+ever seen; and there he was not far wrong; for all the ingenious men, and
+all the scientific men, and all the fanciful men, in the world, with all
+the old German bogy-painters into the bargain, could never invent, if all
+their wits were boiled into one, anything so curious, and so ridiculous,
+as a lobster.
+
+He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and Tom delighted in
+watching him hold on to the seaweed with his knobbed claw, while he cut
+up salads with his jagged one, and then put them into his mouth, after
+smelling at them, like a monkey.  And always the little barnacles threw
+out their casting-nets and swept the water, and came in for their share
+of whatever there was for dinner.
+
+But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired himself off—snap! like
+the leap-frogs which you make out of a goose’s breast-bone.  Certainly he
+took the most wonderful shots, and backwards, too.  For, if he wanted to
+go into a narrow crack ten yards off, what do you think he did?  If he
+had gone in head foremost, of course he could not have turned round.  So
+he used to turn his tail to it, and lay his long horns, which carry his
+sixth sense in their tips (and nobody knows what that sixth sense is),
+straight down his back to guide him, and twist his eyes back till they
+almost came out of their sockets, and then made ready, present, fire,
+snap!—and away he went, pop into the hole; and peeped out and twiddled
+his whiskers, as much as to say, “You couldn’t do that.”
+
+Tom asked him about water-babies.  “Yes,” he said.  He had seen them
+often.  But he did not think much of them.  They were meddlesome little
+creatures, that went about helping fish and shells which got into
+scrapes.  Well, for his part, he should be ashamed to be helped by little
+soft creatures that had not even a shell on their backs.  He had lived
+quite long enough in the world to take care of himself.
+
+He was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not very civil to Tom;
+and you will hear how he had to alter his mind before he was done, as
+conceited people generally have.  But he was so funny, and Tom so lonely,
+that he could not quarrel with him; and they used to sit in holes in the
+rocks, and chat for hours.
+
+And about this time there happened to Tom a very strange and important
+adventure—so important, indeed, that he was very near never finding the
+water-babies at all; and I am sure you would have been sorry for that.
+
+I hope that you have not forgotten the little white lady all this while.
+At least, here she comes, looking like a clean white good little darling,
+as she always was, and always will be.  For it befell in the pleasant
+short December days, when the wind always blows from the south-west, till
+Old Father Christmas comes and spreads the great white table-cloth, ready
+for little boys and girls to give the birds their Christmas dinner of
+crumbs—it befell (to go on) in the pleasant December days, that Sir John
+was so busy hunting that nobody at home could get a word out of him.
+Four days a week he hunted, and very good sport he had; and the other two
+he went to the bench and the board of guardians, and very good justice he
+did; and, when he got home in time, he dined at five; for he hated this
+absurd new fashion of dining at eight in the hunting season, which forces
+a man to make interest with the footman for cold beef and beer as soon as
+he comes in, and so spoil his appetite, and then sleep in an arm-chair in
+his bedroom, all stiff and tired, for two or three hours before he can
+get his dinner like a gentleman.  And do you be like Sir John, my dear
+little man, when you are your own master; and, if you want either to read
+hard or ride hard, stick to the good old Cambridge hours of breakfast at
+eight and dinner at five; by which you may get two days’ work out of one.
+But, of course, if you find a fox at three in the afternoon and run him
+till dark, and leave off twenty miles from home, why you must wait for
+your dinner till you can get it, as better men than you have done.  Only
+see that, if you go hungry, your horse does not; but give him his warm
+gruel and beer, and take him gently home, remembering that good horses
+don’t grow on the hedge like blackberries.
+
+It befell (to go on a second time) that Sir John, hunting all day, and
+dining at five, fell asleep every evening, and snored so terribly that
+all the windows in Harthover shook, and the soot fell down the chimneys.
+Whereon My Lady, being no more able to get conversation out of him than a
+song out of a dead nightingale, determined to go off and leave him, and
+the doctor, and Captain Swinger the agent, to snore in concert every
+evening to their hearts’ content.  So she started for the seaside with
+all the children, in order to put herself and them into condition by mild
+applications of iodine.  She might as well have stayed at home and used
+Parry’s liquid horse-blister, for there was plenty of it in the stables;
+and then she would have saved her money, and saved the chance, also, of
+making all the children ill instead of well (as hundreds are made), by
+taking them to some nasty smelling undrained lodging, and then wondering
+how they caught scarlatina and diphtheria: but people won’t be wise
+enough to understand that till they are dead of bad smells, and then it
+will be too late; besides you see, Sir John did certainly snore very
+loud.
+
+                 [Picture: Sir John with horse and groom]
+
+But where she went to nobody must know, for fear young ladies should
+begin to fancy that there are water-babies there! and so hunt and howk
+after them (besides raising the price of lodgings), and keep them in
+aquariums, as the ladies at Pompeii (as you may see by the paintings)
+used to keep Cupids in cages.  But nobody ever heard that they starved
+the Cupids, or let them die of dirt and neglect, as English young ladies
+do by the poor sea-beasts.  So nobody must know where My Lady went.
+Letting water-babies die is as bad as taking singing birds’ eggs; for,
+though there are thousands, ay, millions, of both of them in the world,
+yet there is not one too many.
+
+Now it befell that, on the very shore, and over the very rocks, where Tom
+was sitting with his friend the lobster, there walked one day the little
+white lady, Ellie herself, and with her a very wise man indeed—Professor
+Ptthmllnsprts.
+
+His mother was a Dutchwoman, and therefore he was born at Curaçao (of
+course you have learnt your geography, and therefore know why); and his
+father a Pole, and therefore he was brought up at Petropaulowski (of
+course you have learnt your modern politics, and therefore know why): but
+for all that he was as thorough an Englishman as ever coveted his
+neighbour’s goods.  And his name, as I said, was Professor Ptthmllnsprts,
+which is a very ancient and noble Polish name.
+
+He was, as I said, a very great naturalist, and chief professor of
+_Necrobioneopalæonthydrochthonanthropopithekology_ in the new university
+which the king of the Cannibal Islands had founded; and, being a member
+of the Acclimatisation Society, he had come here to collect all the nasty
+things which he could find on the coast of England, and turn them loose
+round the Cannibal Islands, because they had not nasty things enough
+there to eat what they left.
+
+[Picture: The Professor]
+
+But he was a very worthy kind good-natured little old gentleman; and very
+fond of children (for he was not the least a cannibal himself); and very
+good to all the world as long as it was good to him.  Only one fault he
+had, which cock-robins have likewise, as you may see if you look out of
+the nursery window—that, when any one else found a curious worm, he would
+hop round them, and peck them, and set up his tail, and bristle up his
+feathers, just as a cock-robin would; and declare that he found the worm
+first; and that it was his worm; and, if not, that then it was not a worm
+at all.
+
+He had met Sir John at Scarborough, or Fleetwood, or somewhere or other
+(if you don’t care where, nobody else does), and had made acquaintance
+with him, and become very fond of his children.  Now, Sir John knew
+nothing about sea-cockyolybirds, and cared less, provided the fishmonger
+sent him good fish for dinner; and My Lady knew as little: but she
+thought it proper that the children should know something.  For in the
+stupid old times, you must understand, children were taught to know one
+thing, and to know it well; but in these enlightened new times they are
+taught to know a little about everything, and to know it all ill; which
+is a great deal pleasanter and easier, and therefore quite right.
+
+So Ellie and he were walking on the rocks, and he was showing her about
+one in ten thousand of all the beautiful and curious things which are to
+be seen there.  But little Ellie was not satisfied with them at all.  She
+liked much better to play with live children, or even with dolls, which
+she could pretend were alive; and at last she said honestly, “I don’t
+care about all these things, because they can’t play with me, or talk to
+me.  If there were little children now in the water, as there used to be,
+and I could see them, I should like that.”
+
+                             [Picture: Ellie]
+
+“Children in the water, you strange little duck?” said the professor.
+
+“Yes,” said Ellie.  “I know there used to be children in the water, and
+mermaids too, and mermen.  I saw them all in a picture at home, of a
+beautiful lady sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and babies flying
+round her, and one sitting in her lap; and the mermaids swimming and
+playing, and the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells; and it is called ‘The
+Triumph of Galatea;’ and there is a burning mountain in the picture
+behind.  It hangs on the great staircase, and I have looked at it ever
+since I was a baby, and dreamt about it a hundred times; and it is so
+beautiful, that it must be true.”
+
+But the professor had not the least notion of allowing that things were
+true, merely because people thought them beautiful.  For at that rate, he
+said, the Baltas would be quite right in thinking it a fine thing to eat
+their grandpapas, because they thought it an ugly thing to put them
+underground.  The professor, indeed, went further, and held that no man
+was forced to believe anything to be true, but what he could see, hear,
+taste, or handle.
+
+He held very strange theories about a good many things.  He had even got
+up once at the British Association, and declared that apes had
+hippopotamus majors in their brains just as men have.  Which was a
+shocking thing to say; for, if it were so, what would become of the
+faith, hope, and charity of immortal millions?  You may think that there
+are other more important differences between you and an ape, such as
+being able to speak, and make machines, and know right from wrong, and
+say your prayers, and other little matters of that kind; but that is a
+child’s fancy, my dear.  Nothing is to be depended on but the great
+hippopotamus test.  If you have a hippopotamus major in your brain, you
+are no ape, though you had four hands, no feet, and were more apish than
+the apes of all aperies.  But if a hippopotamus major is ever discovered
+in one single ape’s brain, nothing will save your
+great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
+greater-greatest-grandmother from having been an ape too.  No, my dear
+little man; always remember that the one true, certain, final, and
+all-important difference between you and an ape is, that you have a
+hippopotamus major in your brain, and it has none; and that, therefore,
+to discover one in its brain will be a very wrong and dangerous thing, at
+which every one will be very much shocked, as we may suppose they were at
+the professor.—Though really, after all, it don’t much matter; because—as
+Lord Dundreary and others would put it—nobody but men have hippopotamuses
+in their brains; so, if a hippopotamus was discovered in an ape’s brain,
+why it would not be one, you know, but something else.
+
+But the professor had gone, I am sorry to say, even further than that;
+for he had read at the British Association at Melbourne, Australia, in
+the year 1999, a paper which assured every one who found himself the
+better or wiser for the news, that there were not, never had been, and
+could not be, any rational or half-rational beings except men, anywhere,
+anywhen, or anyhow; that _nymphs_, _satyrs_, _fauns_, _inui_, _dwarfs_,
+_trolls_, _elves_, _gnomes_, _fairies_, _brownies_, _nixes_, _wills_,
+_kobolds_, _leprechaunes_, _cluricaunes_, _banshees_,
+_will-o’-the-wisps_, _follets_, _lutins_, _magots_, _goblins_, _afrits_,
+_marids_, _jinns_, _ghouls_, _peris_, _deevs_, _angels_, _archangels_,
+_imps_, _bogies_, or worse, were nothing at all, and pure bosh and wind.
+And he had to get up very early in the morning to prove that, and to eat
+his breakfast overnight; but he did it, at least to his own satisfaction.
+Whereon a certain great divine, and a very clever divine was he, called
+him a regular Sadducee; and probably he was quite right.  Whereon the
+professor, in return, called him a regular Pharisee; and probably he was
+quite right too.  But they did not quarrel in the least; for, when men
+are men of the world, hard words run off them like water off a duck’s
+back.  So the professor and the divine met at dinner that evening, and
+sat together on the sofa afterwards for an hour, and talked over the
+state of female labour on the antarctic continent (for nobody talks shop
+after his claret), and each vowed that the other was the best company he
+ever met in his life.  What an advantage it is to be men of the world!
+
+From all which you may guess that the professor was not the least of
+little Ellie’s opinion.  So he gave her a succinct compendium of his
+famous paper at the British Association, in a form suited for the
+youthful mind.  But, as we have gone over his arguments against
+water-babies once already, which is once too often, we will not repeat
+them here.
+
+Now little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; for, instead of
+being convinced by Professor Ptthmllnsprts’ arguments, she only asked the
+same question over again.
+
+“But why are there not water-babies?”
+
+I trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at that moment on
+the edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt one of his corns sadly, that he
+answered quite sharply, forgetting that he was a scientific man, and
+therefore ought to have known that he couldn’t know; and that he was a
+logician, and therefore ought to have known that he could not prove a
+universal negative—I say, I trust and hope it was because the mussel hurt
+his corn, that the professor answered quite sharply:
+
+“Because there ain’t.”
+
+Which was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as you must
+know from Aunt Agitate’s Arguments, the professor ought to have said, if
+he was so angry as to say anything of the kind—Because there are not: or
+are none: or are none of them; or (if he had been reading Aunt Agitate
+too) because they do not exist.
+
+And he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, that, as it
+befell, he caught poor little Tom.
+
+He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly, with Tom all
+entangled in the meshes.
+
+“Dear me!” he cried.  “What a large pink Holothurian; with hands, too!
+It must be connected with Synapta.”
+
+And he took him out.
+
+“It has actually eyes!” he cried.  “Why, it must be a Cephalopod!  This
+is most extraordinary!”
+
+“No, I ain’t!” cried Tom, as loud as he could; for he did not like to be
+called bad names.
+
+“It is a water-baby!” cried Ellie; and of course it was.
+
+“Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!” said the professor; and he turned away
+sharply.
+
+There was no denying it.  It was a water-baby: and he had said a moment
+ago that there were none.  What was he to do?
+
+He would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom home in a bucket.  He
+would not have put him in spirits.  Of course not.  He would have kept
+him alive, and petted him (for he was a very kind old gentleman), and
+written a book about him, and given him two long names, of which the
+first would have said a little about Tom, and the second all about
+himself; for of course he would have called him Hydrotecnon
+Ptthmllnsprtsianum, or some other long name like that; for they are
+forced to call everything by long names now, because they have used up
+all the short ones, ever since they took to making nine species out of
+one.  But—what would all the learned men say to him after his speech at
+the British Association?  And what would Ellie say, after what he had
+just told her?
+
+There was a wise old heathen once, who said, “Maxima debetur pueris
+reverentia”—The greatest reverence is due to children; that is, that
+grown people should never say or do anything wrong before children, lest
+they should set them a bad example.—Cousin Cramchild says it means, “The
+greatest respectfulness is expected from little boys.”  But he was raised
+in a country where little boys are not expected to be respectful, because
+all of them are as good as the President:—Well, every one knows his own
+concerns best; so perhaps they are.  But poor Cousin Cramchild, to do him
+justice, not being of that opinion, and having a moral mission, and being
+no scholar to speak of, and hard up for an authority—why, it was a very
+great temptation for him.  But some people, and I am afraid the professor
+was one of them, interpret that in a more strange, curious, one-sided,
+left-handed, topsy-turvy, inside-out, behind-before fashion than even
+Cousin Cramchild; for they make it mean, that you must show your respect
+for children, by never confessing yourself in the wrong to them, even if
+you know that you are so, lest they should lose confidence in their
+elders.
+
+Now, if the professor had said to Ellie, “Yes, my darling, it is a
+water-baby, and a very wonderful thing it is; and it shows how little I
+know of the wonders of nature, in spite of forty years’ honest labour.  I
+was just telling you that there could be no such creatures; and, behold!
+here is one come to confound my conceit and show me that Nature can do,
+and has done, beyond all that man’s poor fancy can imagine.  So, let us
+thank the Maker, and Inspirer, and Lord of Nature for all His wonderful
+and glorious works, and try and find out something about this one;”—I
+think that, if the professor had said that, little Ellie would have
+believed him more firmly, and respected him more deeply, and loved him
+better, than ever she had done before.  But he was of a different
+opinion.  He hesitated a moment.  He longed to keep Tom, and yet he half
+wished he never had caught him; and at last he quite longed to get rid of
+him.  So he turned away and poked Tom with his finger, for want of
+anything better to do; and said carelessly, “My dear little maid, you
+must have dreamt of water-babies last night, your head is so full of
+them.”
+
+Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable fright all the
+while; and had kept as quiet as he could, though he was called a
+Holothurian and a Cephalopod; for it was fixed in his little head that if
+a man with clothes on caught him, he might put clothes on him too, and
+make a dirty black chimney-sweep of him again.  But, when the professor
+poked him, it was more than he could bear; and, between fright and rage,
+he turned to bay as valiantly as a mouse in a corner, and bit the
+professor’s finger till it bled.
+
+“Oh! ah! yah!” cried he; and glad of an excuse to be rid of Tom, dropped
+him on to the seaweed, and thence he dived into the water and was gone in
+a moment.
+
+“But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak!” cried Ellie.  “Ah, it is
+gone!”  And she jumped down off the rock, to try and catch Tom before he
+slipped into the sea.
+
+                 [Picture: Ellie, the professor and Tom]
+
+Too late! and what was worse, as she sprang down, she slipped, and fell
+some six feet, with her head on a sharp rock, and lay quite still.
+
+The professor picked her up, and tried to waken her, and called to her,
+and cried over her, for he loved her very much: but she would not waken
+at all.  So he took her up in his arms and carried her to her governess,
+and they all went home; and little Ellie was put to bed, and lay there
+quite still; only now and then she woke up and called out about the
+water-baby: but no one knew what she meant, and the professor did not
+tell, for he was ashamed to tell.
+
+And, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies came flying in at the
+window and brought her such a pretty pair of wings that she could not
+help putting them on; and she flew with them out of the window, and over
+the land, and over the sea, and up through the clouds, and nobody heard
+or saw anything of her for a very long while.
+
+And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a water-baby.  For
+my part, I believe that the naturalists get dozens of them when they are
+out dredging; but they say nothing about them, and throw them overboard
+again, for fear of spoiling their theories.  But, you see the professor
+was found out, as every one is in due time.  A very terrible old fairy
+found the professor out; she felt his bumps, and cast his nativity, and
+took the lunars of him carefully inside and out; and so she knew what he
+would do as well as if she had seen it in a print book, as they say in
+the dear old west country; and he did it; and so he was found out
+beforehand, as everybody always is; and the old fairy will find out the
+naturalists some day, and put them in the _Times_, and then on whose side
+will the laugh be?
+
+So the old fairy took him in hand very severely there and then.  But she
+says she is always most severe with the best people, because there is
+most chance of curing them, and therefore they are the patients who pay
+her best; for she has to work on the same salary as the Emperor of
+China’s physicians (it is a pity that all do not), no cure, no pay.
+
+So she took the poor professor in hand: and because he was not content
+with things as they are, she filled his head with things as they are not,
+to try if he would like them better; and because he did not choose to
+believe in a water-baby when he saw it, she made him believe in worse
+things than water-babies—in _unicorns_, _fire-drakes_, _manticoras_,
+_basilisks_, _amphisbænas_, _griffins_, _phoenixes_, _rocs_, _orcs_,
+_dog-headed men_, _three-headed dogs_, _three-bodied geryons_, and other
+pleasant creatures, which folks think never existed yet, and which folks
+hope never will exist, though they know nothing about the matter, and
+never will; and these creatures so upset, terrified, flustered,
+aggravated, confused, astounded, horrified, and totally flabbergasted the
+poor professor that the doctors said that he was out of his wits for
+three months; and perhaps they were right, as they are now and then.
+
+So all the doctors in the county were called in to make a report on his
+case; and of course every one of them flatly contradicted the other: else
+what use is there in being men of science?  But at last the majority
+agreed on a report in the true medical language, one half bad Latin, the
+other half worse Greek, and the rest what might have been English, if
+they had only learnt to write it.  And this is the beginning thereof—
+
+    “_The subanhypaposupernal anastomoses of peritomic diacellurite in
+    the encephalo digital region of the distinguished individual of whose
+    symptomatic phœnomena we had the melancholy honour_ (_subsequently to
+    a preliminary diagnostic inspection_) _of making an inspectorial
+    diagnosis_, _presenting the interexclusively quadrilateral and
+    antinomian diathesis known as Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles_, _we
+    proceeded_”—
+
+But what they proceeded to do My Lady never knew; for she was so
+frightened at the long words that she ran for her life, and locked
+herself into her bedroom, for fear of being squashed by the words and
+strangled by the sentence.  A boa constrictor, she said, was bad company
+enough: but what was a boa constrictor made of paving stones?
+
+“It was quite shocking!  What can they think is the matter with him?”
+said she to the old nurse.
+
+“That his wit’s just addled; may be wi’ unbelief and heathenry,” quoth
+she.
+
+“Then why can’t they say so?”
+
+And the heaven, and the sea, and the rocks, and the vales re-echoed—“Why
+indeed?”  But the doctors never heard them.
+
+So she made Sir John write to the _Times_ to command the Chancellor of
+the Exchequer for the time being to put a tax on long words;—
+
+A light tax on words over three syllables, which are necessary evils,
+like rats: but, like them, must be kept down judiciously.
+
+A heavy tax on words over four syllables, as _heterodoxy_, _spontaneity_,
+_spiritualism_, _spuriosity_, _etc._
+
+And on words over five syllables (of which I hope no one will wish to see
+any examples), a totally prohibitory tax.
+
+And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from three or more
+languages at once; words derived from two languages having become so
+common that there was no more hope of rooting out them than of rooting
+out peth-winds.
+
+The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and a man of sense,
+jumped at the notion; for he saw in it the one and only plan for
+abolishing Schedule D: but when he brought in his bill, most of the Irish
+members, and (I am sorry to say) some of the Scotch likewise, opposed it
+most strongly, on the ground that in a free country no man was bound
+either to understand himself or to let others understand him.  So the
+bill fell through on the first reading; and the Chancellor, being a
+philosopher, comforted himself with the thought that it was not the first
+time that a woman had hit off a grand idea and the men turned up their
+stupid noses thereat.
+
+Now the doctors had it all their own way; and to work they went in
+earnest, and they gave the poor professor divers and sundry medicines, as
+prescribed by the ancients and moderns, from Hippocrates to
+Feuchtersleben, as below, viz.—
+
+1.  _Hellebore_, _to wit_—
+
+  _Hellebore of Æta_.
+
+  _Hellebore of Galatia_.
+
+  _Hellebore of Sicily_.
+
+  _And all other Hellebores_, _after the method of the Helleborising
+  Helleborists of the Helleboric era_.  _But that would not do_.
+  _Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles would not stir an inch out of his
+  encephalo digital region_.
+
+2.  _Trying to find out what was the matter with him_, _after the method
+of Hippocrates_,
+
+  _Aretæus_,
+
+  _Celsus_,
+
+  _Coelius Aurelianus_,
+
+  _And Galen_.
+
+But they found that a great deal too much trouble, as most people have
+since; and so had recourse to—
+
+3.  _Borage_.
+
+  _Cauteries_.
+
+Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says Gordonius) “will,
+without doubt, do much good.”  But it didn’t.
+
+  _Bezoar stone_.
+
+  _Diamargaritum_.
+
+  _A ram’s brain boiled in spice_.
+
+  _Oil of wormwood_.
+
+  _Water of Nile_.
+
+  _Capers_.
+
+  _Good wine_ (_but there was none to be got_).
+
+  _The water of a smith’s forge_.
+
+  _Ambergris_.
+
+  _Mandrake pillows_.
+
+  _Dormouse fat_.
+
+  _Hares’ ears_.
+
+  _Starvation_.
+
+  _Camphor_.
+
+  _Salts and senna_.
+
+  _Musk_.
+
+  _Opium_.
+
+  _Strait-waistcoats_.
+
+  _Bullyings_.
+
+  _Bumpings_.
+
+  _Bleedings_.
+
+  _Bucketings with cold water_.
+
+  _Knockings down_.
+
+  _Kneeling on his chest till they broke it in_, _etc. etc._; _after the
+  mediæval or monkish method_: _but that would not do_.
+  _Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles stuck there still_.
+
+Then—
+
+4.  _Coaxing_.
+
+  _Kissing_.
+
+  _Champagne and turtle_.
+
+  _Red herrings and soda water_.
+
+  _Good advice_.
+
+  _Gardening_.
+
+  _Croquet_.
+
+  _Musical soirées_.
+
+  _Aunt Salty_.
+
+  _Mild tobacco_.
+
+  _The Saturday Review_.
+
+  _A carriage with outriders_, _etc. etc._
+
+After the modern method.  But that would not do.
+
+And if he had but been a convict lunatic, and had shot at the Queen,
+killed all his creditors to avoid paying them, or indulged in any other
+little amiable eccentricity of that kind, they would have given him in
+addition—
+
+The healthiest situation in England, on Easthampstead Plain.
+
+Free run of Windsor Forest.
+
+The _Times_ every morning.
+
+A double-barrelled gun and pointers, and leave to shoot three Wellington
+College boys a week (not more) in case black game was scarce.
+
+But as he was neither mad enough nor bad enough to be allowed such
+luxuries, they grew desperate, and fell into bad ways, viz.—
+
+5.  _Suffumigations of sulphur_.
+
+  _Herrwiggius his_ “_Incomparable drink for madmen_:”
+
+Only they could not find out what it was.
+
+  _Suffumigation of the liver of the fish_ * * *
+
+Only they had forgotten its name, so Dr. Gray could not well procure them
+a specimen.
+
+  _Metallic tractors_.
+
+  _Holloway’s Ointment_.
+
+  _Electro-biology_.
+
+  _Valentine Greatrakes his Stroking Cure_.
+
+  _Spirit-rapping_.
+
+  _Holloway’s Pills_.
+
+  _Table-turning_.
+
+  _Morison’s Pills_.
+
+  _Homœopathy_.
+
+  _Parr’s Life Pills_.
+
+  _Mesmerism_.
+
+  _Pure Bosh_.
+
+  _Exorcisms_, _for which the read Maleus Maleficarum_, _Nideri
+  Formicarium_, _Delrio_, _Wierus_, _etc._
+
+But could not get one that mentioned water-babies.
+
+  _Hydropathy_.
+
+  _Madame Rachel’s Elixir of Youth_.
+
+  _The Poughkeepsie Seer his Prophecies_.
+
+  _The distilled liquor of addle eggs_.
+
+  _Pyropathy_.
+
+As successfully employed by the old inquisitors to cure the malady of
+thought, and now by the Persian Mollahs to cure that of rheumatism.
+
+  _Geopathy_, _or burying him_.
+
+  _Atmopathy_, _or steaming him_.
+
+  _Sympathy_, _after the method of Basil Valentine his Triumph of
+  Antimony_, _and Kenelm Digby his Weapon-salve_, _which some call a hair
+  of the dog that bit him_.
+
+  _Hermopathy_, _or pouring mercury down his throat to move the animal
+  spirits_.
+
+  _Meteoropathy_, _or going up to the moon to look for his lost wits_,
+  _as Ruggiero did for Orlando Furioso’s_: _only_, _having no
+  hippogriff_, _they were forced to use a balloon_; _and_, _falling into
+  the North Sea_, _were picked up by a Yarmouth herring-boat_, _and came
+  home much the wiser_, _and all over scales_.
+
+  _Antipathy_, _or using him like_ “_a man and a brother_.”
+
+  _Apathy_, _or doing nothing at all_.
+
+  _With all other ipathies and opathies which Noodle has invented_, _and
+  Foodle tried_, _since black-fellows chipped flints at Abbéville_—_which
+  is a considerable time ago_, _to judge by the Great Exhibition_.
+
+But nothing would do; for he screamed and cried all day for a water-baby,
+to come and drive away the monsters; and of course they did not try to
+find one, because they did not believe in them, and were thinking of
+nothing but Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles; having, as usual, set the
+cart before the horse, and taken the effect for the cause.
+
+So they were forced at last to let the poor professor ease his mind by
+writing a great book, exactly contrary to all his old opinions; in which
+he proved that the moon was made of green cheese, and that all the mites
+in it (which you may see sometimes quite plain through a telescope, if
+you will only keep the lens dirty enough, as Mr. Weekes kept his voltaic
+battery) are nothing in the world but little babies, who are hatching and
+swarming up there in millions, ready to come down into this world
+whenever children want a new little brother or sister.
+
+Which must be a mistake, for this one reason: that, there being no
+atmosphere round the moon (though some one or other says there is, at
+least on the other side, and that he has been round at the back of it to
+see, and found that the moon was just the shape of a Bath bun, and so wet
+that the man in the moon went about on Midsummer-day in Macintoshes and
+Cording’s boots, spearing eels and sneezing); that, therefore, I say,
+there being no atmosphere, there can be no evaporation; and therefore the
+dew-point can never fall below 71.5° below zero of Fahrenheit: and,
+therefore, it cannot be cold enough there about four o’clock in the
+morning to condense the babies’ mesenteric apophthegms into their left
+ventricles; and, therefore, they can never catch the hooping-cough; and
+if they do not have hooping-cough, they cannot be babies at all; and,
+therefore, there are no babies in the moon.—Q.E.D.
+
+                          [Picture: Man in rain]
+
+Which may seem a roundabout reason; and so, perhaps, it is: but you will
+have heard worse ones in your time, and from better men than you are.
+
+But one thing is certain; that, when the good old doctor got his book
+written, he felt considerably relieved from Bumpsterhausen’s blue
+follicles, and a few things infinitely worse; to wit, from pride and
+vain-glory, and from blindness and hardness of heart; which are the true
+causes of Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles, and of a good many other ugly
+things besides.  Whereon the foul flood-water in his brains ran down, and
+cleared to a fine coffee colour, such as fish like to rise in, till very
+fine clean fresh-run fish did begin to rise in his brains; and he caught
+two or three of them (which is exceedingly fine sport, for brain rivers),
+and anatomised them carefully, and never mentioned what he found out from
+them, except to little children; and became ever after a sadder and a
+wiser man; which is a very good thing to become, my dear little boy, even
+though one has to pay a heavy price for the blessing.
+
+                      [Picture: Bat with man’s face]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+          “Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
+          The Godhead’s most benignant grace;
+          Nor know we anything so fair
+          As is the smile upon thy face:
+          Flowers laugh before thee on their beds
+          And fragrance in thy footing treads;
+          Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
+    And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.”
+
+                                                WORDSWORTH, _Ode to Duty_.
+
+[Picture: Dog and cat] BUT what became of little Tom?
+
+He slipped away off the rocks into the water, as I said before.  But he
+could not help thinking of little Ellie.  He did not remember who she
+was; but he knew that she was a little girl, though she was a hundred
+times as big as he.  That is not surprising: size has nothing to do with
+kindred.  A tiny weed may be first cousin to a great tree; and a little
+dog like Vick knows that Lioness is a dog too, though she is twenty times
+larger than herself.  So Tom knew that Ellie was a little girl, and
+thought about her all that day, and longed to have had her to play with;
+but he had very soon to think of something else.  And here is the account
+of what happened to him, as it was published next morning, in the
+Water-proof Gazette, on the finest watered paper, for the use of the
+great fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, who reads the news very carefully
+every morning, and especially the police cases, as you will hear very
+soon.
+
+He was going along the rocks in three-fathom water, watching the pollock
+catch prawns, and the wrasses nibble barnacles off the rocks, shells and
+all, when he saw a round cage of green withes; and inside it, looking
+very much ashamed of himself, sat his friend the lobster, twiddling his
+horns, instead of thumbs.
+
+                  [Picture: Tom, the lobster and otter]
+
+“What, have you been naughty, and have they put you in the lock-up?”
+asked Tom.
+
+The lobster felt a little indignant at such a notion, but he was too much
+depressed in spirits to argue; so he only said, “I can’t get out.”
+
+“Why did you get in?”
+
+“After that nasty piece of dead fish.”  He had thought it looked and
+smelt very nice when he was outside, and so it did, for a lobster: but
+now he turned round and abused it because he was angry with himself.
+
+“Where did you get in?”
+
+“Through that round hole at the top.”
+
+“Then why don’t you get out through it?”
+
+“Because I can’t:” and the lobster twiddled his horns more fiercely than
+ever, but he was forced to confess.
+
+“I have jumped upwards, downwards, backwards, and sideways, at least four
+thousand times; and I can’t get out: I always get up underneath there,
+and can’t find the hole.”
+
+Tom looked at the trap, and having more wit than the lobster, he saw
+plainly enough what was the matter; as you may if you will look at a
+lobster-pot.
+
+“Stop a bit,” said Tom.  “Turn your tail up to me, and I’ll pull you
+through hindforemost, and then you won’t stick in the spikes.”
+
+But the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he couldn’t hit the hole.
+Like a great many fox-hunters, he was very sharp as long as he was in his
+own country; but as soon as they get out of it they lose their heads; and
+so the lobster, so to speak, lost his tail.
+
+Tom reached and clawed down the hole after him, till he caught hold of
+him; and then, as was to be expected, the clumsy lobster pulled him in
+head foremost.
+
+“Hullo! here is a pretty business,” said Tom.  “Now take your great
+claws, and break the points off those spikes, and then we shall both get
+out easily.”
+
+“Dear me, I never thought of that,” said the lobster; “and after all the
+experience of life that I have had!”
+
+You see, experience is of very little good unless a man, or a lobster,
+has wit enough to make use of it.  For a good many people, like old
+Polonius, have seen all the world, and yet remain little better than
+children after all.
+
+But they had not got half the spikes away when they saw a great dark
+cloud over them: and lo, and behold, it was the otter.
+
+How she did grin and grin when she saw Tom.  “Yar!” said she, “you little
+meddlesome wretch, I have you now!  I will serve you out for telling the
+salmon where I was!”  And she crawled all over the pot to get in.
+
+Tom was horribly frightened, and still more frightened when she found the
+hole in the top, and squeezed herself right down through it, all eyes and
+teeth.  But no sooner was her head inside than valiant Mr. Lobster caught
+her by the nose and held on.
+
+And there they were all three in the pot, rolling over and over, and very
+tight packing it was.  And the lobster tore at the otter, and the otter
+tore at the lobster, and both squeezed and thumped poor Tom till he had
+no breath left in his body; and I don’t know what would have happened to
+him if he had not at last got on the otter’s back, and safe out of the
+hole.
+
+He was right glad when he got out: but he would not desert his friend who
+had saved him; and the first time he saw his tail uppermost he caught
+hold of it, and pulled with all his might.
+
+But the lobster would not let go.
+
+“Come along,” said Tom; “don’t you see she is dead?”  And so she was,
+quite drowned and dead.
+
+And that was the end of the wicked otter.
+
+But the lobster would not let go.
+
+“Come along, you stupid old stick-in-the-mud,” cried Tom, “or the
+fisherman will catch you!”  And that was true, for Tom felt some one
+above beginning to haul up the pot.
+
+                      [Picture: Tom and the lobster]
+
+But the lobster would not let go.  Tom saw the fisherman haul him up to
+the boat-side, and thought it was all up with him.  But when Mr. Lobster
+saw the fisherman, he gave such a furious and tremendous snap, that he
+snapped out of his hand, and out of the pot, and safe into the sea.  But
+he left his knobbed claw behind him; for it never came into his stupid
+head to let go after all, so he just shook his claw off as the easier
+method.  It was something of a bull, that; but you must know the lobster
+was an Irish lobster, and was hatched off Island Magee at the mouth of
+Belfast Lough.
+
+Tom asked the lobster why he never thought of letting go.  He said very
+determinedly that it was a point of honour among lobsters.  And so it is,
+as the Mayor of Plymouth found out once to his cost—eight or nine hundred
+years ago, of course; for if it had happened lately it would be personal
+to mention it.
+
+For one day he was so tired with sitting on a hard chair, in a grand
+furred gown, with a gold chain round his neck, hearing one policeman
+after another come in and sing, “What shall we do with the drunken
+sailor, so early in the morning?” and answering them each exactly alike:
+
+“Put him in the round house till he gets sober, so early in the morning”—
+
+That, when it was over, he jumped up, and played leap-frog with the
+town-clerk till he burst his buttons, and then had his luncheon, and
+burst some more buttons, and then said: “It is a low spring-tide; I shall
+go out this afternoon and cut my capers.”
+
+Now he did not mean to cut such capers as you eat with boiled mutton.  It
+was the commandant of artillery at Valetta who used to amuse himself with
+cutting them, and who stuck upon one of the bastions a notice, “No one
+allowed to cut capers here but me,” which greatly edified the midshipmen
+in port, and the Maltese on the Nix Mangiare stairs.  But all that the
+mayor meant was that he would go and have an afternoon’s fun, like any
+schoolboy, and catch lobsters with an iron hook.
+
+So to the Mewstone he went, and for lobsters he looked.  And when he came
+to a certain crack in the rocks he was so excited that, instead of
+putting in his hook, he put in his hand; and Mr. Lobster was at home, and
+caught him by the finger, and held on.
+
+“Yah!” said the mayor, and pulled as hard as he dared: but the more he
+pulled, the more the lobster pinched, till he was forced to be quiet.
+
+Then he tried to get his hook in with his other hand; but the hole was
+too narrow.
+
+Then he pulled again; but he could not stand the pain.
+
+Then he shouted and bawled for help: but there was no one nearer him than
+the men-of-war inside the breakwater.
+
+Then he began to turn a little pale; for the tide flowed, and still the
+lobster held on.
+
+Then he turned quite white; for the tide was up to his knees, and still
+the lobster held on.
+
+Then he thought of cutting off his finger; but he wanted two things to do
+it with—courage and a knife; and he had got neither.
+
+Then he turned quite yellow; for the tide was up to his waist, and still
+the lobster held on.
+
+Then he thought over all the naughty things he ever had done; all the
+sand which he had put in the sugar, and the sloe-leaves in the tea, and
+the water in the treacle, and the salt in the tobacco (because his
+brother was a brewer, and a man must help his own kin).
+
+Then he turned quite blue; for the tide was up to his breast, and still
+the lobster held on.
+
+Then, I have no doubt, he repented fully of all the said naughty things
+which he had done, and promised to mend his life, as too many do when
+they think they have no life left to mend.  Whereby, as they fancy, they
+make a very cheap bargain.  But the old fairy with the birch rod soon
+undeceives them.
+
+And then he grew all colours at once, and turned up his eyes like a duck
+in thunder; for the water was up to his chin, and still the lobster held
+on.
+
+And then came a man-of-war’s boat round the Mewstone, and saw his head
+sticking up out of the water.  One said it was a keg of brandy, and
+another that it was a cocoa-nut, and another that it was a buoy loose,
+and another that it was a black diver, and wanted to fire at it, which
+would not have been pleasant for the mayor: but just then such a yell
+came out of a great hole in the middle of it that the midshipman in
+charge guessed what it was, and bade pull up to it as fast as they could.
+So somehow or other the Jack-tars got the lobster out, and set the mayor
+free, and put him ashore at the Barbican.  He never went lobster-catching
+again; and we will hope he put no more salt in the tobacco, not even to
+sell his brother’s beer.
+
+[Picture: The Mayor of Plymouth] And that is the story of the Mayor of
+Plymouth, which has two advantages—first, that of being quite true; and
+second, that of having (as folks say all good stories ought to have) no
+moral whatsoever: no more, indeed, has any part of this book, because it
+is a fairy tale, you know.
+
+And now happened to Tom a most wonderful thing; for he had not left the
+lobster five minutes before he came upon a water-baby.
+
+A real live water-baby, sitting on the white sand, very busy about a
+little point of rock.  And when it saw Tom it looked up for a moment, and
+then cried, “Why, you are not one of us.  You are a new baby!  Oh, how
+delightful!”
+
+And it ran to Tom, and Tom ran to it, and they hugged and kissed each
+other for ever so long, they did not know why.  But they did not want any
+introductions there under the water.
+
+At last Tom said, “Oh, where have you been all this while?  I have been
+looking for you so long, and I have been so lonely.”
+
+“We have been here for days and days.  There are hundreds of us about the
+rocks.  How was it you did not see us, or hear us when we sing and romp
+every evening before we go home?”
+
+Tom looked at the baby again, and then he said:
+
+“Well, this is wonderful!  I have seen things just like you again and
+again, but I thought you were shells, or sea-creatures.  I never took you
+for water-babies like myself.”
+
+Now, was not that very odd?  So odd, indeed, that you will, no doubt,
+want to know how it happened, and why Tom could never find a water-baby
+till after he had got the lobster out of the pot.  And, if you will read
+this story nine times over, and then think for yourself, you will find
+out why.  It is not good for little boys to be told everything, and never
+to be forced to use their own wits.  They would learn, then, no more than
+they do at Dr. Dulcimer’s famous suburban establishment for the idler
+members of the youthful aristocracy, where the masters learn the lessons
+and the boys hear them—which saves a great deal of trouble—for the time
+being.
+
+“Now,” said the baby, “come and help me, or I shall not have finished
+before my brothers and sisters come, and it is time to go home.”
+
+“What shall I help you at?”
+
+“At this poor dear little rock; a great clumsy boulder came rolling by in
+the last storm, and knocked all its head off, and rubbed off all its
+flowers.  And now I must plant it again with seaweeds, and coralline, and
+anemones, and I will make it the prettiest little rock-garden on all the
+shore.”
+
+So they worked away at the rock, and planted it, and smoothed the sand
+down round, it, and capital fun they had till the tide began to turn.
+And then Tom heard all the other babies coming, laughing and singing and
+shouting and romping; and the noise they made was just like the noise of
+the ripple.  So he knew that he had been hearing and seeing the
+water-babies all along; only he did not know them, because his eyes and
+ears were not opened.
+
+And in they came, dozens and dozens of them, some bigger than Tom and
+some smaller, all in the neatest little white bathing dresses; and when
+they found that he was a new baby, they hugged him and kissed him, and
+then put him in the middle and danced round him on the sand, and there
+was no one ever so happy as poor little Tom.
+
+“Now then,” they cried all at once, “we must come away home, we must come
+away home, or the tide will leave us dry.  We have mended all the broken
+sea-weed, and put all the rock-pools in order, and planted all the shells
+again in the sand, and nobody will see where the ugly storm swept in last
+week.”
+
+And this is the reason why the rock-pools are always so neat and clean;
+because the water-babies come inshore after every storm to sweep them
+out, and comb them down, and put them all to rights again.
+
+Only where men are wasteful and dirty, and let sewers run into the sea
+instead of putting the stuff upon the fields like thrifty reasonable
+souls; or throw herrings’ heads and dead dog-fish, or any other refuse,
+into the water; or in any way make a mess upon the clean shore—there the
+water-babies will not come, sometimes not for hundreds of years (for they
+cannot abide anything smelly or foul), but leave the sea-anemones and the
+crabs to clear away everything, till the good tidy sea has covered up all
+the dirt in soft mud and clean sand, where the water-babies can plant
+live cockles and whelks and razor-shells and sea-cucumbers and
+golden-combs, and make a pretty live garden again, after man’s dirt is
+cleared away.  And that, I suppose, is the reason why there are no
+water-babies at any watering-place which I have ever seen.
+
+And where is the home of the water-babies?  In St. Brandan’s fairy isle.
+
+Did you never hear of the blessed St. Brandan, how he preached to the
+wild Irish on the wild, wild Kerry coast, he and five other hermits, till
+they were weary and longed to rest?  For the wild Irish would not listen
+to them, or come to confession and to mass, but liked better to brew
+potheen, and dance the pater o’pee, and knock each other over the head
+with shillelaghs, and shoot each other from behind turf-dykes, and steal
+each other’s cattle, and burn each other’s homes; till St. Brandan and
+his friends were weary of them, for they would not learn to be peaceable
+Christians at all.
+
+So St. Brandan went out to the point of Old Dunmore, and looked over the
+tide-way roaring round the Blasquets, at the end of all the world, and
+away into the ocean, and sighed—“Ah that I had wings as a dove!”  And far
+away, before the setting sun, he saw a blue fairy sea, and golden fairy
+islands, and he said, “Those are the islands of the blest.”  Then he and
+his friends got into a hooker, and sailed away and away to the westward,
+and were never heard of more.  But the people who would not hear him were
+changed into gorillas, and gorillas they are until this day.
+
+And when St. Brandan and the hermits came to that fairy isle they found
+it overgrown with cedars and full of beautiful birds; and he sat down
+under the cedars and preached to all the birds in the air.  And they
+liked his sermons so well that they told the fishes in the sea; and they
+came, and St. Brandan preached to them; and the fishes told the
+water-babies, who live in the caves under the isle; and they came up by
+hundreds every Sunday, and St. Brandan got quite a neat little
+Sunday-school.  And there he taught the water-babies for a great many
+hundred years, till his eyes grew too dim to see, and his beard grew so
+long that he dared not walk for fear of treading on it, and then he might
+have tumbled down.  And at last he and the five hermits fell fast asleep
+under the cedar-shades, and there they sleep unto this day.  But the
+fairies took to the water-babies, and taught them their lessons
+themselves.
+
+And some say that St. Brandan will awake and begin to teach the babies
+once more: but some think that he will sleep on, for better for worse,
+till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.  But, on still clear summer evenings,
+when the sun sinks down into the sea, among golden cloud-capes and
+cloud-islands, and locks and friths of azure sky, the sailors fancy that
+they see, away to westward, St. Brandan’s fairy isle.
+
+But whether men can see it or not, St. Brandan’s Isle once actually stood
+there; a great land out in the ocean, which has sunk and sunk beneath the
+waves.  Old Plato called it Atlantis, and told strange tales of the wise
+men who lived therein, and of the wars they fought in the old times.  And
+from off that island came strange flowers, which linger still about this
+land:—the Cornish heath, and Cornish moneywort, and the delicate Venus’s
+hair, and the London-pride which covers the Kerry mountains, and the
+little pink butterwort of Devon, and the great blue butterwort of
+Ireland, and the Connemara heath, and the bristle-fern of the Turk
+waterfall, and many a strange plant more; all fairy tokens left for wise
+men and good children from off St. Brandan’s Isle.
+
+Now when Tom got there, he found that the isle stood all on pillars, and
+that its roots were full of caves.  There were pillars of black basalt,
+like Staffa; and pillars of green and crimson serpentine, like Kynance;
+and pillars ribboned with red and white and yellow sandstone, like
+Livermead; and there were blue grottoes like Capri, and white grottoes
+like Adelsberg; all curtained and draped with seaweeds, purple and
+crimson, green and brown; and strewn with soft white sand, on which the
+water-babies sleep every night.  But, to keep the place clean and sweet,
+the crabs picked up all the scraps off the floor and ate them like so
+many monkeys; while the rocks were covered with ten thousand
+sea-anemones, and corals and madrepores, who scavenged the water all day
+long, and kept it nice and pure.  But, to make up to them for having to
+do such nasty work, they were not left black and dirty, as poor
+chimney-sweeps and dustmen are.  No; the fairies are more considerate and
+just than that, and have dressed them all in the most beautiful colours
+and patterns, till they look like vast flower-beds of gay blossoms.  If
+you think I am talking nonsense, I can only say that it is true; and that
+an old gentleman named Fourier used to say that we ought to do the same
+by chimney-sweeps and dustmen, and honour them instead of despising them;
+and he was a very clever old gentleman: but, unfortunately for him and
+the world, as mad as a March hare.
+
+And, instead of watchmen and policemen to keep out nasty things at night,
+there were thousands and thousands of water-snakes, and most wonderful
+creatures they were.  They were all named after the Nereids, the
+sea-fairies who took care of them, Eunice and Polynoe, Phyllodoce and
+Psamathe, and all the rest of the pretty darlings who swim round their
+Queen Amphitrite, and her car of cameo shell.  They were dressed in green
+velvet, and black velvet, and purple velvet; and were all jointed in
+rings; and some of them had three hundred brains apiece, so that they
+must have been uncommonly shrewd detectives; and some had eyes in their
+tails; and some had eyes in every joint, so that they kept a very sharp
+look-out; and when they wanted a baby-snake, they just grew one at the
+end of their own tails, and when it was able to take care of itself it
+dropped off; so that they brought up their families very cheaply.  But if
+any nasty thing came by, out they rushed upon it; and then out of each of
+their hundreds of feet there sprang a whole cutler’s shop of
+
+_Scythes_,           _Javelins_,
+_Billhooks_,         _Lances_,
+_Pickaxes_,          _Halberts_,
+_Forks_,             _Gisarines_,
+_Penknives_,         _Poleaxes_,
+_Rapiers_,           _Fishhooks_,
+_Sabres_,            _Bradawls_,
+_Yataghans_,         _Gimblets_,
+_Creeses_,           _Corkscrews_,
+_Ghoorka swords_,    _Pins_,
+_Tucks_,             _Needles_,
+          _And so forth_,
+
+which stabbed, shot, poked, pricked, scratched, ripped, pinked, and
+crimped those naughty beasts so terribly, that they had to run for their
+lives, or else be chopped into small pieces and be eaten afterwards.
+And, if that is not all, every word, true, then there is no faith in
+microscopes, and all is over with the Linnæan Society.
+
+And there were the water-babies in thousands, more than Tom, or you
+either, could count.—All the little children whom the good fairies take
+to, because their cruel mothers and fathers will not; all who are
+untaught and brought up heathens, and all who come to grief by ill-usage
+or ignorance or neglect; all the little children who are overlaid, or
+given gin when they are young, or are let to drink out of hot kettles, or
+to fall into the fire; all the little children in alleys and courts, and
+tumble-down cottages, who die by fever, and cholera, and measles, and
+scarlatina, and nasty complaints which no one has any business to have,
+and which no one will have some day, when folks have common sense; and
+all the little children who have been killed by cruel masters and wicked
+soldiers; they were all there, except, of course, the babes of Bethlehem
+who were killed by wicked King Herod; for they were taken straight to
+heaven long ago, as everybody knows, and we call them the Holy Innocents.
+
+But I wish Tom had given up all his naughty tricks, and left off
+tormenting dumb animals now that he had plenty of playfellows to amuse
+him.  Instead of that, I am sorry to say, he would meddle with the
+creatures, all but the water-snakes, for they would stand no nonsense.
+So he tickled the madrepores, to make them shut up; and frightened the
+crabs, to make them hide in the sand and peep out at him with the tips of
+their eyes; and put stones into the anemones’ mouths, to make them fancy
+that their dinner was coming.
+
+The other children warned him, and said, “Take care what you are at.
+Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is coming.”  But Tom never heeded them, being quite
+riotous with high spirits and good luck, till, one Friday morning early,
+Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid came indeed.
+
+A very tremendous lady she was; and when the children saw her they all
+stood in a row, very upright indeed, and smoothed down their bathing
+dresses, and put their hands behind them, just as if they were going to
+be examined by the inspector.
+
+And she had on a black bonnet, and a black shawl, and no crinoline at
+all; and a pair of large green spectacles, and a great hooked nose,
+hooked so much that the bridge of it stood quite up above her eyebrows;
+and under her arm she carried a great birch-rod.  Indeed, she was so ugly
+that Tom was tempted to make faces at her: but did not; for he did not
+admire the look of the birch-rod under her arm.
+
+And she looked at the children one by one, and seemed very much pleased
+with them, though she never asked them one question about how they were
+behaving; and then began giving them all sorts of nice
+sea-things—sea-cakes, sea-apples, sea-oranges, sea-bullseyes, sea-toffee;
+and to the very best of all she gave sea-ices, made out of sea-cows’
+cream, which never melt under water.
+
+And, if you don’t quite believe me, then just think—What is more cheap
+and plentiful than sea-rock?  Then why should there not be sea-toffee as
+well?  And every one can find sea-lemons (ready quartered too) if they
+will look for them at low tide; and sea-grapes too sometimes, hanging in
+bunches; and, if you will go to Nice, you will find the fish-market full
+of sea-fruit, which they call “frutta di mare:” though I suppose they
+call them “fruits de mer” now, out of compliment to that most successful,
+and therefore most immaculate, potentate who is seemingly desirous of
+inheriting the blessing pronounced on those who remove their neighbours’
+land-mark.  And, perhaps, that is the very reason why the place is called
+Nice, because there are so many nice things in the sea there: at least,
+if it is not, it ought to be.
+
+[Picture: Tom] Now little Tom watched all these sweet things given away,
+till his mouth watered, and his eyes grew as round as an owl’s.  For he
+hoped that his turn would come at last; and so it did.  For the lady
+called him up, and held out her fingers with something in them, and
+popped it into his mouth; and, lo and behold, it was a nasty cold hard
+pebble.
+
+“You are a very cruel woman,” said he, and began to whimper.
+
+“And you are a very cruel boy; who puts pebbles into the sea-anemones’
+mouths, to take them in, and make them fancy that they had caught a good
+dinner!  As you did to them, so I must do to you.”
+
+“Who told you that?” said Tom.
+
+“You did yourself, this very minute.”
+
+Tom had never opened his lips; so he was very much taken aback indeed.
+
+“Yes; every one tells me exactly what they have done wrong; and that
+without knowing it themselves.  So there is no use trying to hide
+anything from me.  Now go, and be a good boy, and I will put no more
+pebbles in your mouth, if you put none in other creatures’.”
+
+“I did not know there was any harm in it,” said Tom.
+
+“Then you know now.  People continually say that to me: but I tell them,
+if you don’t know that fire burns, that is no reason that it should not
+burn you; and if you don’t know that dirt breeds fever, that is no reason
+why the fevers should not kill you.  The lobster did not know that there
+was any harm in getting into the lobster-pot; but it caught him all the
+same.”
+
+“Dear me,” thought Tom, “she knows everything!”  And so she did, indeed.
+
+“And so, if you do not know that things are wrong that is no reason why
+you should not be punished for them; though not as much, not as much, my
+little man” (and the lady looked very kindly, after all), “as if you did
+know.”
+
+“Well, you are a little hard on a poor lad,” said Tom.
+
+“Not at all; I am the best friend you ever had in all your life.  But I
+will tell you; I cannot help punishing people when they do wrong.  I like
+it no more than they do; I am often very, very sorry for them, poor
+things: but I cannot help it.  If I tried not to do it, I should do it
+all the same.  For I work by machinery, just like an engine; and am full
+of wheels and springs inside; and am wound up very carefully, so that I
+cannot help going.”
+
+“Was it long ago since they wound you up?” asked Tom.  For he thought,
+the cunning little fellow, “She will run down some day: or they may
+forget to wind her up, as old Grimes used to forget to wind up his watch
+when he came in from the public-house; and then I shall be safe.”
+
+“I was wound up once and for all, so long ago, that I forget all about
+it.”
+
+“Dear me,” said Tom, “you must have been made a long time!”
+
+“I never was made, my child; and I shall go for ever and ever; for I am
+as old as Eternity, and yet as young as Time.”
+
+And there came over the lady’s face a very curious expression—very
+solemn, and very sad; and yet very, very sweet.  And she looked up and
+away, as if she were gazing through the sea, and through the sky, at
+something far, far off; and as she did so, there came such a quiet,
+tender, patient, hopeful smile over her face that Tom thought for the
+moment that she did not look ugly at all.  And no more she did; for she
+was like a great many people who have not a pretty feature in their
+faces, and yet are lovely to behold, and draw little children’s hearts to
+them at once because though the house is plain enough, yet from the
+windows a beautiful and good spirit is looking forth.
+
+And Tom smiled in her face, she looked so pleasant for the moment. And
+the strange fairy smiled too, and said:
+
+“Yes.  You thought me very ugly just now, did you not?”
+
+Tom hung down his head, and got very red about the ears.
+
+“And I am very ugly.  I am the ugliest fairy in the world; and I shall
+be, till people behave themselves as they ought to do.  And then I shall
+grow as handsome as my sister, who is the loveliest fairy in the world;
+and her name is Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.  So she begins where I end,
+and I begin where she ends; and those who will not listen to her must
+listen to me, as you will see.  Now, all of you run away, except Tom; and
+he may stay and see what I am going to do.  It will be a very good
+warning for him to begin with, before he goes to school.
+
+“Now, Tom, every Friday I come down here and call up all who have
+ill-used little children and serve them as they served the children.”
+
+And at that Tom was frightened, and crept under a stone; which made the
+two crabs who lived there very angry, and frightened their friend the
+butter-fish into flapping hysterics: but he would not move for them.
+
+And first she called up all the doctors who give little children so much
+physic (they were most of them old ones; for the young ones have learnt
+better, all but a few army surgeons, who still fancy that a baby’s inside
+is much like a Scotch grenadier’s), and she set them all in a row; and
+very rueful they looked; for they knew what was coming.
+
+And first she pulled all their teeth out; and then she bled them all
+round: and then she dosed them with calomel, and jalap, and salts and
+senna, and brimstone and treacle; and horrible faces they made; and then
+she gave them a great emetic of mustard and water, and no basons; and
+began all over again; and that was the way she spent the morning.
+
+And then she called up a whole troop of foolish ladies, who pinch up
+their children’s waists and toes; and she laced them all up in tight
+stays, so that they were choked and sick, and their noses grew red, and
+their hands and feet swelled; and then she crammed their poor feet into
+the most dreadfully tight boots, and made them all dance, which they did
+most clumsily indeed; and then she asked them how they liked it; and when
+they said not at all, she let them go: because they had only done it out
+of foolish fashion, fancying it was for their children’s good, as if
+wasps’ waists and pigs’ toes could be pretty, or wholesome, or of any use
+to anybody.
+
+Then she called up all the careless nurserymaids, and stuck pins into
+them all over, and wheeled them about in perambulators with tight straps
+across their stomachs and their heads and arms hanging over the side,
+till they were quite sick and stupid, and would have had sun-strokes:
+but, being under the water, they could only have water-strokes; which, I
+assure you, are nearly as bad, as you will find if you try to sit under a
+mill-wheel.  And mind—when you hear a rumbling at the bottom of the sea,
+sailors will tell you that it is a ground-swell: but now you know better.
+It is the old lady wheeling the maids about in perambulators.
+
+And by that time she was so tired, she had to go to luncheon.
+
+And after luncheon she set to work again, and called up all the cruel
+schoolmasters—whole regiments and brigades of them; and when she saw
+them, she frowned most terribly, and set to work in earnest, as if the
+best part of the day’s work was to come.  More than half of them were
+nasty, dirty, frowzy, grubby, smelly old monks, who, because they dare
+not hit a man of their own size, amused themselves with beating little
+children instead; as you may see in the picture of old Pope Gregory (good
+man and true though he was, when he meddled with things which he did
+understand), teaching children to sing their fa-fa-mi-fa with a
+cat-o’-nine tails under his chair: but, because they never had any
+children of their own, they took into their heads (as some folks do
+still) that they were the only people in the world who knew how to manage
+children: and they first brought into England, in the old Anglo-Saxon
+times, the fashion of treating free boys, and girls too, worse than you
+would treat a dog or a horse: but Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has caught them
+all long ago; and given them many a taste of their own rods; and much
+good may it do them.
+
+And she boxed their ears, and thumped them over the head with rulers, and
+pandied their hands with canes, and told them that they told stories, and
+were this and that bad sort of people; and the more they were very
+indignant, and stood upon their honour, and declared they told the truth,
+the more she declared they were not, and that they were only telling
+lies; and at last she birched them all round soundly with her great
+birch-rod and set them each an imposition of three hundred thousand lines
+of Hebrew to learn by heart before she came back next Friday.  And at
+that they all cried and howled so, that their breaths came all up through
+the sea like bubbles out of soda-water; and that is one reason of the
+bubbles in the sea.  There are others: but that is the one which
+principally concerns little boys.  And by that time she was so tired that
+she was glad to stop; and, indeed, she had done a very good day’s work.
+
+Tom did not quite dislike the old lady: but he could not help thinking
+her a little spiteful—and no wonder if she was, poor old soul; for if she
+has to wait to grow handsome till people do as they would be done by, she
+will have to wait a very long time.
+
+Poor old Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid! she has a great deal of hard work before
+her, and had better have been born a washerwoman, and stood over a tub
+all day: but, you see, people cannot always choose their own profession.
+
+But Tom longed to ask her one question; and after all, whenever she
+looked at him, she did not look cross at all; and now and then there was
+a funny smile in her face, and she chuckled to herself in a way which
+gave Tom courage, and at last he said:
+
+“Pray, ma’am, may I ask you a question?”
+
+“Certainly, my little dear.”
+
+“Why don’t you bring all the bad masters here and serve them out too?
+The butties that knock about the poor collier-boys; and the nailers that
+file off their lads’ noses and hammer their fingers; and all the master
+sweeps, like my master Grimes?  I saw him fall into the water long ago;
+so I surely expected he would have been here.  I’m sure he was bad enough
+to me.”
+
+Then the old lady looked so very stern that Tom was quite frightened, and
+sorry that he had been so bold.  But she was not angry with him.  She
+only answered, “I look after them all the week round; and they are in a
+very different place from this, because they knew that they were doing
+wrong.”
+
+She spoke very quietly; but there was something in her voice which made
+Tom tingle from head to foot, as if he had got into a shoal of
+sea-nettles.
+
+“But these people,” she went on, “did not know that they were doing
+wrong: they were only stupid and impatient; and therefore I only punish
+them till they become patient, and learn to use their common sense like
+reasonable beings.  But as for chimney-sweeps, and collier-boys, and
+nailer lads, my sister has set good people to stop all that sort of
+thing; and very much obliged to her I am; for if she could only stop the
+cruel masters from ill-using poor children, I should grow handsome at
+least a thousand years sooner.  And now do you be a good boy, and do as
+you would be done by, which they did not; and then, when my sister,
+MADAME DOASYOUWOULDBEDONEBY, comes on Sunday, perhaps she will take
+notice of you, and teach you how to behave.  She understands that better
+than I do.”  And so she went.
+
+Tom was very glad to hear that there was no chance of meeting Grimes
+again, though he was a little sorry for him, considering that he used
+sometimes to give him the leavings of the beer: but he determined to be a
+very good boy all Saturday; and he was; for he never frightened one crab,
+nor tickled any live corals, nor put stones into the sea anemones’
+mouths, to make them fancy they had got a dinner; and when Sunday morning
+came, sure enough, MRS. DOASYOUWOULDBEDONEBY came too.  Whereat all the
+little children began dancing and clapping their hands, and Tom danced
+too with all his might.
+
+And as for the pretty lady, I cannot tell you what the colour of her hair
+was, or, of her eyes: no more could Tom; for, when any one looks at her,
+all they can think of is, that she has the sweetest, kindest, tenderest,
+funniest, merriest face they ever saw, or want to see.  But Tom saw that
+she was a very tall woman, as tall as her sister: but instead of being
+gnarly and horny, and scaly, and prickly, like her, she was the most
+nice, soft, fat, smooth, pussy, cuddly, delicious creature who ever
+nursed a baby; and she understood babies thoroughly, for she had plenty
+of her own, whole rows and regiments of them, and has to this day.  And
+all her delight was, whenever she had a spare moment, to play with
+babies, in which she showed herself a woman of sense; for babies are the
+best company, and the pleasantest playfellows, in the world; at least, so
+all the wise people in the world think.  And therefore when the children
+saw her, they naturally all caught hold of her, and pulled her till she
+sat down on a stone, and climbed into her lap, and clung round her neck,
+and caught hold of her hands; and then they all put their thumbs into
+their mouths, and began cuddling and purring like so many kittens, as
+they ought to have done.  While those who could get nowhere else sat down
+on the sand, and cuddled her feet—for no one, you know, wear shoes in the
+water, except horrid old bathing-women, who are afraid of the
+water-babies pinching their horny toes.  And Tom stood staring at them;
+for he could not understand what it was all about.
+
+“And who are you, you little darling?” she said.
+
+“Oh, that is the new baby!” they all cried, pulling their thumbs out of
+their mouths; “and he never had any mother,” and they all put their
+thumbs back again, for they did not wish to lose any time.
+
+“Then I will be his mother, and he shall have the very best place; so get
+out, all of you, this moment.”
+
+And she took up two great armfuls of babies—nine hundred under one arm,
+and thirteen hundred under the other—and threw them away, right and left,
+into the water.  But they minded it no more than the naughty boys in
+Struwelpeter minded when St. Nicholas dipped them in his inkstand; and
+did not even take their thumbs out of their mouths, but came paddling and
+wriggling back to her like so many tadpoles, till you could see nothing
+of her from head to foot for the swarm of little babies.
+
+But she took Tom in her arms, and laid him in the softest place of all,
+and kissed him, and patted him, and talked to him, tenderly and low, such
+things as he had never heard before in his life; and Tom looked up into
+her eyes, and loved her, and loved, till he fell fast asleep from pure
+love.
+
+And when he woke she was telling the children a story.  And what story
+did she tell them?  One story she told them, which begins every Christmas
+Eve, and yet never ends at all for ever and ever; and, as she went on,
+the children took their thumbs out of their mouths and listened quite
+seriously; but not sadly at all; for she never told them anything sad;
+and Tom listened too, and never grew tired of listening.  And he listened
+so long that he fell fast asleep again, and, when he woke, the lady was
+nursing him still.
+
+“Don’t go away,” said little Tom.  “This is so nice.  I never had any one
+to cuddle me before.”
+
+“Don’t go away,” said all the children; “you have not sung us one song.”
+
+“Well, I have time for only one.  So what shall it be?”
+
+“The doll you lost!  The doll you lost!” cried all the babies at once.
+
+                           [Picture: The doll]
+
+So the strange fairy sang:—
+
+    _I once had a sweet little doll_, _dears_,
+       _The prettiest doll in the world_;
+    _Her cheeks were so red and so white_, _dears_,
+       _And her hair was so charmingly curled_.
+    _But I lost my poor little doll_, _dears_,
+       _As I played in the heath one day_;
+    _And I cried for her more than a week_, _dears_,
+       _But I never could find where she lay_.
+
+                        [Picture: The broken doll]
+
+    _I found my poor little doll_, _dears_,
+       _As I played in the heath one day_:
+    _Folks say she is terribly changed_, _dears_,
+       _For her paint is all washed away_,
+    _And her arm trodden off by the cows_, _dears_,
+       _And her hair not the least bit curled_:
+    _Yet_, _for old sakes’ sake she is still_, _dears_,
+       _The prettiest doll in the world_.
+
+What a silly song for a fairy to sing!
+
+And what silly water-babies to be quite delighted at it!
+
+Well, but you see they have not the advantage of Aunt Agitate’s Arguments
+in the sea-land down below.
+
+“Now,” said the fairy to Tom, “will you be a good boy for my sake, and
+torment no more sea-beasts till I come back?”
+
+“And you will cuddle me again?” said poor little Tom.
+
+“Of course I will, you little duck.  I should like to take you with me
+and cuddle you all the way, only I must not;” and away she went.
+
+So Tom really tried to be a good boy, and tormented no sea-beasts after
+that as long as he lived; and he is quite alive, I assure you, still.
+
+Oh, how good little boys ought to be who have kind pussy mammas to cuddle
+them and tell them stories; and how afraid they ought to be of growing
+naughty, and bringing tears into their mammas’ pretty eyes!
+
+                    [Picture: Little both with mother]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+    “Thou little child, yet glorious in the night
+    Of heaven-born freedom on thy Being’s height,
+    Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
+    The Years to bring the inevitable yoke—
+    Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
+    Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
+    And custom lie upon thee with a weight
+    Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.”
+
+                                                               WORDSWORTH.
+
+[Picture: The Officer and a crying child] HERE I come to the very saddest
+part of all my story.  I know some people will only laugh at it, and call
+it much ado about nothing.  But I know one man who would not; and he was
+an officer with a pair of gray moustaches as long as your arm, who said
+once in company that two of the most heart-rending sights in the world,
+which moved him most to tears, which he would do anything to prevent or
+remedy, were a child over a broken toy and a child stealing sweets.
+
+The company did not laugh at him; his moustaches were too long and too
+gray for that: but, after he was gone, they called him sentimental and so
+forth, all but one dear little old Quaker lady with a soul as white as
+her cap, who was not, of course, generally partial to soldiers; and she
+said very quietly, like a Quaker:
+
+“Friends, it is borne upon my mind that that is a truly brave man.”
+
+Now you may fancy that Tom was quite good, when he had everything that he
+could want or wish: but you would be very much mistaken.  Being quite
+comfortable is a very good thing; but it does not make people good.
+Indeed, it sometimes makes them naughty, as it has made the people in
+America; and as it made the people in the Bible, who waxed fat and
+kicked, like horses overfed and underworked.  And I am very sorry to say
+that this happened to little Tom.  For he grew so fond of the
+sea-bullseyes and sea-lollipops that his foolish little head could think
+of nothing else: and he was always longing for more, and wondering when
+the strange lady would come again and give him some, and what she would
+give him, and how much, and whether she would give him more than the
+others.  And he thought of nothing but lollipops by day, and dreamt of
+nothing else by night—and what happened then?
+
+That he began to watch the lady to see where she kept the sweet things:
+and began hiding, and sneaking, and following her about, and pretending
+to be looking the other way, or going after something else, till he found
+out that she kept them in a beautiful mother-of-pearl cabinet away in a
+deep crack of the rocks.
+
+And he longed to go to the cabinet, and yet he was afraid; and then he
+longed again, and was less afraid; and at last, by continual thinking
+about it, he longed so violently that he was not afraid at all.  And one
+night, when all the other children were asleep, and he could not sleep
+for thinking of lollipops, he crept away among the rocks, and got to the
+cabinet, and behold! it was open.
+
+But, when he saw all the nice things inside, instead of being delighted,
+he was quite frightened, and wished he had never come there.  And then he
+would only touch them, and he did; and then he would only taste one, and
+he did; and then he would only eat one, and he did; and then he would
+only eat two, and then three, and so on; and then he was terrified lest
+she should come and catch him, and began gobbling them down so fast that
+he did not taste them, or have any pleasure in them; and then he felt
+sick, and would have only one more; and then only one more again; and so
+on till he had eaten them all up.
+
+And all the while, close behind him, stood Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.
+
+Some people may say, But why did she not keep her cupboard locked?  Well,
+I know.—It may seem a very strange thing, but she never does keep her
+cupboard locked; every one may go and taste for themselves, and fare
+accordingly.  It is very odd, but so it is; and I am quite sure that she
+knows best.  Perhaps she wishes people to keep their fingers out of the
+fire, by having them burned.
+
+She took off her spectacles, because she did not like to see too much;
+and in her pity she arched up her eyebrows into her very hair, and her
+eyes grew so wide that they would have taken in all the sorrows of the
+world, and filled with great big tears, as they too often do.
+
+But all she said was:
+
+“Ah, you poor little dear! you are just like all the rest.”
+
+But she said it to herself, and Tom neither heard nor saw her.  Now, you
+must not fancy that she was sentimental at all.  If you do, and think
+that she is going to let off you, or me, or any human being when we do
+wrong, because she is too tender-hearted to punish us, then you will find
+yourself very much mistaken, as many a man does every year and every day.
+
+But what did the strange fairy do when she saw all her lollipops eaten?
+
+Did she fly at Tom, catch him by the scruff of the neck, hold him, howk
+him, hump him, hurry him, hit him, poke him, pull him, pinch him, pound
+him, put him in the corner, shake him, slap him, set him on a cold stone
+to reconsider himself, and so forth?
+
+Not a bit.  You may watch her at work if you know where to find her.  But
+you will never see her do that.  For, if she had, she knew quite well Tom
+would have fought, and kicked, and bit, and said bad words, and turned
+again that moment into a naughty little heathen chimney-sweep, with his
+hand, like Ishmael’s of old, against every man, and every man’s hand
+against him.
+
+Did she question him, hurry him, frighten him, threaten him, to make him
+confess?  Not a bit.  You may see her, as I said, at her work often
+enough if you know where to look for her: but you will never see her do
+that.  For, if she had, she would have tempted him to tell lies in his
+fright; and that would have been worse for him, if possible, than even
+becoming a heathen chimney-sweep again.
+
+No.  She leaves that for anxious parents and teachers (lazy ones, some
+call them), who, instead of giving children a fair trial, such as they
+would expect and demand for themselves, force them by fright to confess
+their own faults—which is so cruel and unfair that no judge on the bench
+dare do it to the wickedest thief or murderer, for the good British law
+forbids it—ay, and even punish them to make them confess, which is so
+detestable a crime that it is never committed now, save by Inquisitors,
+and Kings of Naples, and a few other wretched people of whom the world is
+weary.  And then they say, “We have trained up the child in the way he
+should go, and when he grew up he has departed from it.  Why then did
+Solomon say that he would not depart from it?”  But perhaps the way of
+beating, and hurrying and frightening, and questioning, was not the way
+that the child should go; for it is not even the way in which a colt
+should go if you want to break it in and make it a quiet serviceable
+horse.
+
+Some folks may say, “Ah! but the Fairy does not need to do that if she
+knows everything already.”  True.  But, if she did not know, she would
+not surely behave worse than a British judge and jury; and no more should
+parents and teachers either.
+
+So she just said nothing at all about the matter, not even when Tom came
+next day with the rest for sweet things.  He was horribly afraid of
+coming: but he was still more afraid of staying away, lest any one should
+suspect him.  He was dreadfully afraid, too, lest there should be no
+sweets—as was to be expected, he having eaten them all—and lest then the
+fairy should inquire who had taken them.  But, behold! she pulled out
+just as many as ever, which astonished Tom, and frightened him still
+more.
+
+And, when the fairy looked him full in the face, he shook from head to
+foot: however she gave him his share like the rest, and he thought within
+himself that she could not have found him out.
+
+But, when he put the sweets into his mouth, he hated the taste of them;
+and they made him so sick that he had to get away as fast as he could;
+and terribly sick he was, and very cross and unhappy, all the week after.
+
+Then, when next week came, he had his share again; and again the fairy
+looked him full in the face; but more sadly than she had ever looked.
+And he could not bear the sweets: but took them again in spite of
+himself.
+
+[Picture: Prickly Tom] And when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, he wanted
+to be cuddled like the rest; but she said very seriously:
+
+“I should like to cuddle you; but I cannot, you are so horny and
+prickly.”
+
+And Tom looked at himself: and he was all over prickles, just like a
+sea-egg.
+
+Which was quite natural; for you must know and believe that people’s
+souls make their bodies just as a snail makes its shell (I am not joking,
+my little man; I am in serious, solemn earnest).  And therefore, when
+Tom’s soul grew all prickly with naughty tempers, his body could not help
+growing prickly, too, so that nobody would cuddle him, or play with him,
+or even like to look at him.
+
+What could Tom do now but go away and hide in a corner and cry?  For
+nobody would play with him, and he knew full well why.
+
+And he was so miserable all that week that when the ugly fairy came and
+looked at him once more full in the face, more seriously and sadly than
+ever, he could stand it no longer, and thrust the sweetmeats away,
+saying, “No, I don’t want any: I can’t bear them now,” and then burst out
+crying, poor little man, and told Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid every word as it
+happened.
+
+He was horribly frightened when he had done so; for he expected her to
+punish him very severely.  But, instead, she only took him up and kissed
+him, which was not quite pleasant, for her chin was very bristly indeed;
+but he was so lonely-hearted, he thought that rough kissing was better
+than none.
+
+“I will forgive you, little man,” she said.  “I always forgive every one
+the moment they tell me the truth of their own accord.”
+
+“Then you will take away all these nasty prickles?”
+
+“That is a very different matter.  You put them there yourself, and only
+you can take them away.”
+
+“But how can I do that?” asked Tom, crying afresh.
+
+“Well, I think it is time for you to go to school; so I shall fetch you a
+schoolmistress, who will teach you how to get rid of your prickles.”  And
+so she went away.
+
+Tom was frightened at the notion of a school-mistress; for he thought she
+would certainly come with a birch-rod or a cane; but he comforted
+himself, at last, that she might be something like the old woman in
+Vendale—which she was not in the least; for, when the fairy brought her,
+she was the most beautiful little girl that ever was seen, with long
+curls floating behind her like a golden cloud, and long robes floating
+all round her like a silver one.
+
+                    [Picture: Tom and the little girl]
+
+“There he is,” said the fairy; “and you must teach him to be good,
+whether you like or not.”
+
+“I know,” said the little girl; but she did not seem quite to like, for
+she put her finger in her mouth, and looked at Tom under her brows; and
+Tom put his finger in his mouth, and looked at her under his brows, for
+he was horribly ashamed of himself.
+
+The little girl seemed hardly to know how to begin; and perhaps she would
+never have begun at all if poor Tom had not burst out crying, and begged
+her to teach him to be good and help him to cure his prickles; and at
+that she grew so tender-hearted that she began teaching him as prettily
+as ever child was taught in the world.
+
+And what did the little girl teach Tom?  She taught him, first, what you
+have been taught ever since you said your first prayers at your mother’s
+knees; but she taught him much more simply.  For the lessons in that
+world, my child, have no such hard words in them as the lessons in this,
+and therefore the water-babies like them better than you like your
+lessons, and long to learn them more and more; and grown men cannot
+puzzle nor quarrel over their meaning, as they do here on land; for those
+lessons all rise clear and pure, like the Test out of Overton Pool, out
+of the everlasting ground of all life and truth.
+
+So she taught Tom every day in the week; only on Sundays she always went
+away home, and the kind fairy took her place.  And before she had taught
+Tom many Sundays, his prickles had vanished quite away, and his skin was
+smooth and clean again.
+
+“Dear me!” said the little girl; “why, I know you now.  You are the very
+same little chimney-sweep who came into my bedroom.”
+
+“Dear me!” cried Tom.  “And I know you, too, now.  You are the very
+little white lady whom I saw in bed.”  And he jumped at her, and longed
+to hug and kiss her; but did not, remembering that she was a lady born;
+so he only jumped round and round her till he was quite tired.
+
+And then they began telling each other all their story—how he had got
+into the water, and she had fallen over the rock; and how he had swum
+down to the sea, and how she had flown out of the window; and how this,
+that, and the other, till it was all talked out: and then they both began
+over again, and I can’t say which of the two talked fastest.
+
+And then they set to work at their lessons again, and both liked them so
+well that they went on well till seven full years were past and gone.
+
+You may fancy that Tom was quite content and happy all those seven years;
+but the truth is, he was not.  He had always one thing on his mind, and
+that was—where little Ellie went, when she went home on Sundays.
+
+To a very beautiful place, she said.
+
+But what was the beautiful place like, and where was it?
+
+Ah! that is just what she could not say.  And it is strange, but true,
+that no one can say; and that those who have been oftenest in it, or even
+nearest to it, can say least about it, and make people understand least
+what it is like.  There are a good many folks about the
+Other-end-of-Nowhere (where Tom went afterwards), who pretend to know it
+from north to south as well as if they had been penny postmen there; but,
+as they are safe at the Other-end-of-Nowhere, nine hundred and
+ninety-nine million miles away, what they say cannot concern us.
+
+But the dear, sweet, loving, wise, good, self-sacrificing people, who
+really go there, can never tell you anything about it, save that it is
+the most beautiful place in all the world; and, if you ask them more,
+they grow modest, and hold their peace, for fear of being laughed at; and
+quite right they are.
+
+So all that good little Ellie could say was, that it was worth all the
+rest of the world put together.  And of course that only made Tom the
+more anxious to go likewise.
+
+“Miss Ellie,” he said at last, “I will know why I cannot go with you when
+you go home on Sundays, or I shall have no peace, and give you none
+either.”
+
+“You must ask the fairies that.”
+
+So when the fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, came next, Tom asked her.
+
+“Little boys who are only fit to play with sea-beasts cannot go there,”
+she said.  “Those who go there must go first where they do not like, and
+do what they do not like, and help somebody they do not like.”
+
+“Why, did Ellie do that?”
+
+“Ask her.”
+
+And Ellie blushed, and said, “Yes, Tom; I did not like coming here at
+first; I was so much happier at home, where it is always Sunday.  And I
+was afraid of you, Tom, at first, because—because—”
+
+“Because I was all over prickles?  But I am not prickly now, am I, Miss
+Ellie?”
+
+“No,” said Ellie.  “I like you very much now; and I like coming here,
+too.”
+
+“And perhaps,” said the fairy, “you will learn to like going where you
+don’t like, and helping some one that you don’t like, as Ellie has.”
+
+But Tom put his finger in his mouth, and hung his head down; for he did
+not see that at all.
+
+So when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, Tom asked her; for he thought in
+his little head, She is not so strict as her sister, and perhaps she may
+let me off more easily.
+
+Ah, Tom, Tom, silly fellow! and yet I don’t know why I should blame you,
+while so many grown people have got the very same notion in their heads.
+
+But, when they try it, they get just the same answer as Tom did.  For,
+when he asked the second fairy, she told him just what the first did, and
+in the very same words.
+
+Tom was very unhappy at that.  And, when Ellie went home on Sunday, he
+fretted and cried all day, and did not care to listen to the fairy’s
+stories about good children, though they were prettier than ever.
+Indeed, the more he overheard of them, the less he liked to listen,
+because they were all about children who did what they did not like, and
+took trouble for other people, and worked to feed their little brothers
+and sisters instead of caring only for their play.  And, when she began
+to tell a story about a holy child in old times, who was martyred by the
+heathen because it would not worship idols, Tom could bear no more, and
+ran away and hid among the rocks.
+
+And, when Ellie came back, he was shy with her, because he fancied she
+looked down on him, and thought him a coward.  And then he grew quite
+cross with her, because she was superior to him, and did what he could
+not do.  And poor Ellie was quite surprised and sad; and at last Tom
+burst out crying; but he would not tell her what was really in his mind.
+
+And all the while he was eaten up with curiosity to know where Ellie went
+to; so that he began not to care for his playmates, or for the sea-palace
+or anything else.  But perhaps that made matters all the easier for him;
+for he grew so discontented with everything round him that he did not
+care to stay, and did not care where he went.
+
+“Well,” he said, at last, “I am so miserable here, I’ll go; if only you
+will go with me?”
+
+“Ah!” said Ellie, “I wish I might; but the worst of it is, that the fairy
+says that you must go alone if you go at all.  Now don’t poke that poor
+crab about, Tom” (for he was feeling very naughty and mischievous), “or
+the fairy will have to punish you.”
+
+Tom was very nearly saying, “I don’t care if she does;” but he stopped
+himself in time.
+
+“I know what she wants me to do,” he said, whining most dolefully.  “She
+wants me to go after that horrid old Grimes.  I don’t like him, that’s
+certain.  And if I find him, he will turn me into a chimney-sweep again,
+I know.  That’s what I have been afraid of all along.”
+
+“No, he won’t—I know as much as that.  Nobody can turn water-babies into
+sweeps, or hurt them at all, as long as they are good.”
+
+“Ah,” said naughty Tom, “I see what you want; you are persuading me all
+along to go, because you are tired of me, and want to get rid of me.”
+
+Little Ellie opened her eyes very wide at that, and they were all
+brimming over with tears.
+
+“Oh, Tom, Tom!” she said, very mournfully—and then she cried, “Oh, Tom!
+where are you?”
+
+And Tom cried, “Oh, Ellie, where are you?”
+
+For neither of them could see each other—not the least.  Little Ellie
+vanished quite away, and Tom heard her voice calling him, and growing
+smaller and smaller, and fainter and fainter, till all was silent.
+
+Who was frightened then but Tom?  He swam up and down among the rocks,
+into all the halls and chambers, faster than ever he swam before, but
+could not find her.  He shouted after her, but she did not answer; he
+asked all the other children, but they had not seen her; and at last he
+went up to the top of the water and began crying and screaming for Mrs.
+Bedonebyasyoudid—which perhaps was the best thing to do—for she came in a
+moment.
+
+[Picture: Tom crying] “Oh!” said Tom.  “Oh dear, oh dear!  I have been
+naughty to Ellie, and I have killed her—I know I have killed her.”
+
+“Not quite that,” said the fairy; “but I have sent her away home, and she
+will not come back again for I do not know how long.”
+
+And at that Tom cried so bitterly that the salt sea was swelled with his
+tears, and the tide was .3,954,620,819 of an inch higher than it had been
+the day before: but perhaps that was owing to the waxing of the moon.  It
+may have been so; but it is considered right in the new philosophy, you
+know, to give spiritual causes for physical phenomena—especially in
+parlour-tables; and, of course, physical causes for spiritual ones, like
+thinking, and praying, and knowing right from wrong.  And so they odds it
+till it comes even, as folks say down in Berkshire.
+
+“How cruel of you to send Ellie away!” sobbed Tom.  “However, I will find
+her again, if I go to the world’s end to look for her.”
+
+The fairy did not slap Tom, and tell him to hold his tongue: but she took
+him on her lap very kindly, just as her sister would have done; and put
+him in mind how it was not her fault, because she was wound up inside,
+like watches, and could not help doing things whether she liked or not.
+And then she told him how he had been in the nursery long enough, and
+must go out now and see the world, if he intended ever to be a man; and
+how he must go all alone by himself, as every one else that ever was born
+has to go, and see with his own eyes, and smell with his own nose, and
+make his own bed and lie on it, and burn his own fingers if he put them
+into the fire.  And then she told him how many fine things there were to
+be seen in the world, and what an odd, curious, pleasant, orderly,
+respectable, well-managed, and, on the whole, successful (as, indeed,
+might have been expected) sort of a place it was, if people would only be
+tolerably brave and honest and good in it; and then she told him not to
+be afraid of anything he met, for nothing would harm him if he remembered
+all his lessons, and did what he knew was right.  And at last she
+comforted poor little Tom so much that he was quite eager to go, and
+wanted to set out that minute.  “Only,” he said, “if I might see Ellie
+once before I went!”
+
+“Why do you want that?”
+
+“Because—because I should be so much happier if I thought she had
+forgiven me.”
+
+And in the twinkling of an eye there stood Ellie, smiling, and looking so
+happy that Tom longed to kiss her; but was still afraid it would not be
+respectful, because she was a lady born.
+
+“I am going, Ellie!” said Tom.  “I am going, if it is to the world’s end.
+But I don’t like going at all, and that’s the truth.”
+
+“Pooh! pooh! pooh!” said the fairy.  “You will like it very well indeed,
+you little rogue, and you know that at the bottom of your heart.  But if
+you don’t, I will make you like it.  Come here, and see what happens to
+people who do only what is pleasant.”
+
+And she took out of one of her cupboards (she had all sorts of mysterious
+cupboards in the cracks of the rocks) the most wonderful waterproof book,
+full of such photographs as never were seen.  For she had found out
+photography (and this is a fact) more than 13,598,000 years before
+anybody was born; and, what is more, her photographs did not merely
+represent light and shade, as ours do, but colour also, and all colours,
+as you may see if you look at a black-cock’s tail, or a butterfly’s wing,
+or indeed most things that are or can be, so to speak.  And therefore her
+photographs were very curious and famous, and the children looked with
+great delight for the opening of the book.
+
+And on the title-page was written, “The History of the great and famous
+nation of the Doasyoulikes, who came away from the country of Hardwork,
+because they wanted to play on the Jews’ harp all day long.”
+
+In the first picture they saw these Doasyoulikes living in the land of
+Readymade, at the foot of the Happy-go-lucky Mountains, where flapdoodle
+grows wild; and if you want to know what that is, you must read Peter
+Simple.
+
+They lived very much such a life as those jolly old Greeks in Sicily,
+whom you may see painted on the ancient vases, and really there seemed to
+be great excuses for them, for they had no need to work.
+
+Instead of houses they lived in the beautiful caves of tufa, and bathed
+in the warm springs three times a day; and, as for clothes, it was so
+warm there that the gentlemen walked about in little beside a cocked hat
+and a pair of straps, or some light summer tackle of that kind; and the
+ladies all gathered gossamer in autumn (when they were not too lazy) to
+make their winter dresses.
+
+They were very fond of music, but it was too much trouble to learn the
+piano or the violin; and as for dancing, that would have been too great
+an exertion.  So they sat on ant-hills all day long, and played on the
+Jews’ harp; and, if the ants bit them, why they just got up and went to
+the next ant-hill, till they were bitten there likewise.
+
+                  [Picture: Woman surrounded by fairies]
+
+And they sat under the flapdoodle-trees, and let the flapdoodle drop into
+their mouths; and under the vines, and squeezed the grape-juice down
+their throats; and, if any little pigs ran about ready roasted, crying,
+“Come and eat me,” as was their fashion in that country, they waited till
+the pigs ran against their mouths, and then took a bite, and were
+content, just as so many oysters would have been.
+
+They needed no weapons, for no enemies ever came near their land; and no
+tools, for everything was readymade to their hand; and the stern old
+fairy Necessity never came near them to hunt them up, and make them use
+their wits, or die.
+
+And so on, and so on, and so on, till there were never such comfortable,
+easy-going, happy-go-lucky people in the world.
+
+“Well, that is a jolly life,” said Tom.
+
+“You think so?” said the fairy.  “Do you see that great peaked mountain
+there behind,” said the fairy, “with smoke coming out of its top?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And do you see all those ashes, and slag, and cinders lying about?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then turn over the next five hundred years, and you will see what
+happens next.”
+
+And behold the mountain had blown up like a barrel of gunpowder, and then
+boiled over like a kettle; whereby one-third of the Doasyoulikes were
+blown into the air, and another third were smothered in ashes; so that
+there was only one-third left.
+
+“You see,” said the fairy, “what comes of living on a burning mountain.”
+
+“Oh, why did you not warn them?” said little Ellie.
+
+“I did warn them all that I could.  I let the smoke come out of the
+mountain; and wherever there is smoke there is fire.  And I laid the
+ashes and cinders all about; and wherever there are cinders, cinders may
+be again.  But they did not like to face facts, my dears, as very few
+people do; and so they invented a cock-and-bull story, which, I am sure,
+I never told them, that the smoke was the breath of a giant, whom some
+gods or other had buried under the mountain; and that the cinders were
+what the dwarfs roasted the little pigs whole with; and other nonsense of
+that kind.  And, when folks are in that humour, I cannot teach them, save
+by the good old birch-rod.”
+
+And then she turned over the next five hundred years: and there were the
+remnant of the Doasyoulikes, doing as they liked, as before.  They were
+too lazy to move away from the mountain; so they said, If it has blown up
+once, that is all the more reason that it should not blow up again.  And
+they were few in number: but they only said, The more the merrier, but
+the fewer the better fare.  However, that was not quite true; for all the
+flapdoodle-trees were killed by the volcano, and they had eaten all the
+roast pigs, who, of course, could not be expected to have little ones.
+So they had to live very hard, on nuts and roots which they scratched out
+of the ground with sticks.  Some of them talked of sowing corn, as their
+ancestors used to do, before they came into the land of Readymade; but
+they had forgotten how to make ploughs (they had forgotten even how to
+make Jews’ harps by this time), and had eaten all the seed-corn which
+they brought out of the land of Hardwork years since; and of course it
+was too much trouble to go away and find more.  So they lived miserably
+on roots and nuts, and all the weakly little children had great stomachs,
+and then died.
+
+“Why,” said Tom, “they are growing no better than savages.”
+
+“And look how ugly they are all getting,” said Ellie.
+
+“Yes; when people live on poor vegetables instead of roast beef and
+plum-pudding, their jaws grow large, and their lips grow coarse, like the
+poor Paddies who eat potatoes.”
+
+And she turned over the next five hundred years.  And there they were all
+living up in trees, and making nests to keep off the rain.  And
+underneath the trees lions were prowling about.
+
+“Why,” said Ellie, “the lions seem to have eaten a good many of them, for
+there are very few left now.”
+
+“Yes,” said the fairy; “you see it was only the strongest and most active
+ones who could climb the trees, and so escape.”
+
+“But what great, hulking, broad-shouldered chaps they are,” said Tom;
+“they are a rough lot as ever I saw.”
+
+“Yes, they are getting very strong now; for the ladies will not marry any
+but the very strongest and fiercest gentlemen, who can help them up the
+trees out of the lions’ way.”
+
+And she turned over the next five hundred years.  And in that they were
+fewer still, and stronger, and fiercer; but their feet had changed shape
+very oddly, for they laid hold of the branches with their great toes, as
+if they had been thumbs, just as a Hindoo tailor uses his toes to thread
+his needle.
+
+The children were very much surprised, and asked the fairy whether that
+was her doing.
+
+“Yes, and no,” she said, smiling.  “It was only those who could use their
+feet as well as their hands who could get a good living: or, indeed, get
+married; so that they got the best of everything, and starved out all the
+rest; and those who are left keep up a regular breed of toe-thumb-men, as
+a breed of short-horns, or are skye-terriers, or fancy pigeons is kept
+up.”
+
+“But there is a hairy one among them,” said Ellie.
+
+“Ah!” said the fairy, “that will be a great man in his time, and chief of
+all the tribe.”
+
+And, when she turned over the next five hundred years, it was true.
+
+For this hairy chief had had hairy children, and they hairier children
+still; and every one wished to marry hairy husbands, and have hairy
+children too; for the climate was growing so damp that none but the hairy
+ones could live: all the rest coughed and sneezed, and had sore throats,
+and went into consumptions, before they could grow up to be men and
+women.
+
+Then the fairy turned over the next five hundred years.  And they were
+fewer still.
+
+“Why, there is one on the ground picking up roots,” said Ellie, “and he
+cannot walk upright.”
+
+No more he could; for in the same way that the shape of their feet had
+altered, the shape of their backs had altered also.
+
+“Why,” cried Tom, “I declare they are all apes.”
+
+“Something fearfully like it, poor foolish creatures,” said the fairy.
+“They are grown so stupid now, that they can hardly think: for none of
+them have used their wits for many hundred years.  They have almost
+forgotten, too, how to talk.  For each stupid child forgot some of the
+words it heard from its stupid parents, and had not wits enough to make
+fresh words for itself.  Beside, they are grown so fierce and suspicious
+and brutal that they keep out of each other’s way, and mope and sulk in
+the dark forests, never hearing each other’s voice, till they have
+forgotten almost what speech is like.  I am afraid they will all be apes
+very soon, and all by doing only what they liked.”
+
+And in the next five hundred years they were all dead and gone, by bad
+food and wild beasts and hunters; all except one tremendous old fellow
+with jaws like a jack, who stood full seven feet high; and M. Du Chaillu
+came up to him, and shot him, as he stood roaring and thumping his
+breast.  And he remembered that his ancestors had once been men, and
+tried to say, “Am I not a man and a brother?” but had forgotten how to
+use his tongue; and then he had tried to call for a doctor, but he had
+forgotten the word for one.  So all he said was “Ubboboo!” and died.
+
+                              [Picture: Ape]
+
+And that was the end of the great and jolly nation of the Doasyoulikes.
+And, when Tom and Ellie came to the end of the book, they looked very sad
+and solemn; and they had good reason so to do, for they really fancied
+that the men were apes, and never thought, in their simplicity, of asking
+whether the creatures had hippopotamus majors in their brains or not; in
+which case, as you have been told already, they could not possibly have
+been apes, though they were more apish than the apes of all aperies.
+
+“But could you not have saved them from becoming apes?” said little
+Ellie, at last.
+
+“At first, my dear; if only they would have behaved like men, and set to
+work to do what they did not like.  But the longer they waited, and
+behaved like the dumb beasts, who only do what they like, the stupider
+and clumsier they grew; till at last they were past all cure, for they
+had thrown their own wits away.  It is such things as this that help to
+make me so ugly, that I know not when I shall grow fair.”
+
+“And where are they all now?” asked Ellie.
+
+“Exactly where they ought to be, my dear.”
+
+“Yes!” said the fairy, solemnly, half to herself, as she closed the
+wonderful book.  “Folks say now that I can make beasts into men, by
+circumstance, and selection, and competition, and so forth.  Well,
+perhaps they are right; and perhaps, again, they are wrong.  That is one
+of the seven things which I am forbidden to tell, till the coming of the
+Cocqcigrues; and, at all events, it is no concern of theirs.  Whatever
+their ancestors were, men they are; and I advise them to behave as such,
+and act accordingly.  But let them recollect this, that there are two
+sides to every question, and a downhill as well as an uphill road; and,
+if I can turn beasts into men, I can, by the same laws of circumstance,
+and selection, and competition, turn men into beasts.  You were very near
+being turned into a beast once or twice, little Tom.  Indeed, if you had
+not made up your mind to go on this journey, and see the world, like an
+Englishman, I am not sure but that you would have ended as an eft in a
+pond.”
+
+“Oh, dear me!” said Tom; “sooner than that, and be all over slime, I’ll
+go this minute, if it is to the world’s end.”
+
+                             [Picture: Newt]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+    “And Nature, the old Nurse, took
+       The child upon her knee,
+    Saying, ‘Here is a story book
+       Thy father hath written for thee.
+
+    “‘Come wander with me,’ she said,
+       ‘Into regions yet untrod,
+    And read what is still unread
+       In the Manuscripts of God.’
+
+    “And he wandered away and away
+       With Nature, the dear old Nurse,
+    Who sang to him night and day
+       The rhymes of the universe.”
+
+                                                               LONGFELLOW.
+
+[Picture: Tom about to dive] “NOW,” said Tom, “I am ready be off, if it’s
+to the world’s end.”
+
+“Ah!” said the fairy, “that is a brave, good boy.  But you must go
+farther than the world’s end, if you want to find Mr. Grimes; for he is
+at the Other-end-of-Nowhere.  You must go to Shiny Wall, and through the
+white gate that never was opened; and then you will come to Peacepool,
+and Mother Carey’s Haven, where the good whales go when they die.  And
+there Mother Carey will tell you the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere, and
+there you will find Mr. Grimes.”
+
+“Oh, dear!” said Tom.  “But I do not know my way to Shiny Wall, or where
+it is at all.”
+
+“Little boys must take the trouble to find out things for themselves, or
+they will never grow to be men; so that you must ask all the beasts in
+the sea and the birds in the air, and if you have been good to them, some
+of them will tell you the way to Shiny Wall.”
+
+“Well,” said Tom, “it will be a long journey, so I had better start at
+once.  Good-bye, Miss Ellie; you know I am getting a big boy, and I must
+go out and see the world.”
+
+“I know you must,” said Ellie; “but you will not forget me, Tom.  I shall
+wait here till you come.”
+
+And she shook hands with him, and bade him good-bye.  Tom longed very
+much again to kiss her; but he thought it would not be respectful,
+considering she was a lady born; so he promised not to forget her: but
+his little whirl-about of a head was so full of the notion of going out
+to see the world, that it forgot her in five minutes: however, though his
+head forgot her, I am glad to say his heart did not.
+
+So he asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the birds in the air, but
+none of them knew the way to Shiny Wall.  For why?  He was still too far
+down south.
+
+Then he met a ship, far larger than he had ever seen—a gallant
+ocean-steamer, with a long cloud of smoke trailing behind; and he
+wondered how she went on without sails, and swam up to her to see.  A
+school of dolphins were running races round and round her, going three
+feet for her one, and Tom asked them the way to Shiny Wall: but they did
+not know.  Then he tried to find out how she moved, and at last he saw
+her screw, and was so delighted with it that he played under her quarter
+all day, till he nearly had his nose knocked off by the fans, and thought
+it time to move.  Then he watched the sailors upon deck, and the ladies,
+with their bonnets and parasols: but none of them could see him, because
+their eyes were not opened,—as, indeed, most people’s eyes are not.
+
+At last there came out into the quarter-gallery a very pretty lady, in
+deep black widow’s weeds, and in her arms a baby.  She leaned over the
+quarter-gallery, and looked back and back toward England far away; and as
+she looked she sang:
+
+                                      I.
+
+    “_Soft soft wind_, _from out the sweet south sliding_,
+       _Waft thy silver cloud-webs athwart the summer sea_;
+    _Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining_
+       _Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me_.
+
+                                     II.
+
+    “_Deep deep Love_, _within thine own abyss abiding_,
+       _Pour Thyself abroad_, _O Lord_, _on earth and air and sea_;
+    _Worn weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding_,
+       _Shield from sorrow_, _sin_, _and shame my helpless babe and me_.”
+
+Her voice was so soft and low, and the music of the air so sweet, that
+Tom could have listened to it all day.  But as she held the baby over the
+gallery rail, to show it the dolphins leaping and the water gurgling in
+the ship’s wake, lo! and behold, the baby saw Tom.
+
+                           [Picture: The lady]
+
+He was quite sure of that for when their eyes met, the baby smiled and
+held out his hands; and Tom smiled and held out his hands too; and the
+baby kicked and leaped, as if it wanted to jump overboard to him.
+
+“What do you see, my darling?” said the lady; and her eyes followed the
+baby’s till she too caught sight of Tom, swimming about among the
+foam-beads below.
+
+She gave a little shriek and start; and then she said, quite quietly,
+“Babies in the sea?  Well, perhaps it is the happiest place for them;”
+and waved her hand to Tom, and cried, “Wait a little, darling, only a
+little: and perhaps we shall go with you and be at rest.”
+
+And at that an old nurse, all in black, came out and talked to her, and
+drew her in.  And Tom turned away northward, sad and wondering; and
+watched the great steamer slide away into the dusk, and the lights on
+board peep out one by one, and die out again, and the long bar of smoke
+fade away into the evening mist, till all was out of sight.
+
+And he swam northward again, day after day, till at last he met the King
+of the Herrings, with a curry-comb growing out of his nose, and a sprat
+in his mouth for a cigar, and asked him the way to Shiny Wall; so he
+bolted his sprat head foremost, and said:
+
+“If I were you, young Gentleman, I should go to the Allalonestone, and
+ask the last of the Gairfowl.  She is of a very ancient clan, very nearly
+as ancient as my own; and knows a good deal which these modern upstarts
+don’t, as ladies of old houses are likely to do.”
+
+                   [Picture: The King of the Herrings]
+
+Tom asked his way to her, and the King of the Herrings told him very
+kindly, for he was a courteous old gentleman of the old school, though he
+was horribly ugly, and strangely bedizened too, like the old dandies who
+lounge in the club-house windows.
+
+But just as Tom had thanked him and set off, he called after him: “Hi!  I
+say, can you fly?”
+
+“I never tried,” says Tom.  “Why?”
+
+“Because, if you can, I should advise you to say nothing to the old lady
+about it.  There; take a hint.  Good-bye.”
+
+And away Tom went for seven days and seven nights due north-west, till he
+came to a great codbank, the like of which he never saw before.  The
+great cod lay below in tens of thousands, and gobbled shell-fish all day
+long; and the blue sharks roved above in hundreds, and gobbled them when
+they came up.  So they ate, and ate, and ate each other, as they had done
+since the making of the world; for no man had come here yet to catch
+them, and find out how rich old Mother Carey is.
+
+                         [Picture: The Gairfowl]
+
+And there he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing up on the
+Allalonestones all alone.  And a very grand old lady she was, full three
+feet high, and bolt upright, like some old Highland chieftainess.  She
+had on a black velvet gown, and a white pinner and apron, and a very high
+bridge to her nose (which is a sure mark of high breeding), and a large
+pair of white spectacles on it, which made her look rather odd: but it
+was the ancient fashion of her house.
+
+And instead of wings, she had two little feathery arms, with which she
+fanned herself, and complained of the dreadful heat; and she kept on
+crooning an old song to herself, which she learnt when she was a little
+baby-bird, long ago—
+
+    “_Two little birds they sat on a stone_,
+    _One swam away_, _and then there was one_,
+          _With a fal-lal-la-lady_.
+
+    “_The other swam after_, _and then there was none_,
+    _And so the poor stone was left all alone_;
+          _With a fal-lal-la-lady_.”
+
+It was “flew” away, properly, and not “swam” away: but, as she could not
+fly, she had a right to alter it.  However, it was a very fit song for
+her to sing, because she was a lady herself.
+
+Tom came up to her very humbly, and made his bow; and the first thing she
+said was—
+
+“Have you wings?  Can you fly?”
+
+“Oh dear, no, ma’am; I should not think of such thing,” said cunning
+little Tom.
+
+“Then I shall have great pleasure in talking to you, my dear.  It is
+quite refreshing nowadays to see anything without wings.  They must all
+have wings, forsooth, now, every new upstart sort of bird, and fly.  What
+can they want with flying, and raising themselves above their proper
+station in life?  In the days of my ancestors no birds ever thought of
+having wings, and did very well without; and now they all laugh at me
+because I keep to the good old fashion.  Why, the very marrocks and
+dovekies have got wings, the vulgar creatures, and poor little ones
+enough they are; and my own cousins too, the razor-bills, who are
+gentlefolk born, and ought to know better than to ape their inferiors.”
+
+And so she was running on, while Tom tried to get in a word edgeways; and
+at last he did, when the old lady got out of breath, and began fanning
+herself again; and then he asked if she knew the way to Shiny Wall.
+
+“Shiny Wall?  Who should know better than I?  We all came from Shiny
+Wall, thousands of years ago, when it was decently cold, and the climate
+was fit for gentlefolk; but now, what with the heat, and what with these
+vulgar-winged things who fly up and down and eat everything, so that
+gentlepeople’s hunting is all spoilt, and one really cannot get one’s
+living, or hardly venture off the rock for fear of being flown against by
+some creature that would not have dared to come within a mile of one a
+thousand years ago—what was I saying?  Why, we have quite gone down in
+the world, my dear, and have nothing left but our honour.  And I am the
+last of my family.  A friend of mine and I came and settled on this rock
+when we were young, to be out of the way of low people.  Once we were a
+great nation, and spread over all the Northern Isles.  But men shot us
+so, and knocked us on the head, and took our eggs—why, if you will
+believe it, they say that on the coast of Labrador the sailors used to
+lay a plank from the rock on board the thing called their ship, and drive
+us along the plank by hundreds, till we tumbled down into the ship’s
+waist in heaps; and then, I suppose, they ate us, the nasty fellows!
+Well—but—what was I saying?  At last, there were none of us left, except
+on the old Gairfowlskerry, just off the Iceland coast, up which no man
+could climb.  Even there we had no peace; for one day, when I was quite a
+young girl, the land rocked, and the sea boiled, and the sky grew dark,
+and all the air was filled with smoke and dust, and down tumbled the old
+Gairfowlskerry into the sea.  The dovekies and marrocks, of course, all
+flew away; but we were too proud to do that.  Some of us were dashed to
+pieces, and some drowned; and those who were left got away to Eldey, and
+the dovekies tell me they are all dead now, and that another
+Gairfowlskerry has risen out of the sea close to the old one, but that it
+is such a poor flat place that it is not safe to live on: and so here I
+am left alone.”
+
+This was the Gairfowl’s story, and, strange as it may seem, it is every
+word of it true.
+
+“If you only had had wings!” said Tom; “then you might all have flown
+away too.”
+
+“Yes, young gentleman: and if people are not gentleman and ladies, and
+forget that _noblesse oblige_, they will find it as easy to get on in the
+world as other people who don’t care what they do.  Why, if I had not
+recollected that _noblesse oblige_, I should not have been all alone
+now.”  And the poor old lady sighed.
+
+“How was that, ma’am?”
+
+“Why, my dear, a gentleman came hither with me, and after we had been
+here some time, he wanted to marry—in fact, he actually proposed to me.
+Well, I can’t blame him; I was young, and very handsome then, I don’t
+deny: but you see, I could not hear of such a thing, because he was my
+deceased sister’s husband, you see?”
+
+“Of course not, ma’am,” said Tom; though, of course, he knew nothing
+about it.  “She was very much diseased, I suppose?”
+
+“You do not understand me, my dear.  I mean, that being a lady, and with
+right and honourable feelings, as our house always has had, I felt it my
+duty to snub him, and howk him, and peck him continually, to keep him at
+his proper distance; and, to tell the truth, I once pecked him a little
+too hard, poor fellow, and he tumbled backwards off the rock, and—really,
+it was very unfortunate, but it was not my fault—a shark coming by saw
+him flapping, and snapped him up. And since then I have lived all alone—
+
+    ‘_With a fal-lal-la-lady_.’
+
+And soon I shall be gone, my little dear, and nobody will miss me; and
+then the poor stone will be left all alone.”
+
+“But, please, which is the way to Shiny Wall?” said Tom.
+
+“Oh, you must go, my little dear—you must go.  Let me see—I am sure—that
+is—really, my poor old brains are getting quite puzzled.  Do you know, my
+little dear, I am afraid, if you want to know, you must ask some of these
+vulgar birds about, for I have quite forgotten.”
+
+And the poor old Gairfowl began to cry tears of pure oil; and Tom was
+quite sorry for her; and for himself too, for he was at his wit’s end
+whom to ask.
+
+But by there came a flock of petrels, who are Mother Carey’s own
+chickens; and Tom thought them much prettier than Lady Gairfowl, and so
+perhaps they were; for Mother Carey had had a great deal of fresh
+experience between the time that she invented the Gairfowl and the time
+that she invented them.  They flitted along like a flock of black
+swallows, and hopped and skipped from wave to wave, lifting up their
+little feet behind them so daintily, and whistling to each other so
+tenderly, that Tom fell in love with them at once, and called them to
+know the way to Shiny Wall.
+
+“Shiny Wall?  Do you want Shiny Wall?  Then come with us, and we will
+show you.  We are Mother Carey’s own chickens, and she sends us out over
+all the seas, to show the good birds the way home.”
+
+Tom was delighted, and swam off to them, after he had made his bow to the
+Gairfowl.  But she would not return his bow: but held herself bolt
+upright, and wept tears of oil as she sang:
+
+    “_And so the poor stone was left all alone_;
+          _With a fal-lal-la-lady_.”
+
+But she was wrong there; for the stone was not left all alone: and the
+next time that Tom goes by it, he will see a sight worth seeing.
+
+The old Gairfowl is gone already: but there are better things come in her
+place; and when Tom comes he will see the fishing-smacks anchored there
+in hundreds, from Scotland, and from Ireland, and from the Orkneys, and
+the Shetlands, and from all the Northern ports, full of the children of
+the old Norse Vikings, the masters of the sea.  And the men will be
+hauling in the great cod by thousands, till their hands are sore from the
+lines; and they will be making cod-liver oil and guano, and salting down
+the fish; and there will be a man-of-war steamer there to protect them,
+and a lighthouse to show them the way; and you and I, perhaps, shall go
+some day to the Allalonestone to the great summer sea-fair, and dredge
+strange creatures such as man never saw before; and we shall hear the
+sailors boast that it is not the worst jewel in Queen Victoria’s crown,
+for there are eighty miles of codbank, and food for all the poor folk in
+the land.  That is what Tom will see, and perhaps you and I shall see it
+too.  And then we shall not be sorry because we cannot get a Gairfowl to
+stuff, much less find gairfowl enough to drive them into stone pens and
+slaughter them, as the old Norsemen did, or drive them on board along a
+plank till the ship was victualled with them, as the old English and
+French rovers used to do, of whom dear old Hakluyt tells: but we shall
+remember what Mr. Tennyson says: how
+
+    “_The old order changeth_, _giving place to the new_,
+    _And God fulfils himself in many ways_.”
+
+And now Tom was all agog to start for Shiny Wall; but the petrels said
+no.  They must go first to Allfowlsness, and wait there for the great
+gathering of all the sea-birds, before they start for their summer
+breeding-places far away in the Northern Isles; and there they would be
+sure to find some birds which were going to Shiny Wall: but where
+Allfowlsness was, he must promise never to tell, lest men should go there
+and shoot the birds, and stuff them, and put them into stupid museums,
+instead of leaving them to play and breed and work in Mother Carey’s
+water-garden, where they ought to be.
+
+So where Allfowlsness is nobody must know; and all that is to be said
+about it is, that Tom waited there many days; and as he waited, he saw a
+very curious sight.  On the rabbit burrows on the shore there gathered
+hundreds and hundreds of hoodie-crows, such as you see in Cambridgeshire.
+And they made such a noise, that Tom came on shore and went up to see
+what was the matter.
+
+                             [Picture: Crows]
+
+And there he found them holding their great caucus, which they hold every
+year in the North; and all their stump-orators were speechifying; and for
+a tribune, the speaker stood on an old sheep’s skull.
+
+And they cawed and cawed, and boasted of all the clever things they had
+done; how many lambs’ eyes they had picked out, and how many dead
+bullocks they had eaten, and how many young grouse they had swallowed
+whole, and how many grouse-eggs they had flown away with, stuck on the
+point of their bills, which is the hoodie-crow’s particularly clever
+feat, of which he is as proud as a gipsy is of doing the hokany-baro; and
+what that is, I won’t tell you.
+
+And at last they brought out the prettiest, neatest young lady-crow that
+ever was seen, and set her in the middle, and all began abusing and
+vilifying, and rating, and bullyragging at her, because she had stolen no
+grouse-eggs, and had actually dared to say that she would not steal any.
+So she was to be tried publicly by their laws (for the hoodies always try
+some offenders in their great yearly parliament).  And there she stood in
+the middle, in her black gown and gray hood, looking as meek and as neat
+as a Quakeress, and they all bawled at her at once—
+
+And it was in vain that she pleaded—
+
+    _That she did not like grouse-eggs_;
+
+    _That she could get her living very well without them_;
+
+    _That she was afraid to eat them_, _for fear of the gamekeepers_;
+
+    _That she had not the heart to eat them_, _because the grouse were
+    such pretty_, _kind_, _jolly birds_;
+
+    _And a dozen reasons more_.
+
+For all the other scaul-crows set upon her, and pecked her to death there
+and then, before Tom could come to help her; and then flew away, very
+proud of what they had done.
+
+Now, was not this a scandalous transaction?
+
+But they are true republicans, these hoodies, who do every one just what
+he likes, and make other people do so too; so that, for any freedom of
+speech, thought, or action, which is allowed among them, they might as
+well be American citizens of the new school.
+
+But the fairies took the good crow, and gave her nine new sets of
+feathers running, and turned her at last into the most beautiful bird of
+paradise with a green velvet suit and a long tail, and sent her to eat
+fruit in the Spice Islands, where cloves and nutmegs grow.
+
+And Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid settled her account with the wicked hoodies.
+For, as they flew away, what should they find but a nasty dead dog?—on
+which they all set to work, peeking and gobbling and cawing and
+quarrelling to their hearts’ content.  But the moment afterwards, they
+all threw up their bills into the air, and gave one screech; and then
+turned head over heels backward, and fell down dead, one hundred and
+twenty-three of them at once.  For why?  The fairy had told the
+gamekeeper in a dream, to fill the dead dog full of strychnine; and so he
+did.
+
+And after a while the birds began to gather at Allfowlsness, in thousands
+and tens of thousands, blackening all the air; swans and brant geese,
+harlequins and eiders, harolds and garganeys, smews and goosanders,
+divers and loons, grebes and dovekies, auks and razor-bills, gannets and
+petrels, skuas and terns, with gulls beyond all naming or numbering; and
+they paddled and washed and splashed and combed and brushed themselves on
+the sand, till the shore was white with feathers; and they quacked and
+clucked and gabbled and chattered and screamed and whooped as they talked
+over matters with their friends, and settled where they were to go and
+breed that summer, till you might have heard them ten miles off; and
+lucky it was for them that there was no one to hear them but the old
+keeper, who lived all alone upon the Ness, in a turf hut thatched with
+heather and fringed round with great stones slung across the roof by
+bent-ropes, lest the winter gales should blow the hut right away.  But he
+never minded the birds nor hurt them, because they were not in season;
+indeed, he minded but two things in the whole world, and those were, his
+Bible and his grouse; for he was as good an old Scotchman as ever knit
+stockings on a winter’s night: only, when all the birds were going, he
+toddled out, and took off his cap to them, and wished them a merry
+journey and a safe return; and then gathered up all the feathers which
+they had left, and cleaned them to sell down south, and make feather-beds
+for stuffy people to lie on.
+
+                         [Picture: The Scotchman]
+
+Then the petrels asked this bird and that whether they would take Tom to
+Shiny Wall: but one set was going to Sutherland, and one to the
+Shetlands, and one to Norway, and one to Spitzbergen, and one to Iceland,
+and one to Greenland: but none would go to Shiny Wall.  So the
+good-natured petrels said that they would show him part of the way
+themselves, but they were only going as far as Jan Mayen’s Land; and
+after that he must shift for himself.
+
+And then all the birds rose up, and streamed away in long black lines,
+north, and north-east, and north-west, across the bright blue summer sky;
+and their cry was like ten thousand packs of hounds, and ten thousand
+peals of bells.  Only the puffins stayed behind, and killed the young
+rabbits, and laid their eggs in the rabbit-burrows; which was rough
+practice, certainly; but a man must see to his own family.
+
+And, as Tom and the petrels went north-eastward, it began to blow right
+hard; for the old gentleman in the gray great-coat, who looks after the
+big copper boiler, in the gulf of Mexico, had got behindhand with his
+work; so Mother Carey had sent an electric message to him for more steam;
+and now the steam was coming, as much in an hour as ought to have come in
+a week, puffing and roaring and swishing and swirling, till you could not
+see where the sky ended and the sea began.  But Tom and the petrels never
+cared, for the gale was right abaft, and away they went over the crests
+of the billows, as merry as so many flying-fish.
+
+And at last they saw an ugly sight—the black side of a great ship,
+waterlogged in the trough of the sea.  Her funnel and her masts were
+overboard, and swayed and surged under her lee; her decks were swept as
+clean as a barn floor, and there was no living soul on board.
+
+The petrels flew up to her, and wailed round her; for they were very
+sorry indeed, and also they expected to find some salt pork; and Tom
+scrambled on board of her and looked round, frightened and sad.
+
+And there, in a little cot, lashed tight under the bulwark, lay a baby
+fast asleep; the very same baby, Tom saw at once, which he had seen in
+the singing lady’s arms.
+
+He went up to it, and wanted to wake it; but behold, from under the cot
+out jumped a little black and tan terrier dog, and began barking and
+snapping at Tom, and would not let him touch the cot.
+
+Tom knew the dog’s teeth could not hurt him: but at least it could shove
+him away, and did; and he and the dog fought and struggled, for he wanted
+to help the baby, and did not want to throw the poor dog overboard: but
+as they were struggling there came a tall green sea, and walked in over
+the weather side of the ship, and swept them all into the waves.
+
+“Oh, the baby, the baby!” screamed Tom: but the next moment he did not
+scream at all; for he saw the cot settling down through the green water,
+with the baby, smiling in it, fast asleep; and he saw the fairies come up
+from below, and carry baby and cradle gently down in their soft arms; and
+then he knew it was all right, and that there would be a new water-baby
+in St. Brandan’s Isle.
+
+And the poor little dog?
+
+                            [Picture: The dog]
+
+Why, after he had kicked and coughed a little, he sneezed so hard, that
+he sneezed himself clean out of his skin, and turned into a water-dog,
+and jumped and danced round Tom, and ran over the crests of the waves,
+and snapped at the jelly-fish and the mackerel, and followed Tom the
+whole way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.
+
+Then they went on again, till they began to see the peak of Jan Mayen’s
+Land, standing-up like a white sugar-loaf, two miles above the clouds.
+
+And there they fell in with a whole flock of molly-mocks, who were
+feeding on a dead whale.
+
+“These are the fellows to show you the way,” said Mother Carey’s
+chickens; “we cannot help you farther north.  We don’t like to get among
+the ice pack, for fear it should nip our toes: but the mollys dare fly
+anywhere.”
+
+                    [Picture: Mother Carey’s chickens]
+
+So the petrels called to the mollys: but they were so busy and greedy,
+gobbling and peeking and spluttering and fighting over the blubber, that
+they did not take the least notice.
+
+“Come, come,” said the petrels, “you lazy greedy lubbers, this young
+gentleman is going to Mother Carey, and if you don’t attend on him, you
+won’t earn your discharge from her, you know.”
+
+“Greedy we are,” says a great fat old molly, “but lazy we ain’t; and, as
+for lubbers, we’re no more lubbers than you.  Let’s have a look at the
+lad.”
+
+And he flapped right into Tom’s face, and stared at him in the most
+impudent way (for the mollys are audacious fellows, as all whalers know),
+and then asked him where he hailed from, and what land he sighted last.
+
+And, when Tom told him, he seemed pleased, and said he was a good plucked
+one to have got so far.
+
+“Come along, lads,” he said to the rest, “and give this little chap a
+cast over the pack, for Mother Carey’s sake.  We’ve eaten blubber enough
+for to-day, and we’ll e’en work out a bit of our time by helping the
+lad.”
+
+So the mollys took Tom up on their backs, and flew off with him, laughing
+and joking—and oh, how they did smell of train oil!
+
+“Who are you, you jolly birds?” asked Tom.
+
+“We are the spirits of the old Greenland skippers (as every sailor
+knows), who hunted here, right whales and horse-whales, full hundreds of
+years agone.  But, because we were saucy and greedy, we were all turned
+into mollys, to eat whale’s blubber all our days.  But lubbers we are
+none, and could sail a ship now against any man in the North seas, though
+we don’t hold with this new-fangled steam.  And it’s a shame of those
+black imps of petrels to call us so; but because they’re her grace’s
+pets, they think they may say anything they like.”
+
+“And who are you?” asked Tom of him, for he saw that he was the king of
+all the birds.
+
+“My name is Hendrick Hudson, and a right good skipper was I; and my name
+will last to the world’s end, in spite of all the wrong I did.  For I
+discovered Hudson River, and I named Hudson’s Bay; and many have come in
+my wake that dared not have shown me the way.  But I was a hard man in my
+time, that’s truth, and stole the poor Indians off the coast of Maine,
+and sold them for slaves down in Virginia; and at last I was so cruel to
+my sailors, here in these very seas, that they set me adrift in an open
+boat, and I never was heard of more.  So now I’m the king of all mollys,
+till I’ve worked out my time.”
+
+And now they came to the edge of the pack, and beyond it they could see
+Shiny Wall looming, through mist, and snow, and storm.  But the pack
+rolled horribly upon the swell, and the ice giants fought and roared, and
+leapt upon each other’s backs, and ground each other to powder, so that
+Tom was afraid to venture among them, lest he should be ground to powder
+too.  And he was the more afraid, when he saw lying among the ice pack
+the wrecks of many a gallant ship; some with masts and yards all
+standing, some with the seamen frozen fast on board.  Alas, alas, for
+them!  They were all true English hearts; and they came to their end like
+good knights-errant, in searching for the white gate that never was
+opened yet.
+
+But the good mollys took Tom and his dog up, and flew with them safe over
+the pack and the roaring ice giants, and set them down at the foot of
+Shiny Wall.
+
+“And where is the gate?” asked Tom.
+
+“There is no gate,” said the mollys.
+
+“No gate?” cried Tom, aghast.
+
+“None; never a crack of one, and that’s the whole of the secret, as
+better fellows, lad, than you have found to their cost; and if there had
+been, they’d have killed by now every right whale that swims the sea.”
+
+“What am I to do, then?”
+
+“Dive under the floe, to be sure, if you have pluck.”
+
+“I’ve not come so far to turn now,” said Tom; “so here goes for a
+header.”
+
+“A lucky voyage to you, lad,” said the mollys; “we knew you were one of
+the right sort.  So good-bye.”
+
+“Why don’t you come too?” asked Tom.
+
+But the mollys only wailed sadly, “We can’t go yet, we can’t go yet,” and
+flew away over the pack.
+
+So Tom dived under the great white gate which never was opened yet, and
+went on in black darkness, at the bottom of the sea, for seven days and
+seven nights.  And yet he was not a bit frightened.  Why should he be?
+He was a brave English lad, whose business is to go out and see all the
+world.
+
+And at last he saw the light, and clear clear water overhead; and up he
+came a thousand fathoms, among clouds of sea-moths, which fluttered round
+his head.  There were moths with pink heads and wings and opal bodies,
+that flapped about slowly; moths with brown wings that flapped about
+quickly; yellow shrimps that hopped and skipped most quickly of all; and
+jellies of all the colours in the world, that neither hopped nor skipped,
+but only dawdled and yawned, and would not get out of his way.  The dog
+snapped at them till his jaws were tired; but Tom hardly minded them at
+all, he was so eager to get to the top of the water, and see the pool
+where the good whales go.
+
+And a very large pool it was, miles and miles across, though the air was
+so clear that the ice cliffs on the opposite side looked as if they were
+close at hand.  All round it the ice cliffs rose, in walls and spires and
+battlements, and caves and bridges, and stories and galleries, in which
+the ice-fairies live, and drive away the storms and clouds, that Mother
+Carey’s pool may lie calm from year’s end to year’s end.  And the sun
+acted policeman, and walked round outside every day, peeping just over
+the top of the ice wall, to see that all went right; and now and then he
+played conjuring tricks, or had an exhibition of fireworks, to amuse the
+ice-fairies.  For he would make himself into four or five suns at once,
+or paint the sky with rings and crosses and crescents of white fire, and
+stick himself in the middle of them, and wink at the fairies; and I
+daresay they were very much amused; for anything’s fun in the country.
+
+And there the good whales lay, the happy sleepy beasts, upon the still
+oily sea.  They were all right whales, you must know, and finners, and
+razor-backs, and bottle-noses, and spotted sea-unicorns with long ivory
+horns.  But the sperm whales are such raging, ramping, roaring,
+rumbustious fellows, that, if Mother Carey let them in, there would be no
+more peace in Peacepool.  So she packs them away in a great pond by
+themselves at the South Pole, two hundred and sixty-three miles
+south-south-east of Mount Erebus, the great volcano in the ice; and there
+they butt each other with their ugly noses, day and night from year’s end
+to year’s end.
+
+                         [Picture: Mother Carey]
+
+But here there were only good quiet beasts, lying about like the black
+hulls of sloops, and blowing every now and then jets of white steam, or
+sculling round with their huge mouths open, for the sea-moths to swim
+down their throats.  There were no threshers there to thresh their poor
+old backs, or sword-fish to stab their stomachs, or saw-fish to rip them
+up, or ice-sharks to bite lumps out of their sides, or whalers to harpoon
+and lance them.  They were quite safe and happy there; and all they had
+to do was to wait quietly in Peacepool, till Mother Carey sent for them
+to make them out of old beasts into new.
+
+Tom swam up to the nearest whale, and asked the way to Mother Carey.
+
+“There she sits in the middle,” said the whale.
+
+Tom looked; but he could see nothing in the middle of the pool, but one
+peaked iceberg: and he said so.
+
+“That’s Mother Carey,” said the whale, “as you will find when you get to
+her.  There she sits making old beasts into new all the year round.”
+
+“How does she do that?”
+
+“That’s her concern, not mine,” said the old whale; and yawned so wide
+(for he was very large) that there swam into his mouth 943 sea-moths,
+13,846 jelly-fish no bigger than pins’ heads, a string of salpæ nine
+yards long, and forty-three little ice-crabs, who gave each other a
+parting pinch all round, tucked their legs under their stomachs, and
+determined to die decently, like Julius Cæsar.
+
+“I suppose,” said Tom, “she cuts up a great whale like you into a whole
+shoal of porpoises?”
+
+At which the old whale laughed so violently that he coughed up all the
+creatures; who swam away again very thankful at having escaped out of
+that terrible whalebone net of his, from which bourne no traveller
+returns; and Tom went on to the iceberg, wondering.
+
+And, when he came near it, it took the form of the grandest old lady he
+had ever seen—a white marble lady, sitting on a white marble throne.  And
+from the foot of the throne there swum away, out and out into the sea,
+millions of new-born creatures, of more shapes and colours than man ever
+dreamed.  And they were Mother Carey’s children, whom she makes out of
+the sea-water all day long.
+
+                         [Picture: Mother Carey]
+
+He expected, of course—like some grown people who ought to know better—to
+find her snipping, piecing, fitting, stitching, cobbling, basting,
+filing, planing, hammering, turning, polishing, moulding, measuring,
+chiselling, clipping, and so forth, as men do when they go to work to
+make anything.
+
+But, instead of that, she sat quite still with her chin upon her hand,
+looking down into the sea with two great grand blue eyes, as blue as the
+sea itself.  Her hair was as white as the snow—for she was very very
+old—in fact, as old as anything which you are likely to come across,
+except the difference between right and wrong.
+
+And, when she saw Tom, she looked at him very kindly.
+
+“What do you want, my little man?  It is long since I have seen a
+water-baby here.”
+
+Tom told her his errand, and asked the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.
+
+“You ought to know yourself, for you have been there already.”
+
+“Have I, ma’am?  I’m sure I forget all about it.”
+
+“Then look at me.”
+
+And, as Tom looked into her great blue eyes, he recollected the way
+perfectly.
+
+Now, was not that strange?
+
+“Thank you, ma’am,” said Tom.  “Then I won’t trouble your ladyship any
+more; I hear you are very busy.”
+
+“I am never more busy than I am now,” she said, without stirring a
+finger.
+
+“I heard, ma’am, that you were always making new beasts out of old.”
+
+“So people fancy.  But I am not going to trouble myself to make things,
+my little dear.  I sit here and make them make themselves.”
+
+“You are a clever fairy, indeed,” thought Tom.  And he was quite right.
+
+That is a grand trick of good old Mother Carey’s, and a grand answer,
+which she has had occasion to make several times to impertinent people.
+
+There was once, for instance, a fairy who was so clever that she found
+out how to make butterflies.  I don’t mean sham ones; no: but real live
+ones, which would fly, and eat, and lay eggs, and do everything that they
+ought; and she was so proud of her skill that she went flying straight
+off to the North Pole, to boast to Mother Carey how she could make
+butterflies.
+
+But Mother Carey laughed.
+
+“Know, silly child,” she said, “that any one can make things, if they
+will take time and trouble enough: but it is not every one who, like me,
+can make things make themselves.”
+
+But people do not yet believe that Mother Carey is as clever as all that
+comes to; and they will not till they, too, go the journey to the
+Other-end-of-Nowhere.
+
+“And now, my pretty little man,” said Mother Carey, “you are sure you
+know the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere?”
+
+Tom thought; and behold, he had forgotten it utterly.
+
+“That is because you took your eyes off me.”
+
+Tom looked at her again, and recollected; and then looked away, and
+forgot in an instant.
+
+“But what am I to do, ma’am?  For I can’t keep looking at you when I am
+somewhere else.”
+
+“You must do without me, as most people have to do, for nine hundred and
+ninety-nine thousandths of their lives; and look at the dog instead; for
+he knows the way well enough, and will not forget it.  Besides, you may
+meet some very queer-tempered people there, who will not let you pass
+without this passport of mine, which you must hang round your neck and
+take care of; and, of course, as the dog will always go behind you, you
+must go the whole way backward.”
+
+“Backward!” cried Tom.  “Then I shall not be able to see my way.”
+
+“On the contrary, if you look forward, you will not see a step before
+you, and be certain to go wrong; but, if you look behind you, and watch
+carefully whatever you have passed, and especially keep your eye on the
+dog, who goes by instinct, and therefore can’t go wrong, then you will
+know what is coming next, as plainly as if you saw it in a
+looking-glass.”
+
+Tom was very much astonished: but he obeyed her, for he had learnt always
+to believe what the fairies told him.
+
+“So it is, my dear child,” said Mother Carey; “and I will tell you a
+story, which will show you that I am perfectly right, as it is my custom
+to be.
+
+“Once on a time, there were two brothers.  One was called Prometheus,
+because he always looked before him, and boasted that he was wise
+beforehand.  The other was called Epimetheus, because he always looked
+behind him, and did not boast at all; but said humbly, like the Irishman,
+that he had sooner prophesy after the event.
+
+“Well, Prometheus was a very clever fellow, of course, and invented all
+sorts of wonderful things.  But, unfortunately, when they were set to
+work, to work was just what they would not do: wherefore very little has
+come of them, and very little is left of them; and now nobody knows what
+they were, save a few archæological old gentlemen who scratch in queer
+corners, and find little there save Ptinum Furem, Blaptem Mortisagam,
+Acarum Horridum, and Tineam Laciniarum.
+
+“But Epimetheus was a very slow fellow, certainly, and went among men for
+a clod, and a muff, and a milksop, and a slowcoach, and a bloke, and a
+boodle, and so forth.  And very little he did, for many years: but what
+he did, he never had to do over again.
+
+“And what happened at last?  There came to the two brothers the most
+beautiful creature that ever was seen, Pandora by name; which means, All
+the gifts of the Gods.  But because she had a strange box in her hand,
+this fanciful, forecasting, suspicious, prudential, theoretical,
+deductive, prophesying Prometheus, who was always settling what was going
+to happen, would have nothing to do with pretty Pandora and her box.
+
+“But Epimetheus took her and it, as he took everything that came; and
+married her for better for worse, as every man ought, whenever he has
+even the chance of a good wife.  And they opened the box between them, of
+course, to see what was inside: for, else, of what possible use could it
+have been to them?
+
+“And out flew all the ills which flesh is heir to; all the children of
+the four great bogies, Self-will, Ignorance, Fear, and Dirt—for instance:
+
+_Measles_,           _Famines_,
+_Monks_,             _Quacks_,
+_Scarlatina_,        _Unpaid bills_,
+_Idols_,             _Tight stays_,
+_Hooping-coughs_,    _Potatoes_,
+_Popes_,             _Bad Wine_,
+_Wars_,              _Despots_,
+_Peacemongers_,      _Demagogues_,
+_And_, _worst of all_, _Naughty Boys
+and Girls_.
+
+But one thing remained at the bottom of the box, and that was, Hope.
+
+“So Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, as most men do in this world:
+but he got the three best things in the world into the bargain—a good
+wife, and experience, and hope: while Prometheus had just as much
+trouble, and a great deal more (as you will hear), of his own making;
+with nothing beside, save fancies spun out of his own brain, as a spider
+spins her web out of her stomach.
+
+“And Prometheus kept on looking before him so far ahead, that as he was
+running about with a box of lucifers (which were the only useful things
+he ever invented, and do as much harm as good), he trod on his own nose,
+and tumbled down (as most deductive philosophers do), whereby he set the
+Thames on fire; and they have hardly put it out again yet.  So he had to
+be chained to the top of a mountain, with a vulture by him to give him a
+peck whenever he stirred, lest he should turn the whole world upside down
+with his prophecies and his theories.
+
+“But stupid old Epimetheus went working and grubbing on, with the help of
+his wife Pandora, always looking behind him to see what had happened,
+till he really learnt to know now and then what would happen next; and
+understood so well which side his bread was buttered, and which way the
+cat jumped, that he began to make things which would work, and go on
+working, too; to till and drain the ground, and to make looms, and ships,
+and railroads, and steam ploughs, and electric telegraphs, and all the
+things which you see in the Great Exhibition; and to foretell famine, and
+bad weather, and the price of stocks and (what is hardest of all) the
+next vagary of the great idol Whirligig, which some call Public Opinion;
+till at last he grew as rich as a Jew, and as fat as a farmer, and people
+thought twice before they meddled with him, but only once before they
+asked him to help them; for, because he earned his money well, he could
+afford to spend it well likewise.
+
+“And his children are the men of science, who get good lasting work done
+in the world; but the children of Prometheus are the fanatics, and the
+theorists, and the bigots, and the bores, and the noisy windy people, who
+go telling silly folk what will happen, instead of looking to see what
+has happened already.”
+
+Now, was not Mother Carey’s a wonderful story?  And, I am happy to say,
+Tom believed it every word.
+
+                      [Picture: Old Mother Shipton]
+
+For so it happened to Tom likewise.  He was very sorely tried; for
+though, by keeping the dog to heels (or rather to toes, for he had to
+walk backward), he could see pretty well which way the dog was hunting,
+yet it was much slower work to go backwards than to go forwards.  But,
+what was more trying still, no sooner had he got out of Peacepool, than
+there came running to him all the conjurors, fortune-tellers,
+astrologers, prophesiers, projectors, prestigiators, as many as were in
+those parts (and there are too many of them everywhere), Old Mother
+Shipton on her broomstick, with Merlin, Thomas the Rhymer, Gerbertus,
+Rabanus Maurus, Nostradamus, Zadkiel, Raphael, Moore, Old Nixon, and a
+good many in black coats and white ties who might have known better,
+considering in what century they were born, all bawling and screaming at
+him, “Look a-head, only look a-head; and we will show you what man never
+saw before, and right away to the end of the world!”
+
+But I am proud to say that, though Tom had not been to Cambridge—for, if
+he had, he would have certainly been senior wrangler—he was such a little
+dogged, hard, gnarly, foursquare brick of an English boy, that he never
+turned his head round once all the way from Peacepool to the
+Other-end-of-Nowhere: but kept his eye on the dog, and let him pick out
+the scent, hot or cold, straight or crooked, wet or dry, up hill or down
+dale; by which means he never made a single mistake, and saw all the
+wonderful and hitherto by-no-mortal-man-imagined things, which it is my
+duty to relate to you in the next chapter.
+
+                          [Picture: Tom and dog]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII AND LAST
+
+
+    “Come to me, O ye children!
+       For I hear you at your play;
+    And the questions that perplexed me
+       Have vanished quite away.
+
+    “Ye open the Eastern windows,
+       That look towards the sun,
+    Where thoughts are singing swallows,
+       And the brooks of morning run.
+
+                        [Picture: Two young girls]
+
+    “For what are all our contrivings
+       And the wisdom of our books,
+    When compared with your caresses,
+       And the gladness of your looks?
+
+    “Ye are better than all the ballads
+       That ever were sung or said;
+    For ye are living poems,
+       And all the rest are dead.”
+
+                                                               LONGFELLOW.
+
+[Picture: Tom and dog] HERE begins the never-to-be-too-much-studied
+account of the nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth part of the wonderful things
+which Tom saw on his journey to the Other-end-of-Nowhere; which all good
+little children are requested to read; that, if ever they get to the
+Other-end-of-Nowhere, as they may very probably do, they may not burst
+out laughing, or try to run away, or do any other silly vulgar thing
+which may offend Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.
+
+Now, as soon as Tom had left Peacepool, he came to the white lap of the
+great sea-mother, ten thousand fathoms deep; where she makes world-pap
+all day long, for the steam-giants to knead, and the fire-giants to bake,
+till it has risen and hardened into mountain-loaves and island-cakes.
+
+And there Tom was very near being kneaded up in the world-pap, and turned
+into a fossil water-baby; which would have astonished the Geological
+Society of New Zealand some hundreds of thousands of years hence.
+
+For, as he walked along in the silence of the sea-twilight, on the soft
+white ocean floor, he was aware of a hissing, and a roaring, and a
+thumping, and a pumping, as of all the steam-engines in the world at
+once.  And, when he came near, the water grew boiling-hot; not that that
+hurt him in the least: but it also grew as foul as gruel; and every
+moment he stumbled over dead shells, and fish, and sharks, and seals, and
+whales, which had been killed by the hot water.
+
+And at last he came to the great sea-serpent himself, lying dead at the
+bottom; and as he was too thick to scramble over, Tom had to walk round
+him three-quarters of a mile and more, which put him out of his path
+sadly; and, when he had got round, he came to the place called Stop.  And
+there he stopped, and just in time.
+
+For he was on the edge of a vast hole in the bottom of the sea, up which
+was rushing and roaring clear steam enough to work all the engines in the
+world at once; so clear, indeed, that it was quite light at moments; and
+Tom could see almost up to the top of the water above, and down below
+into the pit for nobody knows how far.
+
+But, as soon as he bent his head over the edge, he got such a rap on the
+nose from pebbles, that he jumped back again; for the steam, as it rushed
+up, rasped away the sides of the hole, and hurled it up into the sea in a
+shower of mud and gravel and ashes; and then it spread all around, and
+sank again, and covered in the dead fish so fast, that before Tom had
+stood there five minutes he was buried in silt up to his ankles, and
+began to be afraid that he should have been buried alive.
+
+And perhaps he would have been, but that while he was thinking, the whole
+piece of ground on which he stood was torn off and blown upwards, and
+away flew Tom a mile up through the sea, wondering what was coming next.
+
+At last he stopped—thump! and found himself tight in the legs of the most
+wonderful bogy which he had ever seen.
+
+It had I don’t know how many wings, as big as the sails of a windmill,
+and spread out in a ring like them; and with them it hovered over the
+steam which rushed up, as a ball hovers over the top of a fountain.  And
+for every wing above it had a leg below, with a claw like a comb at the
+tip, and a nostril at the root; and in the middle it had no stomach and
+one eye; and as for its mouth, that was all on one side, as the
+madreporiform tubercle in a star-fish is.  Well, it was a very strange
+beast; but no stranger than some dozens which you may see.
+
+“What do you want here,” it cried quite peevishly, “getting in my way?”
+and it tried to drop Tom: but he held on tight to its claws, thinking
+himself safer where he was.
+
+So Tom told him who he was, and what his errand was.  And the thing
+winked its one eye, and sneered:
+
+“I am too old to be taken in in that way.  You are come after gold—I know
+you are.”
+
+“Gold!  What is gold?”  And really Tom did not know; but the suspicious
+old bogy would not believe him.
+
+But after a while Tom began to understand a little.  For, as the vapours
+came up out of the hole, the bogy smelt them with his nostrils, and
+combed them and sorted them with his combs; and then, when they steamed
+up through them against his wings, they were changed into showers and
+streams of metal.  From one wing fell gold-dust, and from another silver,
+and from another copper, and from another tin, and from another lead, and
+so on, and sank into the soft mud, into veins and cracks, and hardened
+there.  Whereby it comes to pass that the rocks are full of metal.
+
+But, all of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam below, and the hole was
+left empty in an instant: and then down rushed the water into the hole,
+in such a whirlpool that the bogy spun round and round as fast as a
+teetotum.  But that was all in his day’s work, like a fair fall with the
+hounds; so all he did was to say to Tom—
+
+“Now is your time, youngster, to get down, if you are in earnest, which I
+don’t believe.”
+
+“You’ll soon see,” said Tom; and away he went, as bold as Baron
+Munchausen, and shot down the rushing cataract like a salmon at
+Ballisodare.
+
+And, when he got to the bottom, he swam till he was washed on shore safe
+upon the Other-end-of-Nowhere; and he found it, to his surprise, as most
+other people do, much more like This-End-of-Somewhere than he had been in
+the habit of expecting.
+
+And first he went through Waste-paper-land, where all the stupid books
+lie in heaps, up hill and down dale, like leaves in a winter wood; and
+there he saw people digging and grubbing among them, to make worse books
+out of bad ones, and thrashing chaff to save the dust of it; and a very
+good trade they drove thereby, especially among children.
+
+Then he went by the sea of slops, to the mountain of messes, and the
+territory of tuck, where the ground was very sticky, for it was all made
+of bad toffee (not Everton toffee, of course), and full of deep cracks
+and holes choked with wind-fallen fruit, and green goose-berries, and
+sloes, and crabs, and whinberries, and hips and haws, and all the nasty
+things which little children will eat, if they can get them.  But the
+fairies hide them out of the way in that country as fast as they can, and
+very hard work they have, and of very little use it is.  For as fast as
+they hide away the old trash, foolish and wicked people make fresh trash
+full of lime and poisonous paints, and actually go and steal receipts out
+of old Madame Science’s big book to invent poisons for little children,
+and sell them at wakes and fairs and tuck-shops.  Very well.  Let them go
+on.  Dr. Letheby and Dr. Hassall cannot catch them, though they are
+setting traps for them all day long.  But the Fairy with the birch-rod
+will catch them all in time, and make them begin at one corner of their
+shops, and eat their way out at the other: by which time they will have
+got such stomach-aches as will cure them of poisoning little children.
+
+Next he saw all the little people in the world, writing all the little
+books in the world, about all the other little people in the world;
+probably because they had no great people to write about: and if the
+names of the books were not Squeeky, nor the Pump-lighter, nor the Narrow
+Narrow World, nor the Hills of the Chattermuch, nor the Children’s
+Twaddeday, why then they were something else.  And, all the rest of the
+little people in the world read the books, and thought themselves each as
+good as the President; and perhaps they were right, for every one knows
+his own business best.  But Tom thought he would sooner have a jolly good
+fairy tale, about Jack the Giant-killer or Beauty and the Beast, which
+taught him something that he didn’t know already.
+
+And next he came to the centre of Creation (the hub, they call it there),
+which lies in latitude 42.21° south, and longitude 108.56° east.
+
+And there he found all the wise people instructing mankind in the science
+of spirit-rapping, while their house was burning over their heads: and
+when Tom told them of the fire, they held an indignation meeting
+forthwith, and unanimously determined to hang Tom’s dog for coming into
+their country with gunpowder in his mouth.  Tom couldn’t help saying that
+though they did fancy they had carried all the wit away with them out of
+Lincolnshire two hundred years ago, yet if they had had one such
+Lincolnshire nobleman among them as good old Lord Yarborough, he would
+have called for the fire-engines before he hanged other people’s dogs.
+But it was of no use, and the dog was hanged: and Tom couldn’t even have
+his carcase; for they had abolished the have-his-carcase act in that
+country, for fear lest when rogues fell out, honest men should come by
+their own.  And so they would have succeeded perfectly, as they always
+do, only that (as they also always do) they failed in one little
+particular, viz. that the dog would not die, being a water-dog, but bit
+their fingers so abominably that they were forced to let him go, and Tom
+likewise, as British subjects.  Whereon they recommenced rapping for the
+spirits of their fathers; and very much astonished the poor old spirits
+were when they came, and saw how, according to the laws of Mrs.
+Bedonebyasyoudid, their descendants had weakened their constitution by
+hard living.
+
+Then came Tom to the Island of Polupragmosyne (which some call Rogues’
+Harbour; but they are wrong; for that is in the middle of Bramshill
+Bushes, and the county police have cleared it out long ago).  There every
+one knows his neighbour’s business better than his own; and a very noisy
+place it is, as might be expected, considering that all the inhabitants
+are _ex officio_ on the wrong side of the house in the “Parliament of
+Man, and the Federation of the World;” and are always making wry mouths,
+and crying that the fairies’ grapes were sour.
+
+There Tom saw ploughs drawing horses, nails driving hammers, birds’ nests
+taking boys, books making authors, bulls keeping china-shops, monkeys
+shaving cats, dead dogs drilling live lions, blind brigadiers shelfed as
+principals of colleges, play-actors not in the least shelfed as popular
+preachers; and, in short, every one set to do something which he had not
+learnt, because in what he had learnt, or pretended to learn, he had
+failed.
+
+There stands the Pantheon of the Great Unsuccessful, from the builders of
+the Tower of Babel to those of the Trafalgar Fountains; in which
+politicians lecture on the constitutions which ought to have marched,
+conspirators on the revolutions which ought to have succeeded, economists
+on the schemes which ought to have made every one’s fortune, and
+projectors on the discoveries which ought to have set the Thames on fire.
+There cobblers lecture on orthopedy (whatsoever that may be) because they
+cannot sell their shoes; and poets on Æsthetics (whatsoever that may be)
+because they cannot sell their poetry.  There philosophers demonstrate
+that England would be the freest and richest country in the world, if she
+would only turn Papist again; penny-a-liners abuse the Times, because
+they have not wit enough to get on its staff; and young ladies walk about
+with lockets of Charles the First’s hair (or of somebody else’s, when the
+Jews’ genuine stock is used up), inscribed with the neat and appropriate
+legend—which indeed is popular through all that land, and which, I hope,
+you will learn to translate in due time and to perpend likewise:—
+
+    “_Victrix causa diis placuit_, _sed victa puellis_.”
+
+When he got into the middle of the town, they all set on him at once, to
+show him his way; or rather, to show him that he did not know his way;
+for as for asking him what way he wanted to go, no one ever thought of
+that.
+
+But one pulled him hither, and another poked him thither, and a third
+cried—
+
+“You mustn’t go west, I tell you; it is destruction to go west.”
+
+“But I am not going west, as you may see,” said Tom.
+
+And another, “The east lies here, my dear; I assure you this is the
+east.”
+
+“But I don’t want to go east,” said Tom.
+
+“Well, then, at all events, whichever way you are going, you are going
+wrong,” cried they all with one voice—which was the only thing which they
+ever agreed about; and all pointed at once to all the thirty-and-two
+points of the compass, till Tom thought all the sign-posts in England had
+got together, and fallen fighting.
+
+And whether he would have ever escaped out of the town, it is hard to
+say, if the dog had not taken it into his head that they were going to
+pull his master in pieces, and tackled them so sharply about the
+gastrocnemius muscle, that he gave them some business of their own to
+think of at last; and while they were rubbing their bitten calves, Tom
+and the dog got safe away.
+
+On the borders of that island he found Gotham, where the wise men live;
+the same who dragged the pond because the moon had fallen into it, and
+planted a hedge round the cuckoo, to keep spring all the year.  And he
+found them bricking up the town gate, because it was so wide that little
+folks could not get through.  And, when he asked why, they told him they
+were expanding their liturgy.  So he went on; for it was no business of
+his: only he could not help saying that in his country, if the kitten
+could not get in at the same hole as the cat, she might stay outside and
+mew.
+
+But he saw the end of such fellows, when he came to the island of the
+Golden Asses, where nothing but thistles grow.  For there they were all
+turned into mokes with ears a yard long, for meddling with matters which
+they do not understand, as Lucius did in the story.  And like him, mokes
+they must remain, till, by the laws of development, the thistles develop
+into roses.  Till then, they must comfort themselves with the thought,
+that the longer their ears are, the thicker their hides; and so a good
+beating don’t hurt them.
+
+Then came Tom to the great land of Hearsay, in which are no less than
+thirty and odd kings, beside half a dozen Republics, and perhaps more by
+next mail.
+
+And there he fell in with a deep, dark, deadly, and destructive war,
+waged by the princes and potentates of those parts, both spiritual and
+temporal, against what do you think?  One thing I am sure of.  That
+unless I told you, you would never know; nor how they waged that war
+either; for all their strategy and art military consisted in the safe and
+easy process of stopping their ears and screaming, “Oh, don’t tell us!”
+and then running away.
+
+So when Tom came into that land, he found them all, high and low, man,
+woman, and child, running for their lives day and night continually, and
+entreating not to be told they didn’t know what: only the land being an
+island, and they having a dislike to the water (being a musty lot for the
+most part), they ran round and round the shore for ever, which (as the
+island was exactly of the same circumference as the planet on which we
+have the honour of living) was hard work, especially to those who had
+business to look after.  But before them, as bandmaster and fugleman, ran
+a gentleman shearing a pig; the melodious strains of which animal led
+them for ever, if not to conquest, still to flight; and kept up their
+spirits mightily with the thought that they would at least have the pig’s
+wool for their pains.
+
+And running after them, day and night, came such a poor, lean, seedy,
+hard-worked old giant, as ought to have been cockered up, and had a good
+dinner given him, and a good wife found him, and been set to play with
+little children; and then he would have been a very presentable old
+fellow after all; for he had a heart, though it was considerably
+overgrown with brains.
+
+He was made up principally of fish bones and parchment, put together with
+wire and Canada balsam; and smelt strongly of spirits, though he never
+drank anything but water: but spirits he used somehow, there was no
+denying.  He had a great pair of spectacles on his nose, and a
+butterfly-net in one hand, and a geological hammer in the other; and was
+hung all over with pockets, full of collecting boxes, bottles,
+microscopes, telescopes, barometers, ordnance maps, scalpels, forceps,
+photographic apparatus, and all other tackle for finding out everything
+about everything, and a little more too.  And, most strange of all, he
+was running not forwards but backwards, as fast as he could.
+
+Away all the good folks ran from him, except Tom, who stood his ground
+and dodged between his legs; and the giant, when he had passed him,
+looked down, and cried, as if he was quite pleased and comforted,—
+
+“What? who are you?  And you actually don’t run away, like all the rest?”
+But he had to take his spectacles off, Tom remarked, in order to see him
+plainly.
+
+Tom told him who he was; and the giant pulled out a bottle and a cork
+instantly, to collect him with.
+
+But Tom was too sharp for that, and dodged between his legs and in front
+of him; and then the giant could not see him at all.
+
+“No, no, no!” said Tom, “I’ve not been round the world, and through the
+world, and up to Mother Carey’s haven, beside being caught in a net and
+called a Holothurian and a Cephalopod, to be bottled up by any old giant
+like you.”
+
+And when the giant understood what a great traveller Tom had been, he
+made a truce with him at once, and would have kept him there to this day
+to pick his brains, so delighted was he at finding any one to tell him
+what he did not know before.
+
+“Ah, you lucky little dog!” said he at last, quite simply—for he was the
+simplest, pleasantest, honestest, kindliest old Dominie Sampson of a
+giant that ever turned the world upside down without intending it—“ah,
+you lucky little dog!  If I had only been where you have been, to see
+what you have seen!”
+
+“Well,” said Tom, “if you want to do that, you had best put your head
+under water for a few hours, as I did, and turn into a water-baby, or
+some other baby, and then you might have a chance.”
+
+“Turn into a baby, eh?  If I could do that, and know what was happening
+to me for but one hour, I should know everything then, and be at rest.
+But I can’t; I can’t be a little child again; and I suppose if I could,
+it would be no use, because then I should then know nothing about what
+was happening to me.  Ah, you lucky little dog!” said the poor old giant.
+
+“But why do you run after all these poor people?” said Tom, who liked the
+giant very much.
+
+“My dear, it’s they that have been running after me, father and son, for
+hundreds and hundreds of years, throwing stones at me till they have
+knocked off my spectacles fifty times, and calling me a malignant and a
+turbaned Turk, who beat a Venetian and traduced the State—goodness only
+knows what they mean, for I never read poetry—and hunting me round and
+round—though catch me they can’t, for every time I go over the same
+ground, I go the faster, and grow the bigger.  While all I want is to be
+friends with them, and to tell them something to their advantage, like
+Mr. Joseph Ady: only somehow they are so strangely afraid of hearing it.
+But, I suppose I am not a man of the world, and have no tact.”
+
+“But why don’t you turn round and tell them so?”
+
+“Because I can’t.  You see, I am one of the sons of Epimetheus, and must
+go backwards, if I am to go at all.”
+
+“But why don’t you stop, and let them come up to you?”
+
+“Why, my dear, only think.  If I did, all the butterflies and
+cockyolybirds would fly past me, and then I should catch no more new
+species, and should grow rusty and mouldy, and die.  And I don’t intend
+to do that, my dear; for I have a destiny before me, they say: though
+what it is I don’t know, and don’t care.”
+
+“Don’t care?” said Tom.
+
+“No.  Do the duty which lies nearest you, and catch the first beetle you
+come across, is my motto; and I have thriven by it for some hundred
+years.  Now I must go on.  Dear me, while I have been talking to you, at
+least nine new species have escaped me.”
+
+And on went the giant, behind before, like a bull in a china-shop, till
+he ran into the steeple of the great idol temple (for they are all
+idolaters in those parts, of course, else they would never be afraid of
+giants), and knocked the upper half clean off, hurting himself horribly
+about the small of the back.
+
+But little he cared; for as soon as the ruins of the steeple were well
+between his legs, he poked and peered among the falling stones, and
+shifted his spectacles, and pulled out his pocket-magnifier, and cried—
+
+“An entirely new Oniscus, and three obscure Podurellæ!  Besides a moth
+which M. le Roi des Papillons (though he, like all Frenchmen, is given to
+hasty inductions) says is confined to the limits of the Glacial Drift.
+This is most important!”
+
+And down he sat on the nave of the temple (not being a man of the world)
+to examine his Podurellæ.  Whereon (as was to be expected) the roof caved
+in bodily, smashing the idols, and sending the priests flying out of
+doors and windows, like rabbits out of a burrow when a ferret goes in.
+
+But he never heeded; for out of the dust flew a bat, and the giant had
+him in a moment.
+
+“Dear me!  This is even more important!  Here is a cognate species to
+that which Macgilliwaukie Brown insists is confined to the Buddhist
+temples of Little Thibet; and now when I look at it, it may be only a
+variety produced by difference of climate!”
+
+And having bagged his bat, up he got, and on he went; while all the
+people ran, being in none the better humour for having their temple
+smashed for the sake of three obscure species of Podurella, and a
+Buddhist bat.
+
+“Well,” thought Tom, “this is a very pretty quarrel, with a good deal to
+be said on both sides.  But it is no business of mine.”
+
+And no more it was, because he was a water-baby, and had the original sow
+by the right ear; which you will never have, unless you be a baby,
+whether of the water, the land, or the air, matters not, provided you can
+only keep on continually being a baby.
+
+So the giant ran round after the people, and the people ran round after
+the giant, and they are running, unto this day for aught I know, or do
+not know; and will run till either he, or they, or both, turn into little
+children.  And then, as Shakespeare says (and therefore it must be true)—
+
+    “_Jack shall have Gill_
+    _Nought shall go ill_
+    _The man shall have his mare again_, _and all go well_.”
+
+Then Tom came to a very famous island, which was called, in the days of
+the great traveller Captain Gulliver, the Isle of Laputa.  But Mrs.
+Bedonebyasyoudid has named it over again the Isle of Tomtoddies, all
+heads and no bodies.
+
+And when Tom came near it, he heard such a grumbling and grunting and
+growling and wailing and weeping and whining that he thought people must
+be ringing little pigs, or cropping puppies’ ears, or drowning kittens:
+but when he came nearer still, he began to hear words among the noise;
+which was the Tomtoddies’ song which they sing morning and evening, and
+all night too, to their great idol Examination—
+
+    “_I can’t learn my lesson_: _the examiner’s coming_!”
+
+And that was the only song which they knew.
+
+And when Tom got on shore the first thing he saw was a great pillar, on
+one side of which was inscribed, “Playthings not allowed here;” at which
+he was so shocked that he would not stay to see what was written on the
+other side.  Then he looked round for the people of the island: but
+instead of men, women, and children, he found nothing but turnips and
+radishes, beet and mangold wurzel, without a single green leaf among
+them, and half of them burst and decayed, with toad-stools growing out of
+them.  Those which were left began crying to Tom, in half a dozen
+different languages at once, and all of them badly spoken, “I can’t learn
+my lesson; do come and help me!”  And one cried, “Can you show me how to
+extract this square root?”
+
+And another, “Can you tell me the distance between α Lyræ and β
+Camelopardis?”
+
+And another, “What is the latitude and longitude of Snooksville, in
+Noman’s County, Oregon, U.S.?”
+
+And another, “What was the name of Mutius Scævola’s thirteenth cousin’s
+grandmother’s maid’s cat?”
+
+And another, “How long would it take a school-inspector of average
+activity to tumble head over heels from London to York?”
+
+And another, “Can you tell me the name of a place that nobody ever heard
+of, where nothing ever happened, in a country which has not been
+discovered yet?”
+
+And another, “Can you show me how to correct this hopelessly corrupt
+passage of Graidiocolosyrtus Tabenniticus, on the cause why crocodiles
+have no tongues?”
+
+And so on, and so on, and so on, till one would have thought they were
+all trying for tide-waiters’ places, or cornetcies in the heavy dragoons.
+
+“And what good on earth will it do you if I did tell you?” quoth Tom.
+
+Well, they didn’t know that: all they knew was the examiner was coming.
+
+Then Tom stumbled on the hugest and softest nimblecomequick turnip you
+ever saw filling a hole in a crop of swedes, and it cried to him, “Can
+you tell me anything at all about anything you like?”
+
+“About what?” says Tom.
+
+“About anything you like; for as fast as I learn things I forget them
+again.  So my mamma says that my intellect is not adapted for methodic
+science, and says that I must go in for general information.”
+
+Tom told him that he did not know general information, nor any officers
+in the army; only he had a friend once that went for a drummer: but he
+could tell him a great many strange things which he had seen in his
+travels.
+
+So he told him prettily enough, while the poor turnip listened very
+carefully; and the more he listened, the more he forgot, and the more
+water ran out of him.
+
+Tom thought he was crying: but it was only his poor brains running away,
+from being worked so hard; and as Tom talked, the unhappy turnip streamed
+down all over with juice, and split and shrank till nothing was left of
+him but rind and water; whereat Tom ran away in a fright, for he thought
+he might be taken up for killing the turnip.
+
+[Picture: The turnip] But, on the contrary, the turnip’s parents were
+highly delighted, and considered him a saint and a martyr, and put up a
+long inscription over his tomb about his wonderful talents, early
+development, and unparalleled precocity.  Were they not a foolish couple?
+But there was a still more foolish couple next to them, who were beating
+a wretched little radish, no bigger than my thumb, for sullenness and
+obstinacy and wilful stupidity, and never knew that the reason why it
+couldn’t learn or hardly even speak was, that there was a great worm
+inside it eating out all its brains.  But even they are no foolisher than
+some hundred score of papas and mammas, who fetch the rod when they ought
+to fetch a new toy, and send to the dark cupboard instead of to the
+doctor.
+
+Tom was so puzzled and frightened with all he saw, that he was longing to
+ask the meaning of it; and at last he stumbled over a respectable old
+stick lying half covered with earth.  But a very stout and worthy stick
+it was, for it belonged to good Roger Ascham in old time, and had carved
+on its head King Edward the Sixth, with the Bible in his hand.
+
+“You see,” said the stick, “there were as pretty little children once as
+you could wish to see, and might have been so still if they had been only
+left to grow up like human beings, and then handed over to me; but their
+foolish fathers and mothers, instead of letting them pick flowers, and
+make dirt-pies, and get birds’ nests, and dance round the gooseberry
+bush, as little children should, kept them always at lessons, working,
+working, working, learning week-day lessons all week-days, and Sunday
+lessons all Sunday, and weekly examinations every Saturday, and monthly
+examinations every month, and yearly examinations every year, everything
+seven times over, as if once was not enough, and enough as good as a
+feast—till their brains grew big, and their bodies grew small, and they
+were all changed into turnips, with little but water inside; and still
+their foolish parents actually pick the leaves off them as fast as they
+grow, lest they should have anything green about them.”
+
+“Ah!” said Tom, “if dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby knew of it she would
+send them a lot of tops, and balls, and marbles, and ninepins, and make
+them all as jolly as sand-boys.”
+
+“It would be no use,” said the stick.  “They can’t play now, if they
+tried.  Don’t you see how their legs have turned to roots and grown into
+the ground, by never taking any exercise, but sapping and moping always
+in the same place?  But here comes the Examiner-of-all-Examiners.  So you
+had better get away, I warn you, or he will examine you and your dog into
+the bargain, and set him to examine all the other dogs, and you to
+examine all the other water-babies.  There is no escaping out of his
+hands, for his nose is nine thousand miles long, and can go down
+chimneys, and through keyholes, upstairs, downstairs, in my lady’s
+chamber, examining all little boys, and the little boys’ tutors likewise.
+But when he is thrashed—so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has promised me—I shall
+have the thrashing of him: and if I don’t lay it on with a will it’s a
+pity.”
+
+Tom went off: but rather slowly and surlily; for he was somewhat minded
+to face this same Examiner-of-all-Examiners, who came striding among the
+poor turnips, binding heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and laying
+them on little children’s shoulders, like the Scribes and Pharisees of
+old, and not touching the same with one of his fingers; for he had plenty
+of money, and a fine house to live in, and so forth; which was more than
+the poor little turnips had.
+
+But when he got near, he looked so big and burly and dictatorial, and
+shouted so loud to Tom, to come and be examined, that Tom ran for his
+life, and the dog too.  And really it was time; for the poor turnips, in
+their hurry and fright, crammed themselves so fast to be ready for the
+Examiner, that they burst and popped by dozens all round him, till the
+place sounded like Aldershot on a field-day, and Tom thought he should be
+blown into the air, dog and all.
+
+As he went down to the shore he passed the poor turnip’s new tomb.  But
+Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid had taken away the epitaph about talents and
+precocity and development, and put up one of her own instead which Tom
+thought much more sensible:—
+
+    “_Instruction sore long time I bore_,
+       _And cramming was in vain_;
+    _Till heaven did please my woes to ease_
+       _With water on the brain_.”
+
+So Tom jumped into the sea, and swam on his way, singing:—
+
+    “_Farewell_, _Tomtoddies all_; _I thank my stars_
+    _That nought I know save those three royal r’s_:
+    _Reading and riting sure_, _with rithmetick_,
+    _Will help a lad of sense through thin and thick_.”
+
+Whereby you may see that Tom was no poet: but no more was John Bunyan,
+though he was as wise a man as you will meet in a month of Sundays.
+
+And next he came to Oldwivesfabledom, where the folks were all heathens,
+and worshipped a howling ape.  And there he found a little boy sitting in
+the middle of the road, and crying bitterly.
+
+“What are you crying for?” said Tom.
+
+“Because I am not as frightened as I could wish to be.”
+
+“Not frightened?  You are a queer little chap: but, if you want to be
+frightened, here goes—Boo!”
+
+“Ah,” said the little boy, “that is very kind of you; but I don’t feel
+that it has made any impression.”
+
+Tom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on him, fettle him over the
+head with a brick, or anything else whatsoever which would give him the
+slightest comfort.
+
+But he only thanked Tom very civilly, in fine long words which he had
+heard other folk use, and which therefore, he thought were fit and proper
+to use himself; and cried on till his papa and mamma came, and sent off
+for the Powwow man immediately.  And a very good-natured gentleman and
+lady they were, though they were heathens; and talked quite pleasantly to
+Tom about his travels, till the Powwow man arrived, with his thunderbox
+under his arm.
+
+And a well-fed, ill-favoured gentleman he was, as ever served Her Majesty
+at Portland.  Tom was a little frightened at first; for he thought it was
+Grimes.  But he soon saw his mistake: for Grimes always looked a man in
+the face; and this fellow never did.  And when he spoke, it was fire and
+smoke; and when he sneezed, it was squibs and crackers; and when he cried
+(which he did whenever it paid him), it was boiling pitch; and some of it
+was sure to stick.
+
+“Here we are again!” cried he, like the clown in a pantomime.  “So you
+can’t feel frightened, my little dear—eh?  I’ll do that for you.  I’ll
+make an impression on you!  Yah!  Boo!  Whirroo!  Hullabaloo!”
+
+And he rattled, thumped, brandished his thunderbox, yelled, shouted,
+raved, roared, stamped, and danced corrobory like any black fellow; and
+then he touched a spring in the thunderbox, and out popped turnip-ghosts
+and magic-lanthorns and pasteboard bogies and spring-heeled Jacks, and
+sallaballas, with such a horrid din, clatter, clank, roll, rattle, and
+roar, that the little boy turned up the whites of his eyes, and fainted
+right away.
+
+And at that his poor heathen papa and mamma were as much delighted as if
+they had found a gold mine; and fell down upon their knees before the
+Powwow man, and gave him a palanquin with a pole of solid silver and
+curtains of cloth of gold; and carried him about in it on their own
+backs: but as soon as they had taken him up, the pole stuck to their
+shoulders, and they could not set him down any more, but carried him on
+willynilly, as Sinbad carried the old man of the sea: which was a
+pitiable sight to see; for the father was a very brave officer, and wore
+two swords and a blue button; and the mother was as pretty a lady as ever
+had pinched feet like a Chinese.  But you see, they had chosen to do a
+foolish thing just once too often; so, by the laws of Mrs.
+Bedonebyasyoudid, they had to go on doing it whether they chose or not,
+till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.
+
+Ah! don’t you wish that some one would go and convert those poor
+heathens, and teach them not to frighten their little children into fits?
+
+“Now, then,” said the Powwow man to Tom, “wouldn’t you like to be
+frightened, my little dear?  For I can see plainly that you are a very
+wicked, naughty, graceless, reprobate boy.”
+
+“You’re another,” quoth Tom, very sturdily.  And when the man ran at him,
+and cried “Boo!”  Tom ran at him in return, and cried “Boo!” likewise,
+right in his face, and set the little dog upon him; and at his legs the
+dog went.
+
+At which, if you will believe it, the fellow turned tail, thunderbox and
+all, with a “Woof!” like an old sow on the common; and ran for his life,
+screaming, “Help! thieves! murder! fire!  He is going to kill me!  I am a
+ruined man!  He will murder me; and break, burn, and destroy my precious
+and invaluable thunderbox; and then you will have no more thunder-showers
+in the land.  Help! help! help!”
+
+At which the papa and mamma and all the people of Oldwivesfabledom flew
+at Tom, shouting, “Oh, the wicked, impudent, hard-hearted, graceless boy!
+Beat him, kick him, shoot him, drown him, hang him, burn him!” and so
+forth: but luckily they had nothing to shoot, hang, or burn him with, for
+the fairies had hid all the killing-tackle out of the way a little while
+before; so they could only pelt him with stones; and some of the stones
+went clean through him, and came out the other side.  But he did not mind
+that a bit; for the holes closed up again as fast as they were made,
+because he was a water-baby.  However, he was very glad when he was safe
+out of the country, for the noise there made him all but deaf.
+
+Then he came to a very quiet place, called Leaveheavenalone.  And there
+the sun was drawing water out of the sea to make steam-threads, and the
+wind was twisting them up to make cloud-patterns, till they had worked
+between them the loveliest wedding veil of Chantilly lace, and hung it up
+in their own Crystal Palace for any one to buy who could afford it; while
+the good old sea never grudged, for she knew they would pay her back
+honestly.  So the sun span, and the wind wove, and all went well with the
+great steam-loom; as is likely, considering—and considering—and
+considering—
+
+And at last, after innumerable adventures, each more wonderful than the
+last, he saw before him a huge building, much bigger, and—what is most
+surprising—a little uglier than a certain new lunatic asylum, but not
+built quite of the same materials.  None of it, at least—or, indeed, for
+aught that I ever saw, any part of any other building whatsoever—is cased
+with nine-inch brick inside and out, and filled up with rubble between
+the walls, in order that any gentleman who has been confined during Her
+Majesty’s pleasure may be unconfined during his own pleasure, and take a
+walk in the neighbouring park to improve his spirits, after an hour’s
+light and wholesome labour with his dinner-fork or one of the legs of his
+iron bedstead.  No.  The walls of this building were built on an entirely
+different principle, which need not be described, as it has not yet been
+discovered.
+
+[Picture: Truncheon] Tom walked towards this great building, wondering
+what it was, and having a strange fancy that he might find Mr. Grimes
+inside it, till he saw running toward him, and shouting “Stop!” three or
+four people, who, when they came nearer, were nothing else than
+policemen’s truncheons, running along without legs or arms.
+
+Tom was not astonished.  He was long past that.  Besides, he had seen the
+naviculæ in the water move nobody knows how, a hundred times, without
+arms, or legs, or anything to stand in their stead.  Neither was he
+frightened for he had been doing no harm.
+
+So he stopped; and, when the foremost truncheon came up and asked his
+business, he showed Mother Carey’s pass; and the truncheon looked at it
+in the oddest fashion; for he had one eye in the middle of his upper end,
+so that when he looked at anything, being quite stiff, he had to slope
+himself, and poke himself, till it was a wonder why he did not tumble
+over; but, being quite full of the spirit of justice (as all policemen,
+and their truncheons, ought to be), he was always in a position of stable
+equilibrium, whichever way he put himself.
+
+“All right—pass on,” said he at last.  And then he added: “I had better
+go with you, young man.”  And Tom had no objection, for such company was
+both respectable and safe; so the truncheon coiled its thong neatly round
+its handle, to prevent tripping itself up—for the thong had got loose in
+running—and marched on by Tom’s side.
+
+“Why have you no policeman to carry you?” asked Tom, after a while.
+
+“Because we are not like those clumsy-made truncheons in the land-world,
+which cannot go without having a whole man to carry them about.  We do
+our own work for ourselves; and do it very well, though I say it who
+should not.”
+
+“Then why have you a thong to your handle?” asked Tom.
+
+“To hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are off duty.”
+
+Tom had got his answer, and had no more to say, till they came up to the
+great iron door of the prison.  And there the truncheon knocked twice,
+with its own head.
+
+A wicket in the door opened, and out looked a tremendous old brass
+blunderbuss charged up to the muzzle with slugs, who was the porter; and
+Tom started back a little at the sight of him.
+
+                        [Picture: The blunderbuss]
+
+“What case is this?” he asked in a deep voice, out of his broad bell
+mouth.
+
+“If you please, sir, it is no case; only a young gentleman from her
+ladyship, who wants to see Grimes, the master-sweep.”
+
+“Grimes?” said the blunderbuss.  And he pulled in his muzzle, perhaps to
+look over his prison-lists.
+
+“Grimes is up chimney No. 345,” he said from inside.  “So the young
+gentleman had better go on to the roof.”
+
+Tom looked up at the enormous wall, which seemed at least ninety miles
+high, and wondered how he should ever get up: but, when he hinted that to
+the truncheon, it settled the matter in a moment.  For it whisked round,
+and gave him such a shove behind as sent him up to the roof in no time,
+with his little dog under his arm.
+
+And there he walked along the leads, till he met another truncheon, and
+told him his errand.
+
+“Very good,” it said.  “Come along: but it will be of no use.  He is the
+most unremorseful, hard-hearted, foul-mouthed fellow I have in charge;
+and thinks about nothing but beer and pipes, which are not allowed here,
+of course.”
+
+So they walked along over the leads, and very sooty they were, and Tom
+thought the chimneys must want sweeping very much.  But he was surprised
+to see that the soot did not stick to his feet, or dirty them in the
+least.  Neither did the live coals, which were lying about in plenty,
+burn him; for, being a water-baby, his radical humours were of a moist
+and cold nature, as you may read at large in Lemnius, Cardan, Van
+Helmont, and other gentlemen, who knew as much as they could, and no man
+can know more.
+
+And at last they came to chimney No. 345.  Out of the top of it, his head
+and shoulders just showing, stuck poor Mr. Grimes, so sooty, and bleared,
+and ugly, that Tom could hardly bear to look at him.  And in his mouth
+was a pipe; but it was not a-light; though he was pulling at it with all
+his might.
+
+                        [Picture: Tom and Grimes]
+
+“Attention, Mr. Grimes,” said the truncheon; “here is a gentleman come to
+see you.”
+
+But Mr. Grimes only said bad words; and kept grumbling, “My pipe won’t
+draw.  My pipe won’t draw.”
+
+“Keep a civil tongue, and attend!” said the truncheon; and popped up just
+like Punch, hitting Grimes such a crack over the head with itself, that
+his brains rattled inside like a dried walnut in its shell.  He tried to
+get his hands out, and rub the place: but he could not, for they were
+stuck fast in the chimney.  Now he was forced to attend.
+
+“Hey!” he said, “why, it’s Tom!  I suppose you have come here to laugh at
+me, you spiteful little atomy?”
+
+Tom assured him he had not, but only wanted to help him.
+
+“I don’t want anything except beer, and that I can’t get; and a light to
+this bothering pipe, and that I can’t get either.”
+
+“I’ll get you one,” said Tom; and he took up a live coal (there were
+plenty lying about) and put it to Grimes’ pipe: but it went out
+instantly.
+
+“It’s no use,” said the truncheon, leaning itself up against the chimney
+and looking on.  “I tell you, it is no use.  His heart is so cold that it
+freezes everything that comes near him.  You will see that presently,
+plain enough.”
+
+“Oh, of course, it’s my fault.  Everything’s always my fault,” said
+Grimes.  “Now don’t go to hit me again” (for the truncheon started
+upright, and looked very wicked); “you know, if my arms were only free,
+you daren’t hit me then.”
+
+The truncheon leant back against the chimney, and took no notice of the
+personal insult, like a well-trained policeman as it was, though he was
+ready enough to avenge any transgression against morality or order.
+
+“But can’t I help you in any other way?  Can’t I help you to get out of
+this chimney?” said Tom.
+
+“No,” interposed the truncheon; “he has come to the place where everybody
+must help themselves; and he will find it out, I hope, before he has done
+with me.”
+
+“Oh, yes,” said Grimes, “of course it’s me.  Did I ask to be brought here
+into the prison?  Did I ask to be set to sweep your foul chimneys?  Did I
+ask to have lighted straw put under me to make me go up?  Did I ask to
+stick fast in the very first chimney of all, because it was so shamefully
+clogged up with soot?  Did I ask to stay here—I don’t know how long—a
+hundred years, I do believe, and never get my pipe, nor my beer, nor
+nothing fit for a beast, let alone a man?”
+
+“No,” answered a solemn voice behind.  “No more did Tom, when you behaved
+to him in the very same way.”
+
+It was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.  And, when the truncheon saw her, it
+started bolt upright—Attention!—and made such a low bow, that if it had
+not been full of the spirit of justice, it must have tumbled on its end,
+and probably hurt its one eye.  And Tom made his bow too.
+
+“Oh, ma’am,” he said, “don’t think about me; that’s all past and gone,
+and good times and bad times and all times pass over.  But may not I help
+poor Mr. Grimes?  Mayn’t I try and get some of these bricks away, that he
+may move his arms?”
+
+“You may try, of course,” she said.
+
+So Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks: but he could not move one.  And
+then he tried to wipe Mr. Grimes’ face: but the soot would not come off.
+
+“Oh, dear!” he said.  “I have come all this way, through all these
+terrible places, to help you, and now I am of no use at all.”
+
+“You had best leave me alone,” said Grimes; “you are a good-natured
+forgiving little chap, and that’s truth; but you’d best be off.  The
+hail’s coming on soon, and it will beat the eyes out of your little
+head.”
+
+“What hail?”
+
+“Why, hail that falls every evening here; and, till it comes close to me,
+it’s like so much warm rain: but then it turns to hail over my head, and
+knocks me about like small shot.”
+
+“That hail will never come any more,” said the strange lady.  “I have
+told you before what it was.  It was your mother’s tears, those which she
+shed when she prayed for you by her bedside; but your cold heart froze it
+into hail.  But she is gone to heaven now, and will weep no more for her
+graceless son.”
+
+Then Grimes was silent awhile; and then he looked very sad.
+
+“So my old mother’s gone, and I never there to speak to her!  Ah! a good
+woman she was, and might have been a happy one, in her little school
+there in Vendale, if it hadn’t been for me and my bad ways.”
+
+“Did she keep the school in Vendale?” asked Tom.  And then he told Grimes
+all the story of his going to her house, and how she could not abide the
+sight of a chimney-sweep, and then how kind she was, and how he turned
+into a water-baby.
+
+“Ah!” said Grimes, “good reason she had to hate the sight of a
+chimney-sweep.  I ran away from her and took up with the sweeps, and
+never let her know where I was, nor sent her a penny to help her, and now
+it’s too late—too late!” said Mr. Grimes.
+
+And he began crying and blubbering like a great baby, till his pipe
+dropped out of his mouth, and broke all to bits.
+
+“Oh, dear, if I was but a little chap in Vendale again, to see the clear
+beck, and the apple-orchard, and the yew-hedge, how different I would go
+on!  But it’s too late now.  So you go along, you kind little chap, and
+don’t stand to look at a man crying, that’s old enough to be your father,
+and never feared the face of man, nor of worse neither.  But I’m beat
+now, and beat I must be.  I’ve made my bed, and I must lie on it.  Foul I
+would be, and foul I am, as an Irishwoman said to me once; and little I
+heeded it.  It’s all my own fault: but it’s too late.”  And he cried so
+bitterly that Tom began crying too.
+
+“Never too late,” said the fairy, in such a strange soft new voice that
+Tom looked up at her; and she was so beautiful for the moment, that Tom
+half fancied she was her sister.
+
+No more was it too late.  For, as poor Grimes cried and blubbered on, his
+own tears did what his mother’s could not do, and Tom’s could not do, and
+nobody’s on earth could do for him; for they washed the soot off his face
+and off his clothes; and then they washed the mortar away from between
+the bricks; and the chimney crumbled down; and Grimes began to get out of
+it.
+
+Up jumped the truncheon, and was going to hit him on the crown a
+tremendous thump, and drive him down again like a cork into a bottle.
+But the strange lady put it aside.
+
+“Will you obey me if I give you a chance?”
+
+“As you please, ma’am.  You’re stronger than me—that I know too well, and
+wiser than me, I know too well also.  And, as for being my own master,
+I’ve fared ill enough with that as yet.  So whatever your ladyship
+pleases to order me; for I’m beat, and that’s the truth.”
+
+“Be it so then—you may come out.  But remember, disobey me again, and
+into a worse place still you go.”
+
+“I beg pardon ma’am, but I never disobeyed you that I know of.  I never
+had the honour of setting eyes upon you till I came to these ugly
+quarters.”
+
+“Never saw me?  Who said to you, Those that will be foul, foul they will
+be?”
+
+Grimes looked up; and Tom looked up too; for the voice was that of the
+Irishwoman who met them the day that they went out together to Harthover.
+“I gave you your warning then: but you gave it yourself a thousand times
+before and since.  Every bad word that you said—every cruel and mean
+thing that you did—every time that you got tipsy—every day that you went
+dirty—you were disobeying me, whether you knew it or not.”
+
+“If I’d only known, ma’am—”
+
+“You knew well enough that you were disobeying something, though you did
+not know it was me.  But come out and take your chance.  Perhaps it may
+be your last.”
+
+So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, if it had not been for
+the scars on his face, he looked as clean and respectable as a
+master-sweep need look.
+
+“Take him away,” said she to the truncheon, “and give him his
+ticket-of-leave.”
+
+“And what is he to do, ma’am?”
+
+“Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will find some very steady
+men working out their time there, who will teach him his business: but
+mind, if that crater gets choked again, and there is an earthquake in
+consequence, bring them all to me, and I shall investigate the case very
+severely.”
+
+So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking as meek as a drowned
+worm.
+
+And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweeping the crater of Etna
+to this very day.
+
+“And now,” said the fairy to Tom, “your work here is done.  You may as
+well go back again.”
+
+“I should be glad enough to go,” said Tom, “but how am I to get up that
+great hole again, now the steam has stopped blowing?”
+
+“I will take you up the backstairs: but I must bandage your eyes first;
+for I never allow anybody to see those backstairs of mine.”
+
+“I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, ma’am, if you bid me
+not.”
+
+“Aha!  So you think, my little man.  But you would soon forget your
+promise if you got back into the land-world.  For, if people only once
+found out that you had been up my backstairs, you would have all the fine
+ladies kneeling to you, and the rich men emptying their purses before
+you, and statesmen offering you place and power; and young and old, rich
+and poor, crying to you, ‘Only tell us the great backstairs secret, and
+we will be your slaves; we will make you lord, king, emperor, bishop,
+archbishop, pope, if you like—only tell us the secret of the backstairs.
+For thousands of years we have been paying, and petting, and obeying, and
+worshipping quacks who told us they had the key of the backstairs, and
+could smuggle us up them; and in spite of all our disappointments, we
+will honour, and glorify, and adore, and beatify, and translate, and
+apotheotise you likewise, on the chance of your knowing something about
+the backstairs, that we may all go on pilgrimage to it; and, even if we
+cannot get up it, lie at the foot of it, and cry—
+
+    ‘_Oh_, _backstairs_,
+    _precious backstairs_,
+    _invaluable backstairs_,
+    _requisite backstairs_,
+    _necessary backstairs_,
+    _good-natured backstairs_,
+    _cosmopolitan backstairs_,
+    _comprehensive backstairs_,
+    _accommodating backstairs_,
+    _well-bred backstairs_,
+    _commercial backstairs_,
+    _economical backstairs_,
+    _practical backstairs_,
+    _logical backstairs_,
+    _deductive backstairs_,
+    _comfortable backstairs_,
+    _humane backstairs_,
+    _reasonable backstairs_,
+    _long-sought backstairs_,
+    _coveted backstairs_,
+    _aristocratic backstairs_,
+    _respectable backstairs_,
+    _gentlenmanlike backstairs_,
+    _ladylike backstairs_,
+    _orthodox backstairs_,
+    _probable backstairs_,
+    _credible backstairs_,
+    _demonstrable backstairs_,
+    _irrefragable backstairs_,
+    _potent backstairs_,
+    _all-but-omnipotent backstairs_,
+    &c.
+
+Save us from the consequences of our own actions, and from the cruel
+fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid!’  Do not you think that you would be a
+little tempted then to tell what you know, laddie?”
+
+Tom thought so certainly.  “But why do they want so to know about the
+backstairs?” asked he, being a little frightened at the long words, and
+not understanding them the least; as, indeed, he was not meant to do, or
+you either.
+
+“That I shall not tell you.  I never put things into little folks’ heads
+which are but too likely to come there of themselves.  So come—now I must
+bandage your eyes.”  So she tied the bandage on his eyes with one hand,
+and with the other she took it off.
+
+“Now,” she said, “you are safe up the stairs.”  Tom opened his eyes very
+wide, and his mouth too; for he had not, as he thought, moved a single
+step.  But, when he looked round him, there could be no doubt that he was
+safe up the backstairs, whatsoever they may be, which no man is going to
+tell you, for the plain reason that no man knows.
+
+The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, high and sharp
+against the rosy dawn; and St. Brandan’s Isle reflected double in the
+still broad silver sea.  The wind sang softly in the cedars, and the
+water sang among the eaves: the sea-birds sang as they streamed out into
+the ocean, and the land-birds as they built among the boughs; and the air
+was so full of song that it stirred St. Brandan and his hermits, as they
+slumbered in the shade; and they moved their good old lips, and sang
+their morning hymn amid their dreams.  But among all the songs one came
+across the water more sweet and clear than all; for it was the song of a
+young girl’s voice.
+
+And what was the song which she sang?  Ah, my little man, I am too old to
+sing that song, and you too young to understand it.  But have patience,
+and keep your eye single, and your hands clean, and you will learn some
+day to sing it yourself, without needing any man to teach you.
+
+And as Tom neared the island, there sat upon a rock the most graceful
+creature that ever was seen, looking down, with her chin upon her hand,
+and paddling with her feet in the water.  And when they came to her she
+looked up, and behold it was Ellie.
+
+“Oh, Miss Ellie,” said he, “how you are grown!”
+
+“Oh, Tom,” said she, “how you are grown too!”
+
+                             [Picture: Ellie]
+
+And no wonder; they were both quite grown up—he into a tall man, and she
+into a beautiful woman.
+
+“Perhaps I may be grown,” she said.  “I have had time enough; for I have
+been sitting here waiting for you many a hundred years, till I thought
+you were never coming.”
+
+“Many a hundred years?” thought Tom; but he had seen so much in his
+travels that he had quite given up being astonished; and, indeed, he
+could think of nothing but Ellie.  So he stood and looked at Ellie, and
+Ellie looked at him; and they liked the employment so much that they
+stood and looked for seven years more, and neither spoke nor stirred.
+
+At last they heard the fairy say: “Attention, children.  Are you never
+going to look at me again?”
+
+“We have been looking at you all this while,” they said.  And so they
+thought they had been.
+
+“Then look at me once more,” said she.
+
+They looked—and both of them cried out at once, “Oh, who are you, after
+all?”
+
+“You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.”
+
+“No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid; but you are grown quite
+beautiful now!”
+
+“To you,” said the fairy.  “But look again.”
+
+“You are Mother Carey,” said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice; for he had
+found out something which made him very happy, and yet frightened him
+more than all that he had ever seen.
+
+“But you are grown quite young again.”
+
+“To you,” said the fairy.  “Look again.”
+
+“You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to Harthover!”
+
+And when they looked she was neither of them, and yet all of them at
+once.
+
+“My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there.”
+
+And they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, and they changed again
+and again into every hue, as the light changes in a diamond.
+
+“Now read my name,” said she, at last.
+
+And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, blazing light: but
+the children could not read her name; for they were dazzled, and hid
+their faces in their hands.
+
+“Not yet, young things, not yet,” said she, smiling; and then she turned
+to Ellie.
+
+“You may take him home with you now on Sundays, Ellie.  He has won his
+spurs in the great battle, and become fit to go with you and be a man;
+because he has done the thing he did not like.”
+
+So Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and sometimes on week-days, too;
+and he is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads, and
+steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth;
+and knows everything about everything, except why a hen’s egg don’t turn
+into a crocodile, and two or three other little things which no one will
+know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.  And all this from what he
+learnt when he was a water-baby, underneath the sea.
+
+“And of course Tom married Ellie?”
+
+My dear child, what a silly notion!  Don’t you know that no one ever
+marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a prince or a princess?
+
+“And Tom’s dog?”
+
+Oh, you may see him any clear night in July; for the old dog-star was so
+worn out by the last three hot summers that there have been no dog-days
+since; so that they had to take him down and put Tom’s dog up in his
+place.  Therefore, as new brooms sweep clean, we may hope for some warm
+weather this year.  And that is the end of my story.
+
+
+
+
+MORAL.
+
+
+_And now_, _my dear little man_, _what should we learn from this
+parable_?
+
+_We should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things_, _I am not exactly
+sure which_: _but one thing_, _at least_, _we may learn_, _and that is
+this—when we see efts in the pond_, _never to throw stones at them_, _or
+catch them with crooked pins_, _or put them into vivariums with
+sticklebacks_, _that the sticklebacks may prick them in their poor little
+stomachs_, _and make them jump out of the glass into somebody’s
+work-box_, _and so come to a bad end_.  _For these efts are nothing else
+but the water-babies who are stupid and dirty_, _and will not learn their
+lessons and keep themselves clean_; _and_, _therefore_ (_as comparative
+anatomists will tell you fifty years hence_, _though they are not learned
+enough to tell you now_), _their skulls grow flat_, _their jaws grow
+out_, _and their brains grow small_, _and their tails grow long_, _and
+they lose all their ribs_ (_which I am sure you would not like to do_),
+_and their skins grow dirty and spotted_, _and they never get into the
+clear rivers_, _much less into the great wide sea_, _but hang about in
+dirty ponds_, _and live in the mud_, _and eat worms_, _as they deserve to
+do_.
+
+_But that is no reason why you should ill-use them_: _but only why you
+should pity them_, _and be kind to them_, _and hope that some day they
+will wake up_, _and be ashamed of their nasty_, _dirty_, _lazy_, _stupid
+life_, _and try to amend_, _and become something better once more_.
+_For_, _perhaps_, _if they do so_, _then after_ 379,423 _years_, _nine
+months_, _thirteen days_, _two hours_, _and twenty-one minutes_ (_for
+aught that appears to the contrary_), _if they work very hard and wash
+very hard all that time_, _their brains may grow bigger_, _and their jaws
+grow smaller_, _and their ribs come back_, _and their tails wither off_,
+_and they will turn into water-babies again_, _and perhaps after that
+into land-babies_; _and after that perhaps into grown men_.
+
+_You know they won’t_?  _Very well_, _I daresay you know best_.  _But you
+see_, _some folks have a great liking for those poor little efts_.  _They
+never did anybody any harm_, _or could if they tried_; _and their only
+fault is_, _that they do no good—any more than some thousands of their
+betters_.  _But what with ducks_, _and what with pike_, _and what with
+sticklebacks_, _and what with water-beetles_, _and what with naughty
+boys_, _they are_ “_sae sair hadden doun_,” _as the Scotsmen say_, _that
+it is a wonder how they live_; _and some folks can’t help hoping_, _with
+good Bishop Butler_, _that they may have another chance_, _to make things
+fair and even_, _somewhere_, _somewhen_, _somehow_.
+
+_Meanwhile_, _do you learn your lessons_, _and thank God that you have
+plenty of cold water to wash in_; _and wash in it too_, _like a true
+Englishman_.  _And then_, _if my story is not true_, _something better
+is_; _and if I am not quite right_, _still you will be_, _as long as you
+stick to hard work and cold water_.
+
+_But remember always_, _as I told you at first_, _that this is all a
+fairy tale_, _and only fun and pretence_: _and_, _therefore_, _you are
+not to believe a word of it_, _even if it is true_.
+
+                    [Picture: Water baby riding fish]
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1018 ***
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+<title>The Water-Babies, by Charles Kingsley</title>
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1018 ***</div>
+
+<p>Transcribed from the 1889 Macmillan and Co. edition by David
+Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
+<h1><span class="GutSmall">THE</span><br />
+WATER BABIES</h1>
+<p style="text-align: center">A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br
+/>
+CHARLES KINGSLEY</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall"><i>NEW
+EDITION</i></span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">WITH ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS BY LINLEY
+SAMBOURNE</span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center">London<br />
+MACMILLAN AND CO.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">AND NEW YORK</span><br />
+1889</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><i>All rights reserved</i></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><i>Printed by</i> R. &amp; R. <span
+class="smcap">Clark</span>, <i>Edinburgh</i></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span
+class="GutSmall">TO</span></p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">MY YOUNGEST
+SON</span></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">GRENVILLE ARTHUR</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span
+class="GutSmall">AND</span></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">TO ALL OTHER GOOD LITTLE BOYS</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">COME READ ME
+MY RIDDLE, EACH GOOD LITTLE MAN;</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">IF YOU CANNOT READ IT, NO GROWN-UP FOLK
+CAN.</span></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p0b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Water babies and frogs playing leap-frog"
+title=
+"Water babies and frogs playing leap-frog"
+ src="images/p0s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;I heard a thousand blended notes,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; While in a grove I sate reclined;<br />
+In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; Being sad thoughts to the mind.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To her fair works did Nature link<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; The human soul that through me ran;<br />
+And much it grieved my heart to think,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; What man has made of man.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="smcap">Wordsworth</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;I heard a thousand blended notes,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; While in a grove I sate reclined;<br />
+In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; Bring sad thoughts to the mind.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To her fair works did Nature link<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; The human soul that through me ran;<br />
+And much it grieved my heart to think,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; What man has made of man.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="smcap">Wordsworth</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p1b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Little chimney-sweep"
+title=
+"Little chimney-sweep"
+ src="images/p1s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Once</span> upon a time there was a little
+chimney-sweep, and his name was Tom.&nbsp; That is a short name,
+and you have heard it before, so you will not have much trouble
+in remembering it.&nbsp; He lived in a great town in the North
+country, where there were plenty of chimneys to sweep, and plenty
+of money for Tom to earn and his master to spend.&nbsp; He could
+not read nor write, and did not care to do either; and he never
+washed himself, for there was no water up the court where he
+lived.&nbsp; He had never been taught to say his prayers.&nbsp;
+He never had heard of God, or of Christ, except in words which
+you never have heard, and which it would have been well if he had
+never heard.&nbsp; He cried half his time, and laughed the other
+half.&nbsp; He cried when he had to climb the dark flues, rubbing
+his poor knees and elbows raw; and when the soot got into his
+eyes, which it did every day in the week; and when his master
+beat him, which he did every day in the week; and when he had not
+enough to eat, which happened every day in the week
+likewise.&nbsp; And he laughed the other half of the day, when he
+was tossing halfpennies with the other boys, or playing leap-frog
+over the posts, or bowling stones at the horses&rsquo; legs as
+they trotted by, which last was excellent fun, when there was a
+wall at hand behind which to hide.&nbsp;
+<a href="images/p2b.jpg">
+<img class='floatright' alt=
+"Dogs"
+title=
+"Dogs"
+ src="images/p2s.jpg" />
+</a>&nbsp; As for chimney-sweeping, and being hungry, and being
+beaten, he took all that for the way of the world, like the rain
+and snow and thunder, and stood manfully with his back to it till
+it was over, as his old donkey did to a hail-storm; and then
+shook his ears and was as jolly as ever; and thought of the fine
+times coming, when he would be a man, and a master sweep, and sit
+in the public-house with a quart of beer and a long pipe, and
+play cards for silver money, and wear velveteens and ankle-jacks,
+and keep a white bull-dog with one gray ear, and carry her
+puppies in his pocket, just like a man.&nbsp; And he would have
+apprentices, one, two, three, if he could.&nbsp; How he would
+bully them, and knock them about, just as his master did to him;
+and make them carry home the soot sacks, while he rode before
+them on his donkey, with a pipe in his mouth and a flower in his
+button-hole, like a king at the head of his army.&nbsp; Yes,
+there were good times coming; and, when his master let him have a
+pull at the leavings of his beer, Tom was the jolliest boy in the
+whole town.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p3b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Smart groom and Tom"
+title=
+"Smart groom and Tom"
+ src="images/p3s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>One day a smart little groom rode into the court where Tom
+lived.&nbsp; Tom was just hiding behind a wall, to heave half a
+brick at his horse&rsquo;s legs, as is the custom of that country
+when they welcome strangers; but the groom saw him, and halloed
+to him to know where Mr. Grimes, the chimney-sweep, lived.&nbsp;
+Now, Mr. Grimes was Tom&rsquo;s own master, and Tom was a good
+man of business, and always civil to customers, so he put the
+half-brick down quietly behind the wall, and proceeded to take
+orders.</p>
+<p>Mr. Grimes was to come up next morning to Sir John
+Harthover&rsquo;s, at the Place, for his old chimney-sweep was
+gone to prison, and the chimneys wanted sweeping.&nbsp; And so he
+rode away, not giving Tom time to ask what the sweep had gone to
+prison for, which was a matter of interest to Tom, as he had been
+in prison once or twice himself.&nbsp; Moreover, the groom looked
+so very neat and clean, with his drab gaiters, drab breeches,
+drab jacket, snow-white tie with a smart pin in it, and clean
+round ruddy face, that Tom was offended and disgusted at his
+appearance, and considered him a stuck-up fellow, who gave
+himself airs because he wore smart clothes, and other people paid
+for them; and went behind the wall to fetch the half-brick after
+all; but did not, remembering that he had come in the way of
+business, and was, as it were, under a flag of truce.</p>
+<p>His master was so delighted at his new customer that he
+knocked Tom down out of hand, and drank more beer that night than
+he usually did in two, in order to be sure of getting up in time
+next morning; for the more a man&rsquo;s head aches when he
+wakes, the more glad he is to turn out, and have a breath of
+fresh air.&nbsp; And, when he did get up at four the next
+morning, he knocked Tom down again, in order to teach him (as
+young gentlemen used to be taught at public schools) that he must
+be an extra good boy that day, as they were going to a very great
+house, and might make a very good thing of it, if they could but
+give satisfaction.</p>
+<p>And Tom thought so likewise, and, indeed, would have done and
+behaved his best, even without being knocked down.&nbsp; For, of
+all places upon earth, Harthover Place (which he had never seen)
+was the most wonderful, and, of all men on earth, Sir John (whom
+he had seen, having been sent to gaol by him twice) was the most
+awful.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p6b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Sir John Harthover"
+title=
+"Sir John Harthover"
+ src="images/p6s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Harthover Place was really a grand place, even for the rich
+North country; with a house so large that in the frame-breaking
+riots, which Tom could just remember, the Duke of Wellington, and
+ten thousand soldiers to match, were easily housed therein; at
+least, so Tom believed; with a park full of deer, which Tom
+believed to be monsters who were in the habit of eating children;
+with miles of game-preserves, in which Mr. Grimes and the collier
+lads poached at times, on which occasions Tom saw pheasants, and
+wondered what they tasted like; with a noble salmon-river, in
+which Mr. Grimes and his friends would have liked to poach; but
+then they must have got into cold water, and that they did not
+like at all.&nbsp; In short, Harthover was a grand place, and Sir
+John a grand old man, whom even Mr. Grimes respected; for not
+only could he send Mr. Grimes to prison when he deserved it, as
+he did once or twice a week; not only did he own all the land
+about for miles; not only was he a jolly, honest, sensible
+squire, as ever kept a pack of hounds, who would do what he
+thought right by his neighbours, as well as get what he thought
+right for himself; but, what was more, he weighed full fifteen
+stone, was nobody knew how many inches round the chest, and could
+have thrashed Mr. Grimes himself in fair fight, which very few
+folk round there could do, and which, my dear little boy, would
+not have been right for him to do, as a great many things are not
+which one both can do, and would like very much to do.&nbsp; So
+Mr. Grimes touched his hat to him when he rode through the town,
+and called him a &ldquo;buirdly awd chap,&rdquo; and his young
+ladies &ldquo;gradely lasses,&rdquo; which are two high
+compliments in the North country; and thought that that made up
+for his poaching Sir John&rsquo;s pheasants; whereby you may
+perceive that Mr. Grimes had not been to a properly-inspected
+Government National School.</p>
+<p>Now, I dare say, you never got up at three o&rsquo;clock on a
+midsummer morning.&nbsp; Some people get up then because they
+want to catch salmon; and some because they want to climb Alps;
+and a great many more because they must, like Tom.&nbsp; But, I
+assure you, that three o&rsquo;clock on a midsummer morning is
+the pleasantest time of all the twenty-four hours, and all the
+three hundred and sixty-five days; and why every one does not get
+up then, I never could tell, save that they are all determined to
+spoil their nerves and their complexions by doing all night what
+they might just as well do all day.&nbsp; But Tom, instead of
+going out to dinner at half-past eight at night, and to a ball at
+ten, and finishing off somewhere between twelve and four, went to
+bed at seven, when his master went to the public-house, and slept
+like a dead pig; for which reason he was as piert as a game-cock
+(who always gets up early to wake the maids), and just ready to
+get up when the fine gentlemen and ladies were just ready to go
+to bed.</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p8b.jpg">
+<img class='floatleft' alt=
+"Grimes and Tom"
+title=
+"Grimes and Tom"
+ src="images/p8s.jpg" />
+</a>So he and his master set out; Grimes rode the donkey in
+front, and Tom and the brushes walked behind; out of the court,
+and up the street, past the closed window-shutters, and the
+winking weary policemen, and the roofs all shining gray in the
+gray dawn.</p>
+<p>They passed through the pitmen&rsquo;s village, all shut up
+and silent now, and through the turnpike; and then the were out
+in the real country, and plodding along the black dusty road,
+between black slag walls, with no sound but the groaning and
+thumping of the pit-engine in the next field.&nbsp; But soon the
+road grew white, and the walls likewise; and at the wall&rsquo;s
+foot grew long grass and gay flowers, all drenched with dew; and
+instead of the groaning of the pit-engine, they heard the skylark
+saying his matins high up in the air, and the pit-bird warbling
+in the sedges, as he had warbled all night long.</p>
+<p>All else was silent.&nbsp; For old Mrs. Earth was still fast
+asleep; and, like many pretty people, she looked still prettier
+asleep than awake.&nbsp; The great elm-trees in the gold-green
+meadows were fast asleep above, and the cows fast asleep beneath
+them; nay, the few clouds which were about were fast asleep
+likewise, and so tired that they had lain down on the earth to
+rest, in long white flakes and bars, among the stems of the
+elm-trees, and along the tops of the alders by the stream,
+waiting for the sun to bid them rise and go about their
+day&rsquo;s business in the clear blue overhead.</p>
+<p>On they went; and Tom looked, and looked, for he never had
+been so far into the country before; and longed to get over a
+gate, and pick buttercups, and look for birds&rsquo; nests in the
+hedge; but Mr. Grimes was a man of business, and would not have
+heard of that.</p>
+<p>Soon they came up with a poor Irishwoman, trudging along with
+a bundle at her back.&nbsp; She had a gray shawl over her head,
+and a crimson madder petticoat; so you may be sure she came from
+Galway.&nbsp; She had neither shoes nor stockings, and limped
+along as if she were tired and footsore; but she was a very tall
+handsome woman, with bright gray eyes, and heavy black hair
+hanging about her cheeks.&nbsp; And she took Mr. Grimes&rsquo;
+fancy so much, that when he came alongside he called out to
+her:</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p10b.jpg">
+<img class='floatright' alt=
+"The poor Irishwomen"
+title=
+"The poor Irishwomen"
+ src="images/p10s.jpg" />
+</a>&ldquo;This is a hard road for a gradely foot like
+that.&nbsp; Will ye up, lass, and ride behind me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But, perhaps, she did not admire Mr. Grimes&rsquo; look and
+voice; for she answered quietly:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, thank you: I&rsquo;d sooner walk with your little
+lad here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You may please yourself,&rdquo; growled Grimes, and
+went on smoking.</p>
+<p>So she walked beside Tom, and talked to him, and asked him
+where he lived, and what he knew, and all about himself, till Tom
+thought he had never met such a pleasant-spoken woman.&nbsp; And
+she asked him, at last, whether he said his prayers! and seemed
+sad when he told her that he knew no prayers to say.</p>
+<p>Then he asked her where she lived, and she said far away by
+the sea.&nbsp; And Tom asked her about the sea; and she told him
+how it rolled and roared over the rocks in winter nights, and lay
+still in the bright summer days, for the children to bathe and
+play in it; and many a story more, till Tom longed to go and see
+the sea, and bathe in it likewise.</p>
+<p>At last, at the bottom of a hill, they came to a spring; not
+such a spring as you see here, which soaks up out of a white
+gravel in the bog, among red fly-catchers, and pink bottle-heath,
+and sweet white orchis; nor such a one as you may see, too, here,
+which bubbles up under the warm sandbank in the hollow lane by
+the great tuft of lady ferns, and makes the sand dance reels at
+the bottom, day and night, all the year round; not such a spring
+as either of those; but a real North country limestone fountain,
+like one of those in Sicily or Greece, where the old heathen
+fancied the nymphs sat cooling themselves the hot summer&rsquo;s
+day, while the shepherds peeped at them from behind the
+bushes.&nbsp; Out of a low cave of rock, at the foot of a
+limestone crag, the great fountain rose, quelling, and bubbling,
+and gurgling, so clear that you could not tell where the water
+ended and the air began; and ran away under the road, a stream
+large enough to turn a mill; among blue geranium, and golden
+globe-flower, and wild raspberry, and the bird-cherry with its
+tassels of snow.</p>
+<p>And there Grimes stopped, and looked; and Tom looked
+too.&nbsp; Tom was wondering whether anything lived in that dark
+cave, and came out at night to fly in the meadows.&nbsp; But
+Grimes was not wondering at all.&nbsp; Without a word, he got off
+his donkey, and clambered over the low road wall, and knelt down,
+and began dipping his ugly head into the spring&mdash;and very
+dirty he made it.</p>
+<p>Tom was picking the flowers as fast as he could.&nbsp; The
+Irishwoman helped him, and showed him how to tie them up; and a
+very pretty nosegay they had made between them.&nbsp; But when he
+saw Grimes actually wash, he stopped, quite astonished; and when
+Grimes had finished, and began shaking his ears to dry them, he
+said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, master, I never saw you do that before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nor will again, most likely.&nbsp; &rsquo;Twasn&rsquo;t
+for cleanliness I did it, but for coolness.&nbsp; I&rsquo;d be
+ashamed to want washing every week or so, like any smutty collier
+lad.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish I might go and dip my head in,&rdquo; said poor
+little Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;It must be as good as putting it under
+the town-pump; and there is no beadle here to drive a chap
+away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thou come along,&rdquo; said Grimes; &ldquo;what dost
+want with washing thyself?&nbsp; Thou did not drink half a gallon
+of beer last night, like me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care for you,&rdquo; said naughty Tom,
+and ran down to the stream, and began washing his face.</p>
+<p>Grimes was very sulky, because the woman preferred Tom&rsquo;s
+company to his; so he dashed at him with horrid words, and tore
+him up from his knees, and began beating him.&nbsp; But Tom was
+accustomed to that, and got his head safe between Mr.
+Grimes&rsquo; legs, and kicked his shins with all his might.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes?&rdquo;
+cried the Irishwoman over the wall.</p>
+<p>Grimes looked up, startled at her knowing his name; but all he
+answered was, &ldquo;No, nor never was yet;&rdquo; and went on
+beating Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;True for you.&nbsp; If you ever had been ashamed of
+yourself, you would have gone over into Vendale long
+ago.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you know about Vendale?&rdquo; shouted Grimes;
+but he left off beating Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know about Vendale, and about you, too.&nbsp; I know,
+for instance, what happened in Aldermire Copse, by night, two
+years ago come Martinmas.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You do?&rdquo; shouted Grimes; and leaving Tom, he
+climbed up over the wall, and faced the woman.&nbsp; Tom thought
+he was going to strike her; but she looked him too full and
+fierce in the face for that.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes; I was there,&rdquo; said the Irishwoman
+quietly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are no Irishwoman, by your speech,&rdquo; said
+Grimes, after many bad words.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Never mind who I am.&nbsp; I saw what I saw; and if you
+strike that boy again, I can tell what I know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Grimes seemed quite cowed, and got on his donkey without
+another word.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; said the Irishwoman.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have
+one more word for you both; for you will both see me again before
+all is over.&nbsp; Those that wish to be clean, clean they will
+be; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be.&nbsp;
+Remember.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p14b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Griffin status with shield saying &ldquo;Salvtem&rdquo;"
+title=
+"Griffin status with shield saying &ldquo;Salvtem&rdquo;"
+ src="images/p14s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>And she turned away, and through a gate into the meadow.&nbsp;
+Grimes stood still a moment, like a man who had been
+stunned.&nbsp; Then he rushed after her, shouting, &ldquo;You
+come back.&rdquo;&nbsp; But when he got into the meadow, the
+woman was not there.</p>
+<p>Had she hidden away?&nbsp; There was no place to hide
+in.&nbsp; But Grimes looked about, and Tom also, for he was as
+puzzled as Grimes himself at her disappearing so suddenly; but
+look where they would, she was not there.</p>
+<p>Grimes came back again, as silent as a post, for he was a
+little frightened; and, getting on his donkey, filled a fresh
+pipe, and smoked away, leaving Tom in peace.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p15b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Griffin status with shield saying &ldquo;Amicis&rdquo;"
+title=
+"Griffin status with shield saying &ldquo;Amicis&rdquo;"
+ src="images/p15s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>And now they had gone three miles and more, and came to Sir
+John&rsquo;s lodge-gates.</p>
+<p>Very grand lodges they were, with very grand iron gates and
+stone gate-posts, and on the top of each a most dreadful bogy,
+all teeth, horns, and tail, which was the crest which Sir
+John&rsquo;s ancestors wore in the Wars of the Roses; and very
+prudent men they were to wear it, for all their enemies must have
+run for their lives at the very first sight of them.</p>
+<p>Grimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper on the spot,
+and opened.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was told to expect thee,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Now thou&rsquo;lt be so good as to keep to the main
+avenue, and not let me find a hare or a rabbit on thee when thou
+comest back.&nbsp; I shall look sharp for one, I tell
+thee.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not if it&rsquo;s in the bottom of the soot-bag,&rdquo;
+quoth Grimes, and at that he laughed; and the keeper laughed and
+said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If that&rsquo;s thy sort, I may as well walk up with
+thee to the hall.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think thou best had.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s thy business to
+see after thy game, man, and not mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So the keeper went with them; and, to Tom&rsquo;s surprise, he
+and Grimes chatted together all the way quite pleasantly.&nbsp;
+He did not know that a keeper is only a poacher turned outside
+in, and a poacher a keeper turned inside out.</p>
+<p>They walked up a great lime avenue, a full mile long, and
+between their stems Tom peeped trembling at the horns of the
+sleeping deer, which stood up among the ferns.&nbsp; Tom had
+never seen such enormous trees, and as he looked up he fancied
+that the blue sky rested on their heads.&nbsp; But he was puzzled
+very much by a strange murmuring noise, which followed them all
+the way.&nbsp; So much puzzled, that at last he took courage to
+ask the keeper what it was.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p17b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The keeper and Grimes"
+title=
+"The keeper and Grimes"
+ src="images/p17s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>He spoke very civilly, and called him Sir, for he was horribly
+afraid of him, which pleased the keeper, and he told him that
+they were the bees about the lime flowers.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are bees?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What make honey.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is honey?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thou hold thy noise,&rdquo; said Grimes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let the boy be,&rdquo; said the keeper.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a civil young chap now, and that&rsquo;s more
+than he&rsquo;ll be long if he bides with thee.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Grimes laughed, for he took that for a compliment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish I were a keeper,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;to live
+in such a beautiful place, and wear green velveteens, and have a
+real dog-whistle at my button, like you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The keeper laughed; he was a kind-hearted fellow enough.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let well alone, lad, and ill too at times.&nbsp; Thy
+life&rsquo;s safer than mine at all events, eh, Mr.
+Grimes?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And Grimes laughed again, and then the two men began talking,
+quite low.&nbsp; Tom could hear, though, that it was about some
+poaching fight; and at last Grimes said surlily, &ldquo;Hast thou
+anything against me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then don&rsquo;t ask me any questions till thou hast,
+for I am a man of honour.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And at that they both laughed again, and thought it a very
+good joke.</p>
+<p>And by this time they were come up to the great iron gates in
+front of the house; and Tom stared through them at the
+rhododendrons and azaleas, which were all in flower; and then at
+the house itself, and wondered how many chimneys there were in
+it, and how long ago it was built, and what was the man&rsquo;s
+name that built it, and whether he got much money for his
+job?</p>
+<p>These last were very difficult questions to answer.&nbsp; For
+Harthover had been built at ninety different times, and in
+nineteen different styles, and looked as if somebody had built a
+whole street of houses of every imaginable shape, and then
+stirred them together with a spoon.</p>
+<blockquote><p><i>For the attics were Anglo-Saxon</i>.</p>
+<p><i>The third door Norman</i>.</p>
+<p><i>The second Cinque-cento</i>.</p>
+<p><i>The first-floor Elizabethan</i>.</p>
+<p><i>The right wing Pure Doric</i>.</p>
+<p><i>The centre Early English</i>, <i>with a huge portico copied
+from the Parthenon</i>.</p>
+<p><i>The left wing pure B&oelig;otian</i>, <i>which the country
+folk admired most of all</i>, <i>became it was just like the new
+barracks in the town</i>, <i>only three times as big</i>.</p>
+<p><i>The grand staircase was copied from the Catacombs at
+Rome</i>.</p>
+<p><i>The back staircase from the Tajmahal at Agra</i>.&nbsp;
+<i>This was built by Sir John&rsquo;s
+great-great-great-uncle</i>, <i>who won</i>, <i>in Lord
+Clive&rsquo;s Indian Wars</i>, <i>plenty of money</i>, <i>plenty
+of wounds</i>, <i>and no more taste than his betters</i>.</p>
+<p><i>The cellars were copied from the caves of
+Elephanta</i>.</p>
+<p><i>The offices from the Pavilion at Brighton</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And the rest from nothing in heaven, or earth, or under the
+earth.</p>
+<p>So that Harthover House was a great puzzle to antiquarians,
+and a thorough Naboth&rsquo;s vineyard to critics, and
+architects, and all persons who like meddling with other
+men&rsquo;s business, and spending other men&rsquo;s money.&nbsp;
+So they were all setting upon poor Sir John, year after year, and
+trying to talk him into spending a hundred thousand pounds or so,
+in building, to please them and not himself.&nbsp; But he always
+put them off, like a canny North-countryman as he was.&nbsp; One
+wanted him to build a Gothic house, but he said he was no Goth;
+and another to build an Elizabethan, but he said he lived under
+good Queen Victoria, and not good Queen Bess; and another was
+bold enough to tell him that his house was ugly, but he said he
+lived inside it, and not outside; and another, that there was no
+unity in it, but he said that that was just why he liked the old
+place.&nbsp; For he liked to see how each Sir John, and Sir Hugh,
+and Sir Ralph, and Sir Randal, had left his mark upon the place,
+each after his own taste; and he had no more notion of disturbing
+his ancestors&rsquo; work than of disturbing their graves.&nbsp;
+For now the house looked like a real live house, that had a
+history, and had grown and grown as the world grew; and that it
+was only an upstart fellow who did not know who his own
+grandfather was, who would change it for some spick and span new
+Gothic or Elizabethan thing, which looked as if it bad been all
+spawned in a night, as mushrooms are.&nbsp; From which you may
+collect (if you have wit enough) that Sir John was a very
+sound-headed, sound-hearted squire, and just the man to keep the
+country side in order, and show good sport with his hounds.</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p21b.jpg">
+<img class='floatright' alt=
+"The housekeeper"
+title=
+"The housekeeper"
+ src="images/p21s.jpg" />
+</a>But Tom and his master did not go in through the great iron
+gates, as if they had been Dukes or Bishops, but round the back
+way, and a very long way round it was; and into a little
+back-door, where the ash-boy let them in, yawning horribly; and
+then in a passage the housekeeper met them, in such a flowered
+chintz dressing-gown, that Tom mistook her for My Lady herself,
+and she gave Grimes solemn orders about &ldquo;You will take care
+of this, and take care of that,&rdquo; as if he was going up the
+chimneys, and not Tom.&nbsp; And Grimes listened, and said every
+now and then, under his voice, &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll mind that, you
+little beggar?&rdquo; and Tom did mind, all at least that he
+could.&nbsp; And then the housekeeper turned them into a grand
+room, all covered up in sheets of brown paper, and bade them
+begin, in a lofty and tremendous voice; and so after a whimper or
+two, and a kick from his master, into the grate Tom went, and up
+the chimney, while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the
+furniture; to whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous
+compliments, but met with very slight encouragement in
+return.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p22b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Grimes paying complements"
+title=
+"Grimes paying complements"
+ src="images/p22s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say; but he swept so many
+that he got quite tired, and puzzled too, for they were not like
+the town flues to which he was accustomed, but such as you would
+find&mdash;if you would only get up them and look, which perhaps
+you would not like to do&mdash;in old country-houses, large and
+crooked chimneys, which had been altered again and again, till
+they ran one into another, anastomosing (as Professor Owen would
+say) considerably.&nbsp; So Tom fairly lost his way in them; not
+that he cared much for that, though he was in pitchy darkness,
+for he was as much at home in a chimney as a mole is underground;
+but at last, coming down as he thought the right chimney, he came
+down the wrong one, and found himself standing on the hearthrug
+in a room the like of which he had never seen before.</p>
+<p>Tom had never seen the like.&nbsp; He had never been in
+gentlefolks&rsquo; rooms but when the carpets were all up, and
+the curtains down, and the furniture huddled together under a
+cloth, and the pictures covered with aprons and dusters; and he
+had often enough wondered what the rooms were like when they were
+all ready for the quality to sit in.&nbsp; And now he saw, and he
+thought the sight very pretty.</p>
+<p>The room was all dressed in white,&mdash;white
+window-curtains, white bed-curtains, white furniture, and white
+walls, with just a few lines of pink here and there.&nbsp; The
+carpet was all over gay little flowers; and the walls were hung
+with pictures in gilt frames, which amused Tom very much.&nbsp;
+There were pictures of ladies and gentlemen, and pictures of
+horses and dogs.&nbsp; The horses he liked; but the dogs he did
+not care for much, for there were no bull-dogs among them, not
+even a terrier.&nbsp; But the two pictures which took his fancy
+most were, one a man in long garments, with little children and
+their mothers round him, who was laying his hand upon the
+children&rsquo;s heads.&nbsp; That was a very pretty picture, Tom
+thought, to hang in a lady&rsquo;s room.&nbsp; For he could see
+that it was a lady&rsquo;s room by the dresses which lay
+about.</p>
+<p>The other picture was that of a man nailed to a cross, which
+surprised Tom much.&nbsp; He fancied that he had seen something
+like it in a shop-window.&nbsp; But why was it there?&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Poor man,&rdquo; thought Tom, &ldquo;and he looks so kind
+and quiet.&nbsp; But why should the lady have such a sad picture
+as that in her room?&nbsp; Perhaps it was some kinsman of hers,
+who had been murdered by the savages in foreign parts, and she
+kept it there for a remembrance.&rdquo;&nbsp; And Tom felt sad,
+and awed, and turned to look at something else.</p>
+<p>The next thing he saw, and that too puzzled him, was a
+washing-stand, with ewers and basins, and soap and brushes, and
+towels, and a large bath full of clean water&mdash;what a heap of
+things all for washing!&nbsp; &ldquo;She must be a very dirty
+lady,&rdquo; thought Tom, &ldquo;by my master&rsquo;s rule, to
+want as much scrubbing as all that.&nbsp; But she must be very
+cunning to put the dirt out of the way so well afterwards, for I
+don&rsquo;t see a speck about the room, not even on the very
+towels.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And then, looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty lady, and
+held his breath with astonishment.</p>
+<p>Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white pillow, lay
+the most beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen.&nbsp; Her
+cheeks were almost as white as the pillow, and her hair was like
+threads of gold spread all about over the bed.&nbsp; She might
+have been as old as Tom, or maybe a year or two older; but Tom
+did not think of that.&nbsp; He thought only of her delicate skin
+and golden hair, and wondered whether she was a real live person,
+or one of the wax dolls he had seen in the shops.&nbsp; But when
+he saw her breathe, he made up his mind that she was alive, and
+stood staring at her, as if she had been an angel out of
+heaven.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p25b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The girl asleep"
+title=
+"The girl asleep"
+ src="images/p25s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>No.&nbsp; She cannot be dirty.&nbsp; She never could have been
+dirty, thought Tom to himself.&nbsp; And then he thought,
+&ldquo;And are all people like that when they are
+washed?&rdquo;&nbsp; And he looked at his own wrist, and tried to
+rub the soot off, and wondered whether it ever would come
+off.&nbsp; &ldquo;Certainly I should look much prettier then, if
+I grew at all like her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close to him, a
+little ugly, black, ragged figure, with bleared eyes and grinning
+white teeth.&nbsp; He turned on it angrily.&nbsp; What did such a
+little black ape want in that sweet young lady&rsquo;s
+room?&nbsp; And behold, it was himself, reflected in a great
+mirror, the like of which Tom had never seen before.</p>
+<p>And Tom, for the first time in his life, found out that he was
+dirty; and burst into tears with shame and anger; and turned to
+sneak up the chimney again and hide; and upset the fender and
+threw the fire-irons down, with a noise as of ten thousand tin
+kettles tied to ten thousand mad dogs&rsquo; tails.</p>
+<p>Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, seeing Tom,
+screamed as shrill as any peacock.&nbsp; In rushed a stout old
+nurse from the next room, and seeing Tom likewise, made up her
+mind that he had come to rob, plunder, destroy, and burn; and
+dashed at him, as he lay over the fender, so fast that she caught
+him by the jacket.</p>
+<p>But she did not hold him.&nbsp; Tom had been in a
+policeman&rsquo;s hands many a time, and out of them too, what is
+more; and he would have been ashamed to face his friends for ever
+if he had been stupid enough to be caught by an old woman; so he
+doubled under the good lady&rsquo;s arm, across the room, and out
+of the window in a moment.</p>
+<p>He did not need to drop out, though he would have done so
+bravely enough.&nbsp; Nor even to let himself down a spout, which
+would have been an old game to him; for once he got up by a spout
+to the church roof, he said to take jackdaws&rsquo; eggs, but the
+policeman said to steal lead; and, when he was seen on high, sat
+there till the sun got too hot, and came down by another spout,
+leaving the policemen to go back to the stationhouse and eat
+their dinners.</p>
+<p>But all under the window spread a tree, with great leaves and
+sweet white flowers, almost as big as his head.&nbsp; It was
+magnolia, I suppose; but Tom knew nothing about that, and cared
+less; for down the tree he went, like a cat, and across the
+garden lawn, and over the iron railings and up the park towards
+the wood, leaving the old nurse to scream murder and fire at the
+window.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p27b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The under gardener"
+title=
+"The under gardener"
+ src="images/p27s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>The under gardener, mowing, saw Tom, and threw down his
+scythe; caught his leg in it, and cut his shin open, whereby he
+kept his bed for a week; but in his hurry he never knew it, and
+gave chase to poor Tom.&nbsp; The dairymaid heard the noise, got
+the churn between her knees, and tumbled over it, spilling all
+the cream; and yet she jumped up, and gave chase to Tom.&nbsp;
+<a href="images/p28b.jpg">
+<img class='floatright' alt=
+"The diarymaid"
+title=
+"The diarymaid"
+ src="images/p28s.jpg" />
+</a>&nbsp; A groom cleaning Sir John&rsquo;s hack at the stables
+let him go loose, whereby he kicked himself lame in five minutes;
+but he ran out and gave chase to Tom.&nbsp; Grimes upset the
+soot-sack in the new-gravelled yard, and spoilt it all utterly;
+but he ran out and gave chase to Tom.&nbsp; The old steward
+opened the park-gate in such a hurry, that he hung up his
+pony&rsquo;s chin upon the spikes, and, for aught I know, it
+hangs there still; but he jumped off, and gave chase to
+Tom.&nbsp; The ploughman left his horses at the headland, and one
+jumped over the fence, and pulled the other into the ditch,
+plough and all; but he ran on, and gave chase to Tom.&nbsp; The
+keeper, who was taking a stoat out of a trap, let the stoat go,
+and caught his own finger; but he jumped up, and ran after Tom;
+and considering what he said, and how he looked, I should have
+been sorry for Tom if he had caught him.&nbsp; Sir John looked
+out of his study window (for he was an early old gentleman) and
+up at the nurse, and a marten dropped mud in his eye, so that he
+had at last to send for the doctor; and yet he ran out, and gave
+chase to Tom.&nbsp; The Irishwoman, too, was walking up to the
+house to beg,&mdash;she must have got round by some
+byway&mdash;but she threw away her bundle, and gave chase to Tom
+likewise.&nbsp; Only my Lady did not give chase; for when she had
+put her head out of the window, her night-wig fell into the
+garden, and she had to ring up her lady&rsquo;s-maid, and send
+her down for it privately, which quite put her out of the
+running, so that she came in nowhere, and is consequently not
+placed.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p29b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The old steward"
+title=
+"The old steward"
+ src="images/p29s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place&mdash;not even
+when the fox was killed in the conservatory, among acres of
+broken glass, and tons of smashed flower-pots&mdash;such a noise,
+row, hubbub, babel, shindy, hullabaloo, stramash, charivari, and
+total contempt of dignity, repose, and order, as that day, when
+Grimes, gardener, the groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the
+steward, the ploughman, the keeper, and the Irishwoman, all ran
+up the park, shouting, &ldquo;Stop thief,&rdquo; in the belief
+that Tom had at least a thousand pounds&rsquo; worth of jewels in
+his empty pockets; and the very magpies and jays followed Tom up,
+screaking and screaming, as if he were a hunted fox, beginning to
+droop his brush.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p30b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Grimes"
+title=
+"Grimes"
+ src="images/p30s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>And all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with his little
+bare feet, like a small black gorilla fleeing to the
+forest.&nbsp; Alas for him! there was no big father gorilla
+therein to take his part&mdash;to scratch out the
+gardener&rsquo;s inside with one paw, toss the dairymaid into a
+tree with another, and wrench off Sir John&rsquo;s head with a
+third, while he cracked the keeper&rsquo;s skull with his teeth
+as easily as if it had been a cocoa-nut or a paving-stone.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p31b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Man on horse"
+title=
+"Man on horse"
+ src="images/p31s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>However, Tom did not remember ever having had a father; so he
+did not look for one, and expected to have to take care of
+himself; while as for running, he could keep up for a couple of
+miles with any stage-coach, if there was the chance of a copper
+or a cigar-end, and turn coach-wheels on his hands and feet ten
+times following, which is more than you can do.&nbsp; Wherefore
+his pursuers found it very difficult to catch him; and we will
+hope that they did not catch him at all.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p32b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Man chasing"
+title=
+"Man chasing"
+ src="images/p32s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Tom, of course, made for the woods.&nbsp; He had never been in
+a wood in his life; but he was sharp enough to know that he might
+hide in a bush, or swarm up a tree, and, altogether, had more
+chance there than in the open.&nbsp; If he had not known that, he
+would have been foolisher than a mouse or a minnow.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p33b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Man on knees"
+title=
+"Man on knees"
+ src="images/p33s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>But when he got into the wood, he found it a very different
+sort of place from what he had fancied.&nbsp; He pushed into a
+thick cover of rhododendrons, and found himself at once caught in
+a trap.&nbsp; The boughs laid hold of his legs and arms, poked
+him in his face and his stomach, made him shut his eyes tight
+(though that was no great loss, for he could not see at best a
+yard before his nose); and when he got through the rhododendrons,
+the hassock-grass and sedges tumbled him over, and cut his poor
+little fingers afterwards most spitefully; the birches birched
+him as soundly as if he had been a nobleman at Eton, and over the
+face too (which is not fair swishing as all brave boys will
+agree); and the lawyers tripped him up, and tore his shins as if
+they had sharks&rsquo; teeth&mdash;which lawyers are likely
+enough to have.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I must get out of this,&rdquo; thought Tom, &ldquo;or I
+shall stay here till somebody comes to help me&mdash;which is
+just what I don&rsquo;t want.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But how to get out was the difficult matter.&nbsp; And indeed
+I don&rsquo;t think he would ever have got out at all, but have
+stayed there till the cock-robins covered him with leaves, if he
+had not suddenly run his head against a wall.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p34b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Man looking out of window"
+title=
+"Man looking out of window"
+ src="images/p34s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Now running your head against a wall is not pleasant,
+especially if it is a loose wall, with the stones all set on
+edge, and a sharp cornered one hits you between the eyes and
+makes you see all manner of beautiful stars.&nbsp; The stars are
+very beautiful, certainly; but unfortunately they go in the
+twenty-thousandth part of a split second, and the pain which
+comes after them does not.&nbsp; And so Tom hurt his head; but he
+was a brave boy, and did not mind that a penny.&nbsp; He guessed
+that over the wall the cover would end; and up it he went, and
+over like a squirrel.</p>
+<p>And there he was, out on the great grouse-moors, which the
+country folk called Harthover Fell&mdash;heather and bog and
+rock, stretching away and up, up to the very sky.</p>
+<p>Now, Tom was a cunning little fellow&mdash;as cunning as an
+old Exmoor stag.&nbsp; Why not?&nbsp; Though he was but ten years
+old, he had lived longer than most stags, and had more wits to
+start with into the bargain.</p>
+<p>He knew as well as a stag, that if he backed he might throw
+the hounds out.&nbsp; So the first thing he did when he was over
+the wall was to make the neatest double sharp to his right, and
+run along under the wall for nearly half a mile.</p>
+<p>Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the steward, and the
+gardener, and the ploughman, and the dairymaid, and all the
+hue-and-cry together, went on ahead half a mile in the very
+opposite direction, and inside the wall, leaving him a mile off
+on the outside; while Tom heard their shouts die away in the
+woods and chuckled to himself merrily.</p>
+<p>At last he came to a dip in the land, and went to the bottom
+of it, and then he turned bravely away from the wall and up the
+moor; for he knew that he had put a hill between him and his
+enemies, and could go on without their seeing him.</p>
+<p>But the Irishwoman, alone of them all, had seen which way Tom
+went.&nbsp; She had kept ahead of every one the whole time; and
+yet she neither walked nor ran.&nbsp; She went along quite
+smoothly and gracefully, while her feet twinkled past each other
+so fast that you could not see which was foremost; till every one
+asked the other who the strange woman was; and all agreed, for
+want of anything better to say, that she must be in league with
+Tom.</p>
+<p>But when she came to the plantation, they lost sight of her;
+and they could do no less.&nbsp; For she went quietly over the
+wall after Tom, and followed him wherever he went.&nbsp; Sir John
+and the rest saw no more of her; and out of sight was out of
+mind.</p>
+<p>And now Tom was right away into the heather, over just such a
+moor as those in which you have been bred, except that there were
+rocks and stones lying about everywhere, and that, instead of the
+moor growing flat as he went upwards, it grew more and more
+broken and hilly, but not so rough but that little Tom could jog
+along well enough, and find time, too, to stare about at the
+strange place, which was like a new world to him.</p>
+<p>He saw great spiders there, with crowns and crosses marked on
+their backs, who sat in the middle of their webs, and when they
+saw Tom coming, shook them so fast that they became
+invisible.&nbsp; Then he saw lizards, brown and gray and green,
+and thought they were snakes, and would sting him; but they were
+as much frightened as he, and shot away into the heath.&nbsp; And
+then, under a rock, he saw a pretty sight&mdash;a great brown,
+sharp-nosed creature, with a white tag to her brush, and round
+her four or five smutty little cubs, the funniest fellows Tom
+ever saw.&nbsp; She lay on her back, rolling about, and
+stretching out her legs and head and tail in the bright sunshine;
+and the cubs jumped over her, and ran round her, and nibbled her
+paws, and lugged her about by the tail; and she seemed to enjoy
+it mightily.&nbsp; But one selfish little fellow stole away from
+the rest to a dead crow close by, and dragged it off to hide it,
+though it was nearly as big as he was.&nbsp; Whereat all his
+little brothers set off after him in full cry, and saw Tom; and
+then all ran back, and up jumped Mrs. Vixen, and caught one up in
+her mouth, and the rest toddled after her, and into a dark crack
+in the rocks; and there was an end of the show.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p37b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Fox with cubs"
+title=
+"Fox with cubs"
+ src="images/p37s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>And next he had a fright; for, as he scrambled up a sandy
+brow&mdash;whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock-kick&mdash;something went
+off in his face, with a most horrid noise.&nbsp; He thought the
+ground had blown up, and the end of the world come.</p>
+<p>And when he opened his eyes (for he shut them very tight) it
+was only an old cock-grouse, who had been washing himself in
+sand, like an Arab, for want of water; and who, when Tom had all
+but trodden on him, jumped up with a noise like the express
+train, leaving his wife and children to shift for themselves,
+like an old coward, and went off, screaming &ldquo;Cur-ru-u-uck,
+cur-ru-u-uck&mdash;murder, thieves,
+fire&mdash;cur-u-uck-cock-kick&mdash;the end of the world is
+come&mdash;kick-kick-cock-kick.&rdquo;&nbsp; He was always
+fancying that the end of the world was come, when anything
+happened which was farther off than the end of his own
+nose.&nbsp; But the end of the world was not come, any more than
+the twelfth of August was; though the old grouse-cock was quite
+certain of it.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p39b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The grouse"
+title=
+"The grouse"
+ src="images/p39s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>So the old grouse came back to his wife and family an hour
+afterwards, and said solemnly, &ldquo;Cock-cock-kick; my dears,
+the end of the world is not quite come; but I assure you it is
+coming the day after to-morrow&mdash;cock.&rdquo;&nbsp; But his
+wife had heard that so often that she knew all about it, and a
+little more.&nbsp; And, besides, she was the mother of a family,
+and had seven little poults to wash and feed every day; and that
+made her very practical, and a little sharp-tempered; so all she
+answered was: &ldquo;Kick-kick-kick&mdash;go and catch spiders,
+go and catch spiders&mdash;kick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why; but he liked the
+great wide strange place, and the cool fresh bracing air.&nbsp;
+But he went more and more slowly as he got higher up the hill;
+for now the ground grew very bad indeed.&nbsp; Instead of soft
+turf and springy heather, he met great patches of flat limestone
+rock, just like ill-made pavements, with deep cracks between the
+stones and ledges, filled with ferns; so he had to hop from stone
+to stone, and now and then he slipped in between, and hurt his
+little bare toes, though they were tolerably tough ones; but
+still he would go on and up, he could not tell why.</p>
+<p>What would Tom have said if he had seen, walking over the moor
+behind him, the very same Irishwoman who had taken his part upon
+the road?&nbsp; But whether it was that he looked too little
+behind him, or whether it was that she kept out of sight behind
+the rocks and knolls, he never saw her, though she saw him.</p>
+<p>And now he began to get a little hungry, and very thirsty; for
+he had run a long way, and the sun had risen high in heaven, and
+the rock was as hot as an oven, and the air danced reels over it,
+as it does over a limekiln, till everything round seemed
+quivering and melting in the glare.</p>
+<p>But he could see nothing to eat anywhere, and still less to
+drink.</p>
+<p>The heath was full of bilberries and whimberries; but they
+were only in flower yet, for it was June.&nbsp; And as for water;
+who can find that on the top of a limestone rock?&nbsp; Now and
+then he passed by a deep dark swallow-hole, going down into the
+earth, as if it was the chimney of some dwarfs house underground;
+and more than once, as he passed, he could hear water falling,
+trickling, tinkling, many many feet below.&nbsp; How he longed to
+get down to it, and cool his poor baked lips!&nbsp; But, brave
+little chimney-sweep as he was, he dared not climb down such
+chimneys as those.</p>
+<p>So he went on and on, till his head spun round with the heat,
+and he thought he heard church-bells ringing a long way off.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;where there is a church
+there will be houses and people; and, perhaps, some one will give
+me a bit and a sup.&rdquo;&nbsp; So he set off again, to look for
+the church; for he was sure that he heard the bells quite
+plain.</p>
+<p>And in a minute more, when he looked round, he stopped again,
+and said, &ldquo;Why, what a big place the world is!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And so it was; for, from the top of the mountain he could
+see&mdash;what could he not see?</p>
+<p>Behind him, far below, was Harthover, and the dark woods, and
+the shining salmon river; and on his left, far below, was the
+town, and the smoking chimneys of the collieries; and far, far
+away, the river widened to the shining sea; and little white
+specks, which were ships, lay on its bosom.&nbsp; Before him lay,
+spread out like a map, great plains, and farms, and villages,
+amid dark knots of trees.&nbsp; They all seemed at his very feet;
+but he had sense to see that they were long miles away.</p>
+<p>And to his right rose moor after moor, hill after hill, till
+they faded away, blue into blue sky.&nbsp; But between him and
+those moors, and really at his very feet, lay something, to
+which, as soon as Tom saw it, he determined to go, for that was
+the place for him.</p>
+<p>A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow, and filled
+with wood; but through the wood, hundreds of feet below him, he
+could see a clear stream glance.&nbsp; Oh, if he could but get
+down to that stream!&nbsp; Then, by the stream, he saw the roof
+of a little cottage, and a little garden set out in squares and
+beds.&nbsp; And there was a tiny little red thing moving in the
+garden, no bigger than a fly.&nbsp; As Tom looked down, he saw
+that it was a woman in a red petticoat.&nbsp; Ah! perhaps she
+would give him something to eat.&nbsp; And there were the
+church-bells ringing again.&nbsp; Surely there must be a village
+down there.&nbsp; Well, nobody would know him, or what had
+happened at the Place.&nbsp; The news could not have got there
+yet, even if Sir John had set all the policemen in the county
+after him; and he could get down there in five minutes.</p>
+<p>Tom was quite right about the hue-and-cry not having got
+thither; for he had come without knowing it, the best part of ten
+miles from Harthover; but he was wrong about getting down in five
+minutes, for the cottage was more than a mile off, and a good
+thousand feet below.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p43b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Youth reclining near stream"
+title=
+"Youth reclining near stream"
+ src="images/p43s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>However, down he went; like a brave little man as he was,
+though he was very footsore, and tired, and hungry, and thirsty;
+while the church-bells rang so loud, he began to think that they
+must be inside his own head, and the river chimed and tinkled far
+below; and this was the song which it sang:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Clear and
+cool</i>, <i>clear and cool</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>By laughing shallow</i>, <i>and dreaming
+pool</i>;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Cool and clear</i>, <i>cool and
+clear</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>By shining shingle</i>, <i>and foaming
+wear</i>;<br />
+<i>Under the crag where the ouzel sings</i>,<br />
+<i>And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings</i>,<br />
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>Undefiled</i>, <i>for the undefiled</i>;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Play by
+me</i>, <i>bathe in me</i>, <i>mother and child</i>.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Dank and foul</i>,
+<i>dank and foul</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>By the smoky town in its murky cowl</i>;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Foul and dank</i>, <i>foul and
+dank</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>By wharf and sewer and slimy bank</i>;<br />
+<i>Darker and darker the farther I go</i>,<br />
+<i>Baser and baser the richer I grow</i>;<br />
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>Who dares sport with the sin-defiled</i>?<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Shrink from
+me</i>, <i>turn from me</i>, <i>mother and child</i>.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Strong and free</i>,
+<i>strong and free</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>The floodgates are open</i>, <i>away to the
+sea</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Free and strong</i>, <i>free
+and strong</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Cleansing my streams as I hurry along</i>,<br />
+<i>To the golden sands</i>, <i>and the leaping bar</i>,<br />
+<i>And the taintless tide that awaits me afar</i>.<br />
+<i>As I lose myself in the infinite main</i>,<br />
+<i>Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again</i>.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>Undefiled</i>, <i>for the undefiled</i>;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Play by me</i>, <i>bathe in
+me</i>, <i>mother and child</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So Tom went down; and all the while he never saw the
+Irishwoman going down behind him.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p45b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Girl and woman walking on beech"
+title=
+"Girl and woman walking on beech"
+ src="images/p45s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;And is there care in heaven? and is there
+love<br />
+In heavenly spirits to these creatures base<br />
+That may compassion of their evils move?<br />
+There is:&mdash;else much more wretched were the case<br />
+Of men than beasts: But oh! the exceeding grace<br />
+Of Highest God that loves His creatures so,<br />
+And all His works with mercy doth embrace,<br />
+That blessed Angels He sends to and fro,<br />
+To serve to wicked man, to serve His wicked foe!&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="smcap">Spenser</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p47b.jpg">
+<img class='floatleft' alt=
+"Tom at the old dame&rsquo;s house"
+title=
+"Tom at the old dame&rsquo;s house"
+ src="images/p47s.jpg" />
+</a>A <span class="smcap">mile</span> off, and a thousand feet
+down.</p>
+<p>So Tom found it; though it seemed as if he could have chucked
+a pebble on to the back of the woman in the red petticoat who was
+weeding in the garden, or even across the dale to the rocks
+beyond.&nbsp; For the bottom of the valley was just one field
+broad, and on the other side ran the stream; and above it, gray
+crag, gray down, gray stair, gray moor walled up to heaven.</p>
+<p>A quiet, silent, rich, happy place; a narrow crack cut deep
+into the earth; so deep, and so out of the way, that the bad
+bogies can hardly find it out.&nbsp; The name of the place is
+Vendale; and if you want to see it for yourself, you must go up
+into the High Craven, and search from Bolland Forest north by
+Ingleborough, to the Nine Standards and Cross Fell; and if you
+have not found it, you must turn south, and search the Lake
+Mountains, down to Scaw Fell and the sea; and then, if you have
+not found it, you must go northward again by merry Carlisle, and
+search the Cheviots all across, from Annan Water to Berwick Law;
+and then, whether you have found Vendale or not, you will have
+found such a country, and such a people, as ought to make you
+proud of being a British boy.</p>
+<p>So Tom went to go down; and first he went down three hundred
+feet of steep heather, mixed up with loose brown gritstone, as
+rough as a file; which was not pleasant to his poor little heels,
+as he came bump, stump, jump, down the steep.&nbsp; And still he
+thought he could throw a stone into the garden.</p>
+<p>Then he went down three hundred feet of lime-stone terraces,
+one below the other, as straight as if a carpenter had ruled them
+with his ruler and then cut them out with his chisel.&nbsp; There
+was no heath there, but&mdash;</p>
+<p>First, a little grass slope, covered with the prettiest
+flowers, rockrose and saxifrage, and thyme and basil, and all
+sorts of sweet herbs.</p>
+<p>Then bump down a two-foot step of limestone.</p>
+<p>Then another bit of grass and flowers.</p>
+<p>Then bump down a one-foot step.</p>
+<p>Then another bit of grass and flowers for fifty yards, as
+steep as the house-roof, where he had to slide down on his dear
+little tail.</p>
+<p>Then another step of stone, ten feet high; and there he had to
+stop himself, and crawl along the edge to find a crack; for if he
+had rolled over, he would have rolled right into the old
+woman&rsquo;s garden, and frightened her out of her wits.</p>
+<p>Then, when he had found a dark narrow crack, full of
+green-stalked fern, such as hangs in the basket in the
+drawing-room, and had crawled down through it, with knees and
+elbows, as he would down a chimney, there was another grass
+slope, and another step, and so on, till&mdash;oh, dear me!&nbsp;
+I wish it was all over; and so did he.&nbsp; And yet he thought
+he could throw a stone into the old woman&rsquo;s garden.</p>
+<p>At last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs; white-beam with
+its great silver-backed leaves, and mountain-ash, and oak; and
+below them cliff and crag, cliff and crag, with great beds of
+crown-ferns and wood-sedge; while through the shrubs he could see
+the stream sparkling, and hear it murmur on the white
+pebbles.&nbsp; He did not know that it was three hundred feet
+below.</p>
+<p>You would have been giddy, perhaps, at looking down: but Tom
+was not.&nbsp; He was a brave little chimney-sweep; and when he
+found himself on the top of a high cliff, instead of sitting down
+and crying for his baba (though he never had had any baba to cry
+for), he said, &ldquo;Ah, this will just suit me!&rdquo; though
+he was very tired; and down he went, by stock and stone, sedge
+and ledge, bush and rush, as if he had been born a jolly little
+black ape, with four hands instead of two.</p>
+<p>And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman coming down
+behind him.</p>
+<p>But he was getting terribly tired now.&nbsp; The burning sun
+on the fells had sucked him up; but the damp heat of the woody
+crag sucked him up still more; and the perspiration ran out of
+the ends of his fingers and toes, and washed him cleaner than he
+had been for a whole year.&nbsp; But, of course, he dirtied
+everything, terribly as he went.&nbsp; There has been a great
+black smudge all down the crag ever since.&nbsp; And there have
+been more black beetles in Vendale since than ever were known
+before; all, of course, owing to Tom&rsquo;s having blacked the
+original papa of them all, just as he was setting off to be
+married, with a sky-blue coat and scarlet leggins, as smart as a
+gardener&rsquo;s dog with a polyanthus in his mouth.</p>
+<p>At last he got to the bottom.&nbsp; But, behold, it was not
+the bottom&mdash;as people usually find when they are coming down
+a mountain.&nbsp; For at the foot of the crag were heaps and
+heaps of fallen limestone of every size from that of your head to
+that of a stage-waggon, with holes between them full of sweet
+heath-fern; and before Tom got through them, he was out in the
+bright sunshine again; and then he felt, once for all and
+suddenly, as people generally do, that he was b-e-a-t, beat.</p>
+<p>You must expect to be beat a few times in your life, little
+man, if you live such a life as a man ought to live, let you be
+as strong and healthy as you may: and when you are, you will find
+it a very ugly feeling.&nbsp; I hope that that day you may have a
+stout staunch friend by you who is not beat; for, if you have
+not, you had best lie where you are, and wait for better times,
+as poor Tom did.</p>
+<p>He could not get on.&nbsp; The sun was burning, and yet he
+felt chill all over.&nbsp; He was quite empty, and yet he felt
+quite sick.&nbsp; There was but two hundred yards of smooth
+pasture between him and the cottage, and yet he could not walk
+down it.&nbsp; He could hear the stream murmuring only one field
+beyond it, and yet it seemed to him as if it was a hundred miles
+off.</p>
+<p>He lay down on the grass till the beetles ran over him, and
+the flies settled on his nose.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know when he
+would have got up again, if the gnats and the midges had not
+taken compassion on him.&nbsp; But the gnats blew their trumpets
+so loud in his ear, and the midges nibbled so at his hands and
+face wherever they could find a place free from soot, that at
+last he woke up, and stumbled away, down over a low wall, and
+into a narrow road, and up to the cottage-door.</p>
+<p>And a neat pretty cottage it was, with clipped yew hedges all
+round the garden, and yews inside too, cut into peacocks and
+trumpets and teapots and all kinds of queer shapes.&nbsp; And out
+of the open door came a noise like that of the frogs on the
+Great-A, when they know that it is going to be scorching hot
+to-morrow&mdash;and how they know that I don&rsquo;t know, and
+you don&rsquo;t know, and nobody knows.</p>
+<p>He came slowly up to the open door, which was all hung round
+with clematis and roses; and then peeped in, half afraid.</p>
+<p>And there sat by the empty fireplace, which was filled with a
+pot of sweet herbs, the nicest old woman that ever was seen, in
+her red petticoat, and short dimity bedgown, and clean white cap,
+with a black silk handkerchief over it, tied under her
+chin.&nbsp; At her feet sat the grandfather of all the cats; and
+opposite her sat, on two benches, twelve or fourteen neat, rosy,
+chubby little children, learning their Chris-cross-row; and
+gabble enough they made about it.</p>
+<p>Such a pleasant cottage it was, with a shiny clean stone
+floor, and curious old prints on the walls, and an old black oak
+sideboard full of bright pewter and brass dishes, and a cuckoo
+clock in the corner, which began shouting as soon as Tom
+appeared: not that it was frightened at Tom, but that it was just
+eleven o&rsquo;clock.</p>
+<p>All the children started at Tom&rsquo;s dirty black
+figure,&mdash;the girls began to cry, and the boys began to
+laugh, and all pointed at him rudely enough; but Tom was too
+tired to care for that.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What art thou, and what dost want?&rdquo; cried the old
+dame.&nbsp; &ldquo;A chimney-sweep!&nbsp; Away with thee!&nbsp;
+I&rsquo;ll have no sweeps here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Water,&rdquo; said poor little Tom, quite faint.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Water?&nbsp; There&rsquo;s plenty i&rsquo; the
+beck,&rdquo; she said, quite sharply.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But I can&rsquo;t get there; I&rsquo;m most clemmed
+with hunger and drought.&rdquo;&nbsp; And Tom sank down upon the
+door-step, and laid his head against the post.</p>
+<p>And the old dame looked at him through her spectacles one
+minute, and two, and three; and then she said, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s
+sick; and a bairn&rsquo;s a bairn, sweep or none.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Water,&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;God forgive me!&rdquo; and she put by her spectacles,
+and rose, and came to Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Water&rsquo;s bad for
+thee; I&rsquo;ll give thee milk.&rdquo;&nbsp; And she toddled off
+into the next room, and brought a cup of milk and a bit of
+bread.</p>
+<p>Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then looked up,
+revived.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where didst come from?&rdquo; said the dame.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Over Fell, there,&rdquo; said Tom, and pointed up into
+the sky.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Over Harthover? and down Lewthwaite Crag?&nbsp; Art
+sure thou art not lying?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why should I?&rdquo; said Tom, and leant his head
+against the post.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And how got ye up there?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I came over from the Place;&rdquo; and Tom was so tired
+and desperate he had no heart or time to think of a story, so he
+told all the truth in a few words.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Bless thy little heart!&nbsp; And thou hast not been
+stealing, then?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Bless thy little heart! and I&rsquo;ll warrant
+not.&nbsp; Why, God&rsquo;s guided the bairn, because he was
+innocent!&nbsp; Away from the Place, and over Harthover Fell, and
+down Lewthwaite Crag!&nbsp; Who ever heard the like, if God
+hadn&rsquo;t led him?&nbsp; Why dost not eat thy
+bread?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s good enough, for I made it
+myself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Tom, and he laid his head on
+his knees, and then asked&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is it Sunday?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, then; why should it be?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I hear the church-bells ringing so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Bless thy pretty heart!&nbsp; The bairn&rsquo;s
+sick.&nbsp; Come wi&rsquo; me, and I&rsquo;ll hap thee up
+somewhere.&nbsp; If thou wert a bit cleaner I&rsquo;d put thee in
+my own bed, for the Lord&rsquo;s sake.&nbsp; But come along
+here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired and giddy that
+she had to help him and lead him.</p>
+<p>She put him in an outhouse upon soft sweet hay and an old rug,
+and bade him sleep off his walk, and she would come to him when
+school was over, in an hour&rsquo;s time.</p>
+<p>And so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall fast asleep at
+once.</p>
+<p>But Tom did not fall asleep.</p>
+<p>Instead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about in the
+strangest way, and felt so hot all over that he longed to get
+into the river and cool himself; and then he fell half asleep,
+and dreamt that he heard the little white lady crying to him,
+&ldquo;Oh, you&rsquo;re so dirty; go and be washed;&rdquo; and
+then that he heard the Irishwoman saying, &ldquo;Those that wish
+to be clean, clean they will be.&rdquo;&nbsp; And then he heard
+the church-bells ring so loud, close to him too, that he was sure
+it must be Sunday, in spite of what the old dame had said; and he
+would go to church, and see what a church was like inside, for he
+had never been in one, poor little fellow, in all his life.&nbsp;
+But the people would never let him come in, all over soot and
+dirt like that.&nbsp; He must go to the river and wash
+first.&nbsp; And he said out loud again and again, though being
+half asleep he did not know it, &ldquo;I must be clean, I must be
+clean.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And all of a sudden he found himself, not in the outhouse on
+the hay, but in the middle of a meadow, over the road, with the
+stream just before him, saying continually, &ldquo;I must be
+clean, I must be clean.&rdquo;&nbsp; He had got there on his own
+legs, between sleep and awake, as children will often get out of
+bed, and go about the room, when they are not quite well.&nbsp;
+But he was not a bit surprised, and went on to the bank of the
+brook, and lay down on the grass, and looked into the clear,
+clear limestone water, with every pebble at the bottom bright and
+clean, while the little silver trout dashed about in fright at
+the sight of his black face; and he dipped his hand in and found
+it so cool, cool, cool; and he said, &ldquo;I will be a fish; I
+will swim in the water; I must be clean, I must be
+clean.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So he pulled off all his clothes in such haste that he tore
+some of them, which was easy enough with such ragged old
+things.&nbsp; And he put his poor hot sore feet into the water;
+and then his legs; and the farther he went in, the more the
+church-bells rang in his head.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;I must be quick and wash
+myself; the bells are ringing quite loud now; and they will stop
+soon, and then the door will be shut, and I shall never be able
+to get in at all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom was mistaken: for in England the church doors are left
+open all service time, for everybody who likes to come in,
+Churchman or Dissenter; ay, even if he were a Turk or a Heathen;
+and if any man dared to turn him out, as long as he behaved
+quietly, the good old English law would punish that man, as he
+deserved, for ordering any peaceable person out of God&rsquo;s
+house, which belongs to all alike.&nbsp; But Tom did not know
+that, any more than he knew a great deal more which people ought
+to know.</p>
+<p>And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman, not behind him
+this time, but before.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p57b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Queen of them all"
+title=
+"The Queen of them all"
+ src="images/p57s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>For just before he came to the river side, she had stept down
+into the cool clear water; and her shawl and her petticoat
+floated off her, and the green water-weeds floated round her
+sides, and the white water-lilies floated round her head, and the
+fairies of the stream came up from the bottom and bore her away
+and down upon their arms; for she was the Queen of them all; and
+perhaps of more besides.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where have you been?&rdquo; they asked her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have been smoothing sick folks&rsquo; pillows, and
+whispering sweet dreams into their ears; opening cottage
+casements, to let out the stifling air; coaxing little children
+away from gutters, and foul pools where fever breeds; turning
+women from the gin-shop door, and staying men&rsquo;s hands as
+they were going to strike their wives; doing all I can to help
+those who will not help themselves: and little enough that is,
+and weary work for me.&nbsp; But I have brought you a new little
+brother, and watched him safe all the way here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought that they
+had a little brother coming.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But mind, maidens, he must not see you, or know that
+you are here.&nbsp; He is but a savage now, and like the beasts
+which perish; and from the beasts which perish he must
+learn.&nbsp; So you must not play with him, or speak to him, or
+let him see you: but only keep him from being harmed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then the fairies were sad, because they could not play with
+their new brother, but they always did what they were told.</p>
+<p>And their Queen floated away down the river; and whither she
+went, thither she came.&nbsp; But all this Tom, of course, never
+saw or heard: and perhaps if he had it would have made little
+difference in the story; for was so hot and thirsty, and longed
+so to be clean for once, that he tumbled himself as quick as he
+could into the clear cool stream.</p>
+<p>And he had not been in it two minutes before he fell fast
+asleep, into the quietest, sunniest, cosiest sleep that ever he
+had in his life; and he dreamt about the green meadows by which
+he had walked that morning, and the tall elm-trees, and the
+sleeping cows; and after that he dreamt of nothing at all.</p>
+<p>The reason of his falling into such a delightful sleep is very
+simple; and yet hardly any one has found it out.&nbsp; It was
+merely that the fairies took him.</p>
+<p>Some people think that there are no fairies.&nbsp; Cousin
+Cramchild tells little folks so in his Conversations.&nbsp; Well,
+perhaps there are none&mdash;in Boston, U.S., where he was
+raised.&nbsp; There are only a clumsy lot of spirits there, who
+can&rsquo;t make people hear without thumping on the table: but
+they get their living thereby, and I suppose that is all they
+want.&nbsp; And Aunt Agitate, in her Arguments on political
+economy, says there are none.&nbsp; Well, perhaps there are
+none&mdash;in her political economy.&nbsp; But it is a wide
+world, my little man&mdash;and thank Heaven for it, for else,
+between crinolines and theories, some of us would get
+squashed&mdash;and plenty of room in it for fairies, without
+people seeing them; unless, of course, they look in the right
+place.&nbsp; The most wonderful and the strongest things in the
+world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.&nbsp;
+There is life in you; and it is the life in you which makes you
+grow, and move, and think: and yet you can&rsquo;t see it.&nbsp;
+And there is steam in a steam-engine; and that is what makes it
+move: and yet you can&rsquo;t see it; and so there may be fairies
+in the world, and they may be just what makes the world go round
+to the old tune of</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<i>C&rsquo;est l&rsquo;amour</i>,
+<i>l&rsquo;amour</i>, <i>l&rsquo;amour</i><br />
+<i>Qui fait la monde &agrave; la ronde</i>:&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p60b.jpg">
+<img class='floatleft' alt=
+"Fairy cherub with arrow"
+title=
+"Fairy cherub with arrow"
+ src="images/p60s.jpg" />
+</a>and yet no one may be able to see them except those whose
+hearts are going round to that same tune.&nbsp; At all events, we
+will make believe that there are fairies in the world.&nbsp; It
+will not be the last time by many a one that we shall have to
+make believe.&nbsp; And yet, after all, there is no need for
+that.&nbsp; There must be fairies; for this is a fairy tale: and
+how can one have a fairy tale if there are no fairies?</p>
+<p>You don&rsquo;t see the logic of that?&nbsp; Perhaps
+not.&nbsp; Then please not to see the logic of a great many
+arguments exactly like it, which you will hear before your beard
+is gray.</p>
+<p>The kind old dame came back at twelve, when school was over,
+to look at Tom: but there was no Tom there.&nbsp; She looked
+about for his footprints; but the ground was so hard that there
+was no slot, as they say in dear old North Devon.&nbsp; And if
+you grow up to be a brave healthy man, you may know some day what
+no slot means, and know too, I hope, what a slot does
+mean&mdash;a broad slot, with blunt claws, which makes a man put
+out his cigar, and set his teeth, and tighten his girths, when he
+sees it; and what his rights mean, if he has them, brow, bay,
+tray, and points; and see something worth seeing between Haddon
+Wood and Countisbury Cliff, with good Mr. Palk Collyns to show
+you the way, and mend your bones as fast as you smash them.&nbsp;
+Only when that jolly day comes, please don&rsquo;t break your
+neck; stogged in a mire you never will be, I trust; for you are a
+heath-cropper bred and born.</p>
+<p>So the old dame went in again quite sulky, thinking that
+little Tom had tricked her with a false story, and shammed ill,
+and then run away again.</p>
+<p>But she altered her mind the next day.&nbsp; For, when Sir
+John and the rest of them had run themselves out of breath, and
+lost Tom, they went back again, looking very foolish.</p>
+<p>And they looked more foolish still when Sir John heard more of
+the story from the nurse; and more foolish still, again, when
+they heard the whole story from Miss Ellie, the little lady in
+white.&nbsp; All she had seen was a poor little black
+chimney-sweep, crying and sobbing, and going to get up the
+chimney again.&nbsp; Of course, she was very much frightened: and
+no wonder.&nbsp; But that was all.&nbsp; The boy had taken
+nothing in the room; by the mark of his little sooty feet, they
+could see that he had never been off the hearthrug till the nurse
+caught hold of him.&nbsp; It was all a mistake.</p>
+<p>So Sir John told Grimes to go home, and promised him five
+shillings if he would bring the boy quietly up to him, without
+beating him, that he might be sure of the truth.&nbsp; For he
+took for granted, and Grimes too, that Tom had made his way
+home.</p>
+<p>But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that evening; and he went
+to the police-office, to tell them to look out for the boy.&nbsp;
+But no Tom was heard of.&nbsp; As for his having gone over those
+great fells to Vendale, they no more dreamed of that than of his
+having gone to the moon.</p>
+<p>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&rsquo; hall
+all day, and drink strong ale to wash away his sorrows; and they
+were washed away long before Sir John came back.</p>
+<p>For good Sir John had slept very badly that night; and he said
+to his lady, &ldquo;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.&nbsp; But I know what I will
+do.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p63b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Sir John"
+title=
+"Sir John"
+ src="images/p63s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>So, at five the next morning up he got, and into his bath, and
+into his shooting-jacket and gaiters, and into the stableyard,
+like a fine old English gentleman, with a face as red as a rose,
+and a hand as hard as a table, and a back as broad as a
+bullock&rsquo;s; and bade them bring his shooting pony, and the
+keeper to come on his pony, and the huntsman, and the first whip,
+and the second whip, and the under-keeper with the bloodhound in
+a leash&mdash;a great dog as tall as a calf, of the colour of a
+gravel-walk, with mahogany ears and nose, and a throat like a
+church-bell.&nbsp; They took him up to the place where Tom had
+gone into the wood; and there the hound lifted up his mighty
+voice, and told them all he knew.</p>
+<p>Then he took them to the place where Tom had climbed the wall;
+and they shoved it down, and all got through.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; But
+that was why cunning old Sir John started at five in the
+morning.</p>
+<p>And at last he came to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and there
+he bayed, and looked up in their faces, as much as to say,
+&ldquo;I tell you he is gone down here!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They could hardly believe that Tom would have gone so far; and
+when they looked at that awful cliff, they could never believe
+that he would have dared to face it.&nbsp; But if the dog said
+so, it must be true.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Heaven forgive us!&rdquo; said Sir John.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;If we find him at all, we shall find him lying at the
+bottom.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he slapped his great hand upon his great
+thigh, and said&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, and see if that
+boy is alive?&nbsp; Oh that I were twenty years younger, and I
+would go down myself!&rdquo;&nbsp; And so he would have done, as
+well as any sweep in the county.&nbsp; Then he said&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Twenty pounds to the man who brings me that boy
+alive!&rdquo; and as was his way, what he said he meant.</p>
+<p>Now among the lot was a little groom-boy, a very little groom
+indeed; and he was the same who had ridden up the court, and told
+Tom to come to the Hall; and he said&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Twenty pounds or none, I will go down over Lewthwaite
+Crag, if it&rsquo;s only for the poor boy&rsquo;s sake.&nbsp; For
+he was as civil a spoken little chap as ever climbed a
+flue.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So down over Lewthwaite Crag he went: a very smart groom he
+was at the top, and a very shabby one at the bottom; for he tore
+his gaiters, and he tore his breeches, and he tore his jacket,
+and he burst his braces, and he burst his boots, and he lost his
+hat, and what was worst of all, he lost his shirt pin, which he
+prized very much, for it was gold, and he had won it in a raffle
+at Malton, and there was a figure at the top of it, of
+t&rsquo;ould mare, noble old Beeswing herself, as natural as
+life; so it was a really severe loss: but he never saw anything
+of Tom.</p>
+<p>And all the while Sir John and the rest were riding round,
+full three miles to the right, and back again, to get into
+Vendale, and to the foot of the crag.</p>
+<p>When they came to the old dame&rsquo;s school, all the
+children came out to see.&nbsp; And the old dame came out too;
+and when she saw Sir John, she curtsied very low, for she was a
+tenant of his.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, dame, and how are you?&rdquo; said Sir John.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Blessings on you as broad as your back,
+Harthover,&rdquo; says she&mdash;she didn&rsquo;t call him Sir
+John, but only Harthover, for that is the fashion in the North
+country&mdash;&ldquo;and welcome into Vendale: but you&rsquo;re
+no hunting the fox this time of the year?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am hunting, and strange game too,&rdquo; said he.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Blessings on your heart, and what makes you look so sad
+the morn?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep,
+that is run away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Harthover, Harthover,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;ye
+were always a just man and a merciful; and ye&rsquo;ll no harm
+the poor little lad if I give you tidings of him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not I, not I, dame.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m afraid we hunted
+him out of the house all on a miserable mistake, and the hound
+has brought him to the top of Lewthwaite Crag,
+and&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Whereat the old dame broke out crying, without letting him
+finish his story.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So he told me the truth after all, poor little
+dear!&nbsp; Ah, first thoughts are best, and a body&rsquo;s
+heart&rsquo;ll guide them right, if they will but hearken to
+it.&rdquo;&nbsp; And then she told Sir John all.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Bring the dog here, and lay him on,&rdquo; said Sir
+John, without another word, and he set his teeth very hard.</p>
+<p>And the dog opened at once; and went away at the back of the
+cottage, over the road, and over the meadow, and through a bit of
+alder copse; and there, upon an alder stump, they saw Tom&rsquo;s
+clothes lying.&nbsp; And then they knew as much about it all as
+there was any need to know.</p>
+<p>And Tom?</p>
+<p>Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this wonderful
+story.&nbsp; Tom, when he woke, for of course he
+woke&mdash;children always wake after they have slept exactly as
+long as is good for them&mdash;found himself swimming about in
+the stream, being about four inches, or&mdash;that I may be
+accurate&mdash;3.87902 inches long and having round the parotid
+region of his fauces a set of external gills (I hope you
+understand all the big words) just like those of a sucking eft,
+which he mistook for a lace frill, till he pulled at them, found
+he hurt himself, and made up his mind that they were part of
+himself, and best left alone.</p>
+<p>In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.</p>
+<p>A water-baby?&nbsp; You never heard of a water-baby.&nbsp;
+Perhaps not.&nbsp; That is the very reason why this story was
+written.&nbsp; There are a great many things in the world which
+you never heard of; and a great many more which nobody ever heard
+of; and a great many things, too, which nobody will ever hear of,
+at least until the coming of the Cocqcigrues, when man shall be
+the measure of all things.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But there are no such things as
+water-babies.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>How do you know that?&nbsp; Have you been there to see?&nbsp;
+And if you had been there to see, and had seen none, that would
+not prove that there were none.&nbsp; If Mr. Garth does not find
+a fox in Eversley Wood&mdash;as folks sometimes fear he never
+will&mdash;that does not prove that there are no such things as
+foxes.&nbsp; And as is Eversley Wood to all the woods in England,
+so are the waters we know to all the waters in the world.&nbsp;
+And no one has a right to say that no water-babies exist, till
+they have seen no water-babies existing; which is quite a
+different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and a thing
+which nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p68b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Water baby"
+title=
+"Water baby"
+ src="images/p68s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;But surely if there were water-babies, somebody would
+have caught one at least?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Well.&nbsp; How do you know that somebody has not?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But they would have put it into spirits, or into the
+<i>Illustrated News</i>, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor
+dear little thing, and sent one to Professor Owen, and one to
+Professor Huxley, to see what they would each say about
+it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Ah, my dear little man! that does not follow at all, as you
+will see before the end of the story.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But a water-baby is contrary to nature.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Well, but, my dear little man, you must learn to talk about
+such things, when you grow older, in a very different way from
+that.&nbsp; You must not talk about &ldquo;ain&rsquo;t&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;can&rsquo;t&rdquo; when you speak of this great wonderful
+world round you, of which the wisest man knows only the very
+smallest corner, and is, as the great Sir Isaac Newton said, only
+a child picking up pebbles on the shore of a boundless ocean.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p69b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Examining a water baby in a jar"
+title=
+"Examining a water baby in a jar"
+ src="images/p69s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>You must not say that this cannot be, or that that is contrary
+to nature.&nbsp; You do not know what Nature is, or what she can
+do; and nobody knows; not even Sir Roderick Murchison, or
+Professor Owen, or Professor Sedgwick, or Professor Huxley, or
+Mr. Darwin, or Professor Faraday, or Mr. Grove, or any other of
+the great men whom good boys are taught to respect.&nbsp; They
+are very wise men; and you must listen respectfully to all they
+say: but even if they should say, which I am sure they never
+would, &ldquo;That cannot exist.&nbsp; That is contrary to
+nature,&rdquo; you must wait a little, and see; for perhaps even
+they may be wrong.&nbsp; It is only children who read Aunt
+Agitate&rsquo;s Arguments, or Cousin Cramchild&rsquo;s
+Conversations; or lads who go to popular lectures, and see a man
+pointing at a few big ugly pictures on the wall, or making nasty
+smells with bottles and squirts, for an hour or two, and calling
+that anatomy or chemistry&mdash;who talk about &ldquo;cannot
+exist,&rdquo; and &ldquo;contrary to nature.&rdquo;&nbsp; Wise
+men are afraid to say that there is anything contrary to nature,
+except what is contrary to mathematical truth; for two and two
+cannot make five, and two straight lines cannot join twice, and a
+part cannot be as great as the whole, and so on (at least, so it
+seems at present): but the wiser men are, the less they talk
+about &ldquo;cannot.&rdquo;&nbsp; That is a very rash, dangerous
+word, that &ldquo;cannot&rdquo;; and if people use it too often,
+the Queen of all the Fairies, who makes the clouds thunder and
+the fleas bite, and takes just as much trouble about one as about
+the other, is apt to astonish them suddenly by showing them, that
+though they say she cannot, yet she can, and what is more, will,
+whether they approve or not.</p>
+<p>And therefore it is, that there are dozens and hundreds of
+things in the world which we should certainly have said were
+contrary to nature, if we did not see them going on under our
+eyes all day long.&nbsp; If people had never seen little seeds
+grow into great plants and trees, of quite different shape from
+themselves, and these trees again produce fresh seeds, to grow
+into fresh trees, they would have said, &ldquo;The thing cannot
+be; it is contrary to nature.&rdquo;&nbsp; And they would have
+been quite as right in saying so, as in saying that most other
+things cannot be.</p>
+<p>Or suppose again, that you had come, like M. Du Chaillu, a
+traveller from unknown parts; and that no human being had ever
+seen or heard of an elephant.&nbsp; And suppose that you
+described him to people, and said, &ldquo;This is the shape, and
+plan, and anatomy of the beast, and of his feet, and of his
+trunk, and of his grinders, and of his tusks, though they are not
+tusks at all, but two fore teeth run mad; and this is the section
+of his skull, more like a mushroom than a reasonable skull of a
+reasonable or unreasonable beast; and so forth, and so forth; and
+though the beast (which I assure you I have seen and shot) is
+first cousin to the little hairy coney of Scripture, second
+cousin to a pig, and (I suspect) thirteenth or fourteenth cousin
+to a rabbit, yet he is the wisest of all beasts, and can do
+everything save read, write, and cast accounts.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+People would surely have said, &ldquo;Nonsense; your elephant is
+contrary to nature;&rdquo; and have thought you were telling
+stories&mdash;as the French thought of Le Vaillant when he came
+back to Paris and said that he had shot a giraffe; and as the
+king of the Cannibal Islands thought of the English sailor, when
+he said that in his country water turned to marble, and rain fell
+as feathers.&nbsp; They would tell you, the more they knew of
+science, &ldquo;Your elephant is an impossible monster, contrary
+to the laws of comparative anatomy, as far as yet
+known.&rdquo;&nbsp; To which you would answer the less, the more
+you thought.</p>
+<p>Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last
+twenty-five years, that a flying dragon was an impossible
+monster?&nbsp; And do we not now know that there are hundreds of
+them found fossil up and down the world?&nbsp; People call them
+Pterodactyles: but that is only because they are ashamed to call
+them flying dragons, after denying so long that flying dragons
+could exist.</p>
+<p>The truth is, that folks&rsquo; fancy that such and such
+things cannot be, simply because they have not seen them, is
+worth no more than a savage&rsquo;s fancy that there cannot be
+such a thing as a locomotive, because he never saw one running
+wild in the forest.&nbsp; Wise men know that their business is to
+examine what is, and not to settle what is not.&nbsp; They know
+that there are elephants; they know that there have been flying
+dragons; and the wiser they are, the less inclined they will be
+to say positively that there are no water-babies.</p>
+<p>No water-babies, indeed?&nbsp; Why, wise men of old said that
+everything on earth had its double in the water; and you may see
+that that is, if not quite true, still quite as true as most
+other theories which you are likely to hear for many a day.&nbsp;
+There are land-babies&mdash;then why not water-babies?&nbsp;
+<i>Are there not water-rats</i>, <i>water-flies</i>,
+<i>water-crickets</i>, <i>water-crabs</i>,
+<i>water-tortoises</i>, <i>water-scorpions</i>, <i>water-tigers
+and water-hogs</i>, <i>water-cats and water-dogs</i>,
+<i>sea-lions and sea-bears</i>, <i>sea-horses and
+sea-elephants</i>, <i>sea-mice and sea-urchins</i>, <i>sea-razors
+and sea-pens</i>, <i>sea-combs and sea-fans</i>; <i>and of
+plants</i>, <i>are there not water-grass</i>, <i>and
+water-crowfoot</i>, <i>water-milfoil</i>, <i>and so on</i>,
+<i>without end</i>?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But all these things are only nicknames; the water
+things are not really akin to the land things.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>That&rsquo;s not always true.&nbsp; They are, in millions of
+cases, not only of the same family, but actually the same
+individual creatures.&nbsp; Do not even you know that a green
+drake, and an alder-fly, and a dragon-fly, live under water till
+they change their skins, just as Tom changed his?&nbsp; And if a
+water animal can continually change into a land animal, why
+should not a land animal sometimes change into a water
+animal?&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t be put down by any of Cousin
+Cramchild&rsquo;s arguments, but stand up to him like a man, and
+answer him (quite respectfully, of course) thus:&mdash;</p>
+<p>If Cousin Cramchild says, that if there are water-babies, they
+must grow into water-men, ask him how he knows that they do not?
+and then, how he knows that they must, any more than the Proteus
+of the Adelsberg caverns grows into a perfect newt.</p>
+<p>If he says that it is too strange a transformation for a
+land-baby to turn into a water-baby, ask him if he ever heard of
+the transformation of Syllis, or the Distomas, or the common
+jelly-fish, of which M. Quatrefages says excellently
+well&mdash;&ldquo;Who would not exclaim that a miracle had come
+to pass, if he saw a reptile come out of the egg dropped by the
+hen in his poultry-yard, and the reptile give birth at once to an
+indefinite number of fishes and birds?&nbsp; Yet the history of
+the jelly-fish is quite as wonderful as that would
+be.&rdquo;&nbsp; Ask him if he knows about all this; and if he
+does not, tell him to go and look for himself; and advise him
+(very respectfully, of course) to settle no more what strange
+things cannot happen, till he has seen what strange things do
+happen every day.</p>
+<p>If he says that things cannot degrade, that is, change
+downwards into lower forms, ask him, who told him that
+water-babies were lower than land-babies?&nbsp; But even if they
+were, does he know about the strange degradation of the common
+goose-barnacles, which one finds sticking on ships&rsquo;
+bottoms; or the still stranger degradation of some cousins of
+theirs, of which one hardly likes to talk, so shocking and ugly
+it is?</p>
+<p>And, lastly, if he says (as he most certainly will) that these
+transformations only take place in the lower animals, and not in
+the higher, say that that seems to little boys, and to some grown
+people, a very strange fancy.&nbsp; For if the changes of the
+lower animals are so wonderful, and so difficult to discover, why
+should not there be changes in the higher animals far more
+wonderful, and far more difficult to discover?&nbsp; And may not
+man, the crown and flower of all things, undergo some change as
+much more wonderful than all the rest, as the Great Exhibition is
+more wonderful than a rabbit-burrow?&nbsp; Let him answer
+that.&nbsp; And if he says (as he will) that not having seen such
+a change in his experience, he is not bound to believe it, ask
+him respectfully, where his microscope has been?&nbsp; Does not
+each of us, in coming into this world, go through a
+transformation just as wonderful as that of a sea-egg, or a
+butterfly? and do not reason and analogy, as well as Scripture,
+tell us that that transformation is not the last? and that,
+though what we shall be, we know not, yet we are here but as the
+crawling caterpillar, and shall be hereafter as the perfect
+fly.&nbsp; The old Greeks, heathens as they were, saw as much as
+that two thousand years ago; and I care very little for Cousin
+Cramchild, if he sees even less than they.&nbsp; And so forth,
+and so forth, till he is quite cross.&nbsp; And then tell him
+that if there are no water-babies, at least there ought to be;
+and that, at least, he cannot answer.</p>
+<p>And meanwhile, my dear little man, till you know a great deal
+more about nature than Professor Owen and Professor Huxley put
+together, don&rsquo;t tell me about what cannot be, or fancy that
+anything is too wonderful to be true.&nbsp; &ldquo;We are
+fearfully and wonderfully made,&rdquo; said old David; and so we
+are; and so is everything around us, down to the very deal
+table.&nbsp; Yes; much more fearfully and wonderfully made,
+already, is the table, as it stands now, nothing but a piece of
+dead deal wood, than if, as foxes say, and geese believe, spirits
+could make it dance, or talk to you by rapping on it.</p>
+<p>Am I in earnest?&nbsp; Oh dear no!&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you know
+that this is a fairy tale, and all fun and pretence; and that you
+are not to believe one word of it, even if it is true?</p>
+<p>But at all events, so it happened to Tom.&nbsp; And,
+therefore, the keeper, and the groom, and Sir John made a great
+mistake, and were very unhappy (Sir John at least) without any
+reason, when they found a black thing in the water, and said it
+was Tom&rsquo;s body, and that he had been drowned.&nbsp; They
+were utterly mistaken.&nbsp; Tom was quite alive; and cleaner,
+and merrier, than he ever had been.&nbsp; The fairies had washed
+him, you see, in the swift river, so thoroughly, that not only
+his dirt, but his whole husk and shell had been washed quite off
+him, and the pretty little real Tom was washed out of the inside
+of it, and swam away, as a caddis does when its case of stones
+and silk is bored through, and away it goes on its back, paddling
+to the shore, there to split its skin, and fly away as a caperer,
+on four fawn-coloured wings, with long legs and horns.&nbsp; They
+are foolish fellows, the caperers, and fly into the candle at
+night, if you leave the door open.&nbsp; We will hope Tom will be
+wiser, now he has got safe out of his sooty old shell.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p79b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Collage of events"
+title=
+"Collage of events"
+ src="images/p79s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>But good Sir John did not understand all this, not being a
+fellow of the Linn&aelig;an Society; and he took it into his head
+that Tom was drowned.&nbsp; When they looked into the empty
+pockets of his shell, and found no jewels there, nor
+money&mdash;nothing but three marbles, and a brass button with a
+string to it&mdash;then Sir John did something as like crying as
+ever he did in his life, and blamed himself more bitterly than he
+need have done.&nbsp; So he cried, and the groom-boy cried, and
+the huntsman cried, and the dame cried, and the little girl
+cried, and the dairymaid cried, and the old nurse cried (for it
+was somewhat her fault), and my lady cried, for though people
+have wigs, that is no reason why they should not have hearts; but
+the keeper did not cry, though he had been so good-natured to Tom
+the morning before; for he was so dried up with running after
+poachers, that you could no more get tears out of him than milk
+out of leather: and Grimes did not cry, for Sir John gave him ten
+pounds, and he drank it all in a week.&nbsp; Sir John sent, far
+and wide, to find Tom&rsquo;s father and mother: but he might
+have looked till Doomsday for them, for one was dead, and the
+other was in Botany Bay.&nbsp; And the little girl would not play
+with her dolls for a whole week, and never forgot poor little
+Tom.&nbsp; And soon my lady put a pretty little tombstone over
+Tom&rsquo;s shell in the little churchyard in Vendale, where the
+old dalesmen all sleep side by side between the lime-stone
+crags.&nbsp; And the dame decked it with garlands every Sunday,
+till she grew so old that she could not stir abroad; then the
+little children decked it, for her.&nbsp; And always she sang an
+old old song, as she sat spinning what she called her
+wedding-dress.&nbsp; The children could not understand it, but
+they liked it none the less for that; for it was very sweet, and
+very sad; and that was enough for them.&nbsp; And these are the
+words of it:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p><i>When all the world is young</i>, <i>lad</i>,<br
+/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>And all the trees are green</i>;<br />
+<i>And every goose a swan</i>, <i>lad</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>And every lass a queen</i>;<br />
+<i>Then hey for boot and horse</i>, <i>lad</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>And round the world away</i>;<br />
+<i>Young blood must have its course</i>, <i>lad</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>And every dog his day</i>.</p>
+<p><i>When all the world is old</i>, <i>lad</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>And all the trees are brown</i>;<br />
+<i>And all the sport is stale</i>, <i>lad</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>And all the wheels run down</i>;<br />
+<i>Creep home</i>, <i>and take your place there</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>The spent and maimed among</i>:<br />
+<i>God grant you find one face there</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>You loved when all was young</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p80b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Time and the old man"
+title=
+"Time and the old man"
+ src="images/p80s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Those are the words: but they are only the body of it: the
+soul of the song was the dear old woman&rsquo;s sweet face, and
+sweet voice, and the sweet old air to which she sang; and that,
+alas! one cannot put on paper.&nbsp; And at last she grew so
+stiff and lame, that the angels were forced to carry her; and
+they helped her on with her wedding-dress, and carried her up
+over Harthover Fells, and a long way beyond that too; and there
+was a new schoolmistress in Vendale, and we will hope that she
+was not certificated.</p>
+<p>And all the while Tom was swimming about in the river, with a
+pretty little lace-collar of gills about his neck, as lively as a
+grig, and as clean as a fresh-run salmon.</p>
+<p>Now if you don&rsquo;t like my story, then go to the
+schoolroom and learn your multiplication-table, and see if you
+like that better.&nbsp; Some people, no doubt, would do so.&nbsp;
+So much the better for us, if not for them.&nbsp; It takes all
+sorts, they say, to make a world.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p81b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Water baby and sums"
+title=
+"Water baby and sums"
+ src="images/p81s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;He prayeth well who loveth well<br />
+Both men and bird and beast;<br />
+He prayeth best who loveth best<br />
+All things both great and small:<br />
+For the dear God who loveth us,<br />
+He made and loveth all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="smcap">Coleridge</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p83b.jpg">
+<img class='floatleft' alt=
+"Mermaid"
+title=
+"Mermaid"
+ src="images/p83s.jpg" />
+</a><span class="smcap">Tom</span> was now quite
+amphibious.&nbsp; You do not know what that means?&nbsp; You had
+better, then, ask the nearest Government pupil-teacher, who may
+possibly answer you smartly enough, thus&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Amphibious.&nbsp; Adjective, derived from two Greek
+words, <i>amphi</i>, a fish, and <i>bios</i>, a beast.&nbsp; An
+animal supposed by our ignorant ancestors to be compounded of a
+fish and a beast; which therefore, like the hippopotamus,
+can&rsquo;t live on the land, and dies in the water.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>However that may be, Tom was amphibious: and what is better
+still, he was clean.&nbsp; For the first time in his life, he
+felt how comfortable it was to have nothing on him but
+himself.&nbsp; But he only enjoyed it: he did not know it, or
+think about it; just as you enjoy life and health, and yet never
+think about being alive and healthy; and may it be long before
+you have to think about it!</p>
+<p>He did not remember having ever been dirty.&nbsp; Indeed, he
+did not remember any of his old troubles, being tired, or hungry,
+or beaten, or sent up dark chimneys.&nbsp; Since that sweet
+sleep, he had forgotten all about his master, and Harthover
+Place, and the little white girl, and in a word, all that had
+happened to him when he lived before; and what was best of all,
+he had forgotten all the bad words which he had learned from
+Grimes, and the rude boys with whom he used to play.</p>
+<p>That is not strange: for you know, when you came into this
+world, and became a land-baby, you remembered nothing.&nbsp; So
+why should he, when he became a water-baby?</p>
+<p>Then have you lived before?</p>
+<p>My dear child, who can tell?&nbsp; One can only tell that, by
+remembering something which happened where we lived before; and
+as we remember nothing, we know nothing about it; and no book,
+and no man, can ever tell us certainly.</p>
+<p>There was a wise man once, a very wise man, and a very good
+man, who wrote a poem about the feelings which some children have
+about having lived before; and this is what he said&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<i>Our birth is but a sleep and a
+forgetting</i>;<br />
+<i>The soul that rises with us</i>, <i>our life&rsquo;s
+star</i>,<br />
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>Hath elsewhere had its setting</i>,<br />
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>And cometh from afar</i>:<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Not in entire
+forgetfulness</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>And not in
+utter nakedness</i>,<br />
+<i>But trailing clouds of glory</i>, <i>do we come</i><br />
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>From God</i>, <i>who is our home</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p86b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Woman teacher"
+title=
+"Woman teacher"
+ src="images/p86s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>There, you can know no more than that.&nbsp; But if I was you,
+I would believe that.&nbsp; For then the great fairy Science, who
+is likely to be queen of all the fairies for many a year to come,
+can only do you good, and never do you harm; and instead of
+fancying with some people, that your body makes your soul, as if
+a steam-engine could make its own coke; or, with some people,
+that your soul has nothing to do with your body, but is only
+stuck into it like a pin into a pincushion, to fall out with the
+first shake;&mdash;you will believe the one true,</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>orthodox</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>inductive</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>rational</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>deductive</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>philosophical</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>seductive</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>logical</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>productive</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>irrefragable</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>salutary</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>nominalistic</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>comfortable</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>realistic</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>and on-all-accounts-to-be-received</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>doctrine of this wonderful fairy tale; which is, that your
+soul makes your body, just as a snail makes his shell.&nbsp; For
+the rest, it is enough for us to be sure that whether or not we
+lived before, we shall live again; though not, I hope, as poor
+little heathen Tom did.&nbsp; For he went downward into the
+water: but we, I hope, shall go upward to a very different
+place.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p87b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Tom in the stream"
+title=
+"Tom in the stream"
+ src="images/p87s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>But Tom was very happy in the water.&nbsp; He had been sadly
+overworked in the land-world; and so now, to make up for that, he
+had nothing but holidays in the water-world for a long, long time
+to come.&nbsp; He had nothing to do now but enjoy himself, and
+look at all the pretty things which are to be seen in the cool
+clear water-world, where the sun is never too hot, and the frost
+is never too cold.</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p88b.jpg">
+<img class='floatleft' alt=
+"Insect"
+title=
+"Insect"
+ src="images/p88s.jpg" />
+</a>And what did he live on?&nbsp; Water-cresses, perhaps; or
+perhaps water-gruel, and water-milk; too many land-babies do so
+likewise.&nbsp; But we do not know what one-tenth of the
+water-things eat; so we are not answerable for the
+water-babies.</p>
+<p>Sometimes he went along the smooth gravel water-ways, looking
+at the crickets which ran in and out among the stones, as rabbits
+do on land; or he climbed over the ledges of rock, and saw the
+sand-pipes hanging in thousands, with every one of them a pretty
+little head and legs peeping out; or he went into a still corner,
+and watched the caddises eating dead sticks as greedily as you
+would eat plum-pudding, and building their houses with silk and
+glue.&nbsp; Very fanciful ladies they were; none of them would
+keep to the same materials for a day.&nbsp; One would begin with
+some pebbles; then she would stick on a piece of green wood; then
+she found a shell, and stuck it on too; and the poor shell was
+alive, and did not like at all being taken to build houses with:
+but the caddis did not let him have any voice in the matter,
+being rude and selfish, as vain people are apt to be; then she
+stuck on a piece of rotten wood, then a very smart pink stone,
+and so on, till she was patched all over like an Irishman&rsquo;s
+coat.&nbsp; Then she found a long straw, five times as long as
+herself, and said, &ldquo;Hurrah! my sister has a tail, and
+I&rsquo;ll have one too;&rdquo; and she stuck it on her back, and
+marched about with it quite proud, though it was very
+inconvenient indeed.&nbsp; And, at that, tails became all the
+fashion among the caddis-baits in that pool, as they were at the
+end of the Long Pond last May, and they all toddled about with
+long straws sticking out behind, getting between each
+other&rsquo;s legs, and tumbling over each other, and looking so
+ridiculous, that Tom laughed at them till he cried, as we
+did.&nbsp; But they were quite right, you know; for people must
+always follow the fashion, even if it be spoon-bonnets.</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p89b.jpg">
+<img class='floatright' alt=
+"Lady in 1862 bonnet"
+title=
+"Lady in 1862 bonnet"
+ src="images/p89s.jpg" />
+</a>Then sometimes he came to a deep still reach; and there he
+saw the water-forests.&nbsp; They would have looked to you only
+little weeds: but Tom, you must remember, was so little that
+everything looked a hundred times as big to him as it does to
+you, just as things do to a minnow, who sees and catches the
+little water-creatures which you can only see in a
+microscope.</p>
+<p>And in the water-forest he saw the water-monkeys and
+water-squirrels (they had all six legs, though; everything almost
+has six legs in the water, except efts and water-babies); and
+nimbly enough they ran among the branches.&nbsp; There were
+water-flowers there too, in thousands; and Tom tried to pick
+them: but as soon as he touched them, they drew themselves in and
+turned into knots of jelly; and then Tom saw that they were all
+alive&mdash;bells, and stars, and wheels, and flowers, of all
+beautiful shapes and colours; and all alive and busy, just as Tom
+was.&nbsp; So now he found that there was a great deal more in
+the world than he had fancied at first sight.</p>
+<p>There was one wonderful little fellow, too, who peeped out of
+the top of a house built of round bricks.&nbsp; He had two big
+wheels, and one little one, all over teeth, spinning round and
+round like the wheels in a thrashing-machine; and Tom stood and
+stared at him, to see what he was going to make with his
+machinery.&nbsp; And what do you think he was doing?&nbsp;
+Brick-making.&nbsp; With his two big wheels he swept together all
+the mud which floated in the water: all that was nice in it he
+put into his stomach and ate; and all the mud he put into the
+little wheel on his breast, which really was a round hole set
+with teeth; and there he spun it into a neat hard round brick;
+and then he took it and stuck it on the top of his house-wall,
+and set to work to make another. Now was not he a clever little
+fellow?</p>
+<p>Tom thought so: but when he wanted to talk to him the
+brick-maker was much too busy and proud of his work to take
+notice of him.</p>
+<p>Now you must know that all the things under the water talk;
+only not such a language as ours; but such as horses, and dogs,
+and cows, and birds talk to each other; and Tom soon learned to
+understand them and talk to them; so that he might have had very
+pleasant company if he had only been a good boy.&nbsp; But I am
+sorry to say, he was too like some other little boys, very fond
+of hunting and tormenting creatures for mere sport.&nbsp; Some
+people say that boys cannot help it; that it is nature, and only
+a proof that we are all originally descended from beasts of
+prey.&nbsp; But whether it is nature or not, little boys can help
+it, and must help it.&nbsp; For if they have naughty, low,
+mischievous tricks in their nature, as monkeys have, that is no
+reason why they should give way to those tricks like monkeys, who
+know no better.&nbsp; And therefore they must not torment dumb
+creatures; for if they do, a certain old lady who is coming will
+surely give them exactly what they deserve.</p>
+<p>But Tom did not know that; and he pecked and howked the poor
+water-things about sadly, till they were all afraid of him, and
+got out of his way, or crept into their shells; so he had no one
+to speak to or play with.</p>
+<p>The water-fairies, of course, were very sorry to see him so
+unhappy, and longed to take him, and tell him how naughty he was,
+and teach him to be good, and to play and romp with him too: but
+they had been forbidden to do that.&nbsp; Tom had to learn his
+lesson for himself by sound and sharp experience, as many another
+foolish person has to do, though there may be many a kind heart
+yearning over them all the while, and longing to teach them what
+they can only teach themselves.</p>
+<p>At last one day he found a caddis, and wanted it to peep out
+of its house: but its house-door was shut.&nbsp; He had never
+seen a caddis with a house-door before: so what must he do, the
+meddlesome little fellow, but pull it open, to see what the poor
+lady was doing inside.&nbsp; What a shame!&nbsp; How should you
+like to have any one breaking your bedroom-door in, to see how
+you looked when you where in bed?&nbsp; So Tom broke to pieces
+the door, which was the prettiest little grating of silk, stuck
+all over with shining bits of crystal; and when he looked in, the
+caddis poked out her head, and it had turned into just the shape
+of a bird&rsquo;s.&nbsp; But when Tom spoke to her she could not
+answer; for her mouth and face were tight tied up in a new
+night-cap of neat pink skin.&nbsp; However, if she didn&rsquo;t
+answer, all the other caddises did; for they held up their hands
+and shrieked like the cats in Struwelpeter: &ldquo;<i>Oh</i>,
+<i>you nasty horrid boy</i>; <i>there you are at it
+again</i>!&nbsp; <i>And she had just laid herself up for a
+fortnight&rsquo;s sleep</i>, <i>and then she would have come out
+with such beautiful wings</i>, <i>and flown about</i>, <i>and
+laid such lots of eggs</i>: <i>and now you have broken her
+door</i>, <i>and she can&rsquo;t mend it because her mouth is
+tied up for a fortnight</i>, <i>and she will die</i>.&nbsp;
+<i>Who sent you here to worry us out of our lives</i>?&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p93b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Tom and a fish"
+title=
+"Tom and a fish"
+ src="images/p93s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>So Tom swam away.&nbsp; He was very much ashamed of himself,
+and felt all the naughtier; as little boys do when they have done
+wrong and won&rsquo;t say so.</p>
+<p>Then he came to a pool full of little trout, and began
+tormenting them, and trying to catch them: but they slipped
+through his fingers, and jumped clean out of water in their
+fright.&nbsp; But as Tom chased them, he came close to a great
+dark hover under an alder root, and out floushed a huge old brown
+trout ten times as big as he was, and ran right against him, and
+knocked all the breath out of his body; and I don&rsquo;t know
+which was the more frightened of the two.</p>
+<p>Then he went on sulky and lonely, as he deserved to be; and
+under a bank he saw a very ugly dirty creature sitting, about
+half as big as himself; which had six legs, and a big stomach,
+and a most ridiculous head with two great eyes and a face just
+like a donkey&rsquo;s.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;you are an ugly fellow to
+be sure!&rdquo; and he began making faces at him; and put his
+nose close to him, and halloed at him, like a very rude boy.</p>
+<p>When, hey presto; all the thing&rsquo;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.&nbsp; It did not hurt
+him much; but it held him quite tight.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yah, ah!&nbsp; Oh, let me go!&rdquo; cried Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then let me go,&rdquo; said the creature.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I want to be quiet.&nbsp; I want to split.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom promised to let him alone, and he let go.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why do you want to split?&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because my brothers and sisters have all split, and
+turned into beautiful creatures with wings; and I want to split
+too.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t speak to me.&nbsp; I am sure I shall
+split.&nbsp; I will split!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom stood still, and watched him.&nbsp; And he swelled
+himself, and puffed, and stretched himself out stiff, and at
+last&mdash;crack, puff, bang&mdash;he opened all down his back,
+and then up to the top of his head.</p>
+<p>And out of his inside came the most slender, elegant, soft
+creature, as soft and smooth as Tom: but very pale and weak, like
+a little child who has been ill a long time in a dark room.&nbsp;
+It moved its legs very feebly; and looked about it half ashamed,
+like a girl when she goes for the first time into a ballroom; and
+then it began walking slowly up a grass stem to the top of the
+water.</p>
+<p>Tom was so astonished that he never said a word but he stared
+with all his eyes.&nbsp; And he went up to the top of the water
+too, and peeped out to see what would happen.</p>
+<p>And as the creature sat in the warm bright sun, a wonderful
+change came over it.&nbsp; It grew strong and firm; the most
+lovely colours began to show on its body, blue and yellow and
+black, spots and bars and rings; out of its back rose four great
+wings of bright brown gauze; and its eyes grew so large that they
+filled all its head, and shone like ten thousand diamonds.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you beautiful creature!&rdquo; said Tom; and he put
+out his hand to catch it.</p>
+<p>But the thing whirred up into the air, and hung poised on its
+wings a moment, and then settled down again by Tom quite
+fearless.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p96b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Tom and the dragon-fly"
+title=
+"Tom and the dragon-fly"
+ src="images/p96s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;No!&rdquo; it said, &ldquo;you cannot catch me.&nbsp; I
+am a dragon-fly now, the king of all the flies; and I shall dance
+in the sunshine, and hawk over the river, and catch gnats, and
+have a beautiful wife like myself.&nbsp; I know what I shall
+do.&nbsp; Hurrah!&rdquo;&nbsp; And he flew away into the air, and
+began catching gnats.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! come back, come back,&rdquo; cried Tom, &ldquo;you
+beautiful creature.&nbsp; I have no one to play with, and I am so
+lonely here.&nbsp; If you will but come back I will never try to
+catch you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care whether you do or not,&rdquo; said
+the dragon-fly; &ldquo;for you can&rsquo;t.&nbsp; But when I have
+had my dinner, and looked a little about this pretty place, I
+will come back, and have a little chat about all I have seen in
+my travels.&nbsp; Why, what a huge tree this is! and what huge
+leaves on it!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It was only a big dock: but you know the dragon-fly had never
+seen any but little water-trees; starwort, and milfoil, and
+water-crowfoot, and such like; so it did look very big to
+him.&nbsp; Besides, he was very short-sighted, as all
+dragon-flies are; and never could see a yard before his nose; any
+more than a great many other folks, who are not half as handsome
+as he.</p>
+<p>The dragon-fly did come back, and chatted away with Tom.&nbsp;
+He was a little conceited about his fine colours and his large
+wings; but you know, he had been a poor dirty ugly creature all
+his life before; so there were great excuses for him.&nbsp; He
+was very fond of talking about all the wonderful things he saw in
+the trees and the meadows; and Tom liked to listen to him, for he
+had forgotten all about them.&nbsp; So in a little while they
+became great friends.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; And then the caddises grew quite tame, and used to
+tell him strange stories about the way they built their houses,
+and changed their skins, and turned at last into winged flies;
+till Tom began to long to change his skin, and have wings like
+them some day.</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p98b.jpg">
+<img class='floatleft' alt=
+"Acrobat"
+title=
+"Acrobat"
+ src="images/p98s.jpg" />
+</a>And the trout and he made it up (for trout very soon forget
+if they have been frightened and hurt).&nbsp; So Tom used to play
+with them at hare and hounds, and great fun they had; and he used
+to try to leap out of the water, head over heels, as they did
+before a shower came on; but somehow he never could manage
+it.&nbsp; He liked most, though, to see them rising at the flies,
+as they sailed round and round under the shadow of the great oak,
+where the beetles fell flop into the water, and the green
+caterpillars let themselves down from the boughs by silk ropes
+for no reason at all; and then changed their foolish minds for no
+reason at all either; and hauled themselves up again into the
+tree, rolling up the rope in a ball between their paws; which is
+a very clever rope-dancer&rsquo;s trick, and neither Blondin nor
+Leotard could do it: but why they should take so much trouble
+about it no one can tell; for they cannot get their living, as
+Blondin and Leotard do, by trying to break their necks on a
+string.</p>
+<p>And very often Tom caught them just as they touched the water;
+and caught the alder-flies, and the caperers, and the cock-tailed
+duns and spinners, yellow, and brown, and claret, and gray, and
+gave them to his friends the trout.&nbsp; Perhaps he was not
+quite kind to the flies; but one must do a good turn to
+one&rsquo;s friends when one can.</p>
+<p>And at last he gave up catching even the flies; for he made
+acquaintance with one by accident and found him a very merry
+little fellow.&nbsp; And this was the way it happened; and it is
+all quite true.</p>
+<p>He was basking at the top of the water one hot day in July,
+catching duns and feeding the trout, when he saw a new sort, a
+dark gray little fellow with a brown head.&nbsp; He was a very
+little fellow indeed: but he made the most of himself, as people
+ought to do.&nbsp; He cocked up his head, and he cocked up his
+wings, and he cocked up his tail, and he cocked up the two whisks
+at his tail-end, and, in short, he looked the cockiest little man
+of all little men.&nbsp; And so he proved to be; for instead of
+getting away, he hopped upon Tom&rsquo;s finger, and sat there as
+bold as nine tailors; and he cried out in the tiniest, shrillest,
+squeakiest little voice you ever heard,</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Much obliged to you, indeed; but I don&rsquo;t want it
+yet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Want what?&rdquo; said Tom, quite taken aback by his
+impudence.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your leg, which you are kind enough to hold out for me
+to sit on.&nbsp; I must just go and see after my wife for a few
+minutes.&nbsp; Dear me! what a troublesome business a family
+is!&rdquo; (though the idle little rogue did nothing at all, but
+left his poor wife to lay all the eggs by herself).&nbsp;
+&ldquo;When I come back, I shall be glad of it, if you&rsquo;ll
+be so good as to keep it sticking out just so;&rdquo; and off he
+flew.</p>
+<p>Tom thought him a very cool sort of personage; and still more
+so, when, in five minutes he came back, and said&mdash;&ldquo;Ah,
+you were tired waiting?&nbsp; Well, your other leg will do as
+well.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And he popped himself down on Tom&rsquo;s knee, and began
+chatting away in his squeaking voice.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So you live under the water?&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a low
+place.&nbsp; I lived there for some time; and was very shabby and
+dirty.&nbsp; But I didn&rsquo;t choose that that should
+last.&nbsp; So I turned respectable, and came up to the top, and
+put on this gray suit.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a very business-like
+suit, you think, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very neat and quiet indeed,&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, one must be quiet and neat and respectable, and
+all that sort of thing for a little, when one becomes a family
+man.&nbsp; But I&rsquo;m tired of it, that&rsquo;s the
+truth.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve done quite enough business, I consider,
+in the last week, to last me my life.&nbsp; So I shall put on a
+ball dress, and go out and be a smart man, and see the gay world,
+and have a dance or two.&nbsp; Why shouldn&rsquo;t one be jolly
+if one can?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what will become of your wife?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! she is a very plain stupid creature, and
+that&rsquo;s the truth; and thinks about nothing but eggs.&nbsp;
+If she chooses to come, why she may; and if not, why I go without
+her;&mdash;and here I go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And, as he spoke, he turned quite pale, and then quite
+white.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, you&rsquo;re ill!&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp; But he
+did not answer.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re dead,&rdquo; said Tom, looking at him as
+he stood on his knee as white as a ghost.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I ain&rsquo;t!&rdquo; answered a little squeaking
+voice over his head.&nbsp; &ldquo;This is me up here, in my
+ball-dress; and that&rsquo;s my skin.&nbsp; Ha, ha! you could not
+do such a trick as that!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And no more Tom could, nor Houdin, nor Robin, nor Frikell, nor
+all the conjurors in the world.&nbsp; For the little rogue had
+jumped clean out of his own skin, and left it standing on
+Tom&rsquo;s knee, eyes, wings, legs, tail, exactly as if it had
+been alive.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ha, ha!&rdquo; he said, and he jerked and skipped up
+and down, never stopping an instant, just as if he had St.
+Vitus&rsquo;s dance.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ain&rsquo;t I a pretty fellow
+now?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And so he was; for his body was white, and his tail orange,
+and his eyes all the colours of a peacock&rsquo;s tail.&nbsp; And
+what was the oddest of all, the whisks at the end of his tail had
+grown five times as long as they were before.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;now I will see the gay
+world.&nbsp; My living, won&rsquo;t cost me much, for I have no
+mouth, you see, and no inside; so I can never be hungry nor have
+the stomach-ache neither.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>No more he had.&nbsp; He had grown as dry and hard and empty
+as a quill, as such silly shallow-hearted fellows deserve to
+grow.</p>
+<p>But, instead of being ashamed of his emptiness, he was quite
+proud of it, as a good many fine gentlemen are, and began
+flirting and flipping up and down, and singing&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<i>My wife shall dance</i>, <i>and I shall
+sing</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>So merrily pass the day</i>;<br />
+<i>For I hold it for quite the wisest thing</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>To drive dull care away</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And he danced up and down for three days and three nights,
+till he grew so tired, that he tumbled into the water, and
+floated down.&nbsp; 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&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<i>To drive dull care
+away-ay-ay</i>!&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And if he did not care, why nobody else cared either.</p>
+<p>But one day Tom had a new adventure.&nbsp; He was sitting on a
+water-lily leaf, he and his friend the dragon-fly, watching the
+gnats dance.&nbsp; The dragon-fly had eaten as many as he wanted,
+and was sitting quite still and sleepy, for it was very hot and
+bright.&nbsp; The gnats (who did not care the least for their
+poor brothers&rsquo; death) danced a foot over his head quite
+happily, and a large black fly settled within an inch of his
+nose, and began washing his own face and combing his hair with
+his paws: but the dragon-fly never stirred, and kept on chatting
+to Tom about the times when he lived under the water.</p>
+<p>Suddenly, Tom heard the strangest noise up the stream; cooing,
+and grunting, and whining, and squeaking, as if you had put into
+a bag two stock-doves, nine mice, three guinea-pigs, and a blind
+puppy, and left them there to settle themselves and make
+music.</p>
+<p>He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as
+the noise; a great ball rolling over and over down the stream,
+seeming one moment of soft brown fur, and the next of shining
+glass: and yet it was not a ball; for sometimes it broke up and
+streamed away in pieces, and then it joined again; and all the
+while the noise came out of it louder and louder.</p>
+<p>Tom asked the dragon-fly what it could be: but, of course,
+with his short sight, he could not even see it, though it was not
+ten yards away.&nbsp; So he took the neatest little header into
+the water, and started off to see for himself; and, when he came
+near, the ball turned out to be four or five beautiful creatures,
+many times larger than Tom, who were swimming about, and rolling,
+and diving, and twisting, and wrestling, and cuddling, and
+kissing and biting, and scratching, in the most charming fashion
+that ever was seen.&nbsp; And if you don&rsquo;t believe me, you
+may go to the Zoological Gardens (for I am afraid that you
+won&rsquo;t see it nearer, unless, perhaps, you get up at five in
+the morning, and go down to Cordery&rsquo;s Moor, and watch by
+the great withy pollard which hangs over the backwater, where the
+otters breed sometimes), and then say, if otters at play in the
+water are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creatures you
+ever saw.</p>
+<p>But, when the biggest of them saw Tom, she darted out from the
+rest, and cried in the water-language sharply enough,
+&ldquo;Quick, children, here is something to eat, indeed!&rdquo;
+and came at poor Tom, showing such a wicked pair of eyes, and
+such a set of sharp teeth in a grinning mouth, that Tom, who had
+thought her very handsome, said to himself, <i>Handsome is that
+handsome does</i>, and slipped in between the water-lily roots as
+fast as he could, and then turned round and made faces at
+her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come out,&rdquo; said the wicked old otter, &ldquo;or
+it will be worse for you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But Tom looked at her from between two thick roots, and shook
+them with all his might, making horrible faces all the while,
+just as he used to grin through the railings at the old women,
+when he lived before.&nbsp; It was not quite well bred, no doubt;
+but you know, Tom had not finished his education yet.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p105b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The otter"
+title=
+"The otter"
+ src="images/p105s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come, away, children,&rdquo; said the otter in disgust,
+&ldquo;it is not worth eating, after all.&nbsp; It is only a
+nasty eft, which nothing eats, not even those vulgar pike in the
+pond.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am not an eft!&rdquo; said Tom; &ldquo;efts have
+tails.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are an eft,&rdquo; said the otter, very positively;
+&ldquo;I see your two hands quite plain, and I know you have a
+tail.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I tell you I have not,&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Look here!&rdquo; and he turned his pretty little self
+quite round; and, sure enough, he had no more tail than you.</p>
+<p>The otter might have got out of it by saying that Tom was a
+frog: but, like a great many other people, when she had once said
+a thing, she stood to it, right or wrong; so she answered:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I say you are an eft, and therefore you are, and not
+fit food for gentlefolk like me and my children.&nbsp; You may
+stay there till the salmon eat you (she knew the salmon would
+not, but she wanted to frighten poor Tom).&nbsp; Ha! ha! they
+will eat you, and we will eat them;&rdquo; and the otter laughed
+such a wicked cruel laugh&mdash;as you may hear them do
+sometimes; and the first time that you hear it you will probably
+think it is bogies.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are salmon?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Fish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat.&nbsp; They
+are the lords of the fish, and we are lords of the salmon;&rdquo;
+and she laughed again.&nbsp; &ldquo;We hunt them up and down the
+pools, and drive them up into a corner, the silly things; they
+are so proud, and bully the little trout, and the minnows, till
+they see us coming, and then they are so meek all at once, and we
+catch them, but we disdain to eat them all; we just bite out
+their soft throats and suck their sweet juice&mdash;Oh, so
+good!&rdquo;&mdash;(and she licked her wicked
+lips)&mdash;&ldquo;and then throw them away, and go and catch
+another.&nbsp; They are coming soon, children, coming soon; I can
+smell the rain coming up off the sea, and then hurrah for a
+fresh, and salmon, and plenty of eating all day long.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p106b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Tom and the otter"
+title=
+"Tom and the otter"
+ src="images/p106s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>And the otter grew so proud that she turned head over heels
+twice, and then stood upright half out of the water, grinning
+like a Cheshire cat.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And where do they come from?&rdquo; asked Tom, who kept
+himself very close, for he was considerably frightened.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Out of the sea, eft, the great wide sea, where they
+might stay and be safe if they liked.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; And there we fish for the bass and the
+pollock, and have jolly days along the shore, and toss and roll
+in the breakers, and sleep snug in the warm dry crags.&nbsp; Ah,
+that is a merry life too, children, if it were not for those
+horrid men.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are men?&rdquo; asked Tom; but somehow he seemed
+to know before he asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Two-legged things, eft: and, now I come to look at you,
+they are actually something like you, if you had not a
+tail&rdquo; (she was determined that Tom should have a tail),
+&ldquo;only a great deal bigger, worse luck for us; and they
+catch the fish with hooks and lines, which get into our feet
+sometimes, and set pots along the rocks to catch lobsters.&nbsp;
+They speared my poor dear husband as he went out to find
+something for me to eat.&nbsp; I was laid up among the crags
+then, and we were very low in the world, for the sea was so rough
+that no fish would come in shore.&nbsp; But they speared him,
+poor fellow, and I saw them carrying him away upon a pole.&nbsp;
+All, he lost his life for your sakes, my children, poor dear
+obedient creature that he was.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And the otter grew so sentimental (for otters can be very
+sentimental when they choose, like a good many people who are
+both cruel and greedy, and no good to anybody at all) that she
+sailed solemnly away down the burn, and Tom saw her no more for
+that time.&nbsp; And lucky it was for her that she did so; for no
+sooner was she gone, than down the bank came seven little rough
+terrier doors, snuffing and yapping, and grubbing and splashing,
+in full cry after the otter.&nbsp; Tom hid among the water-lilies
+till they were gone; for he could not guess that they were the
+water-fairies come to help him.</p>
+<p>But he could not help thinking of what the otter had said
+about the great river and the broad sea.&nbsp; And, as he
+thought, he longed to go and see them.&nbsp; He could not tell
+why; but the more he thought, the more he grew discontented with
+the narrow little stream in which he lived, and all his
+companions there; and wanted to get out into the wide wide world,
+and enjoy all the wonderful sights of which he was sure it was
+full.</p>
+<p>And once he set off to go down the stream.&nbsp; But the
+stream was very low; and when he came to the shallows he could
+not keep under water, for there was no water left to keep
+under.&nbsp; So the sun burned his back and made him sick; and he
+went back again and lay quiet in the pool for a whole week
+more.</p>
+<p>And then, on the evening of a very hot day, he saw a
+sight.</p>
+<p>He had been very stupid all day, and so had the trout; for
+they would not move an inch to take a fly, though there were
+thousands on the water, but lay dozing at the bottom under the
+shade of the stones; and Tom lay dozing too, and was glad to
+cuddle their smooth cool sides, for the water was quite warm and
+unpleasant.</p>
+<p>But toward evening it grew suddenly dark, and Tom looked up
+and saw a blanket of black clouds lying right across the valley
+above his head, resting on the crags right and left.&nbsp; He
+felt not quite frightened, but very still; for everything was
+still.&nbsp; There was not a whisper of wind, nor a chirp of a
+bird to be heard; and next a few great drops of rain fell plop
+into the water, and one hit Tom on the nose, and made him pop his
+head down quickly enough.</p>
+<p>And then the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed, and
+leapt across Vendale and back again, from cloud to cloud, and
+cliff to cliff, till the very rocks in the stream seemed to
+shake: and Tom looked up at it through the water, and thought it
+the finest thing he ever saw in his life.</p>
+<p>But out of the water he dared not put his head; for the rain
+came down by bucketsful, and the hail hammered like shot on the
+stream, and churned it into foam; and soon the stream rose, and
+rushed down, higher and higher, and fouler and fouler, full of
+beetles, and sticks; and straws, and worms, and addle-eggs, and
+wood-lice, and leeches, and odds and ends, and omnium-gatherums,
+and this, that, and the other, enough to fill nine museums.</p>
+<p>Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and hid behind a
+rock.&nbsp; But the trout did not; for out they rushed from among
+the stones, and began gobbling the beetles and leeches in the
+most greedy and quarrelsome way, and swimming about with great
+worms hanging out of their mouths, tugging and kicking to get
+them away from each other.</p>
+<p>And now, by the flashes of the lightning, Tom saw a new
+sight&mdash;all the bottom of the stream alive with great eels,
+turning and twisting along, all down stream and away.&nbsp; They
+had been hiding for weeks past in the cracks of the rocks, and in
+burrows in the mud; and Tom had hardly ever seen them, except now
+and then at night: but now they were all out, and went hurrying
+past him so fiercely and wildly that he was quite
+frightened.&nbsp; And as they hurried past he could hear them say
+to each other, &ldquo;We must run, we must run.&nbsp; What a
+jolly thunderstorm!&nbsp; Down to the sea, down to the
+sea!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And then the otter came by with all her brood, twining and
+sweeping along as fast as the eels themselves; and she spied Tom
+as she came by, and said &ldquo;Now is your time, eft, if you
+want to see the world.&nbsp; Come along, children, never mind
+those nasty eels: we shall breakfast on salmon to-morrow.&nbsp;
+Down to the sea, down to the sea!&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p112b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Tom with the eels"
+title=
+"Tom with the eels"
+ src="images/p112s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Then came a flash brighter than all the rest, and by the light
+of it&mdash;in the thousandth part of a second they were gone
+again&mdash;but he had seen them, he was certain of
+it&mdash;Three beautiful little white girls, with their arms
+twined round each other&rsquo;s necks, floating down the torrent,
+as they sang, &ldquo;Down to the sea, down to the sea!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh stay!&nbsp; Wait for me!&rdquo; cried Tom; but they
+were gone: yet he could hear their voices clear and sweet through
+the roar of thunder and water and wind, singing as they died
+away, &ldquo;Down to the sea!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Down to the sea?&rdquo; said Tom; &ldquo;everything is
+going to the sea, and I will go too.&nbsp; Good-bye,
+trout.&rdquo;&nbsp; But the trout were so busy gobbling worms
+that they never turned to answer him; so that Tom was spared the
+pain of bidding them farewell.</p>
+<p>And now, down the rushing stream, guided by the bright flashes
+of the storm; past tall birch-fringed rocks, which shone out one
+moment as clear as day, and the next were dark as night; past
+dark hovers under swirling banks, from which great trout rushed
+out on Tom, thinking him to be good to eat, and turned back
+sulkily, for the fairies sent them home again with a tremendous
+scolding, for daring to meddle with a water-baby; on through
+narrow strids and roaring cataracts, where Tom was deafened and
+blinded for a moment by the rushing waters; along deep reaches,
+where the white water-lilies tossed and flapped beneath the wind
+and hail; past sleeping villages; under dark bridge-arches, and
+away and away to the sea.&nbsp; And Tom could not stop, and did
+not care to stop; he would see the great world below, and the
+salmon, and the breakers, and the wide wide sea.</p>
+<p>And when the daylight came, Tom found himself out in the
+salmon river.</p>
+<p>And what sort of a river was it?&nbsp; Was it like an Irish
+stream, winding through the brown bogs, where the wild ducks
+squatter up from among the white water-lilies, and the curlews
+flit to and fro, crying &ldquo;Tullie-wheep, mind your
+sheep;&rdquo; and Dennis tells you strange stories of the
+Peishtamore, the great bogy-snake which lies in the black peat
+pools, among the old pine-stems, and puts his head out at night
+to snap at the cattle as they come down to drink?&mdash;But you
+must not believe all that Dennis tells you, mind; for if you ask
+him:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is there a salmon here, do you think,
+Dennis?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is it salmon, thin, your honour manes?&nbsp;
+Salmon?&nbsp; Cartloads it is of thim, thin, an&rsquo; ridgmens,
+shouldthering ache out of water, av&rsquo; ye&rsquo;d but the
+luck to see thim.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then you fish the pool all over, and never get a rise.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But there can&rsquo;t be a salmon here, Dennis! and, if
+you&rsquo;ll but think, if one had come up last tide, he&rsquo;d
+be gone to the higher pools by now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p115b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Dennis with pigs"
+title=
+"Dennis with pigs"
+ src="images/p115s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shure thin, and your honour&rsquo;s the thrue
+fisherman, and understands it all like a book.&nbsp; Why, ye
+spake as if ye&rsquo;d known the wather a thousand years!&nbsp;
+As I said, how could there be a fish here at all, just
+now?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you said just now they were shouldering each other
+out of water?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And then Dennis will look up at you with his handsome, sly,
+soft, sleepy, good-natured, untrustable, Irish gray eye, and
+answer with the prettiest smile:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shure, and didn&rsquo;t I think your honour would like
+a pleasant answer?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So you must not trust Dennis, because he is in the habit of
+giving pleasant answers: but, instead of being angry with him,
+you must remember that he is a poor Paddy, and knows no better;
+so you must just burst out laughing; and then he will burst out
+laughing too, and slave for you, and trot about after you, and
+show you good sport if he can&mdash;for he is an affectionate
+fellow, and as fond of sport as you are&mdash;and if he
+can&rsquo;t, tell you fibs instead, a hundred an hour; and wonder
+all the while why poor ould Ireland does not prosper like England
+and Scotland, and some other places, where folk have taken up a
+ridiculous fancy that honesty is the best policy.</p>
+<p>Or was it like a Welsh salmon river, which is remarkable
+chiefly (at least, till this last year) for containing no salmon,
+as they have been all poached out by the enlightened peasantry,
+to prevent the <i>Cythrawl Sassenach</i> (which means you, my
+little dear, your kith and kin, and signifies much the same as
+the Chinese <i>Fan Quei</i>) from coming bothering into Wales,
+with good tackle, and ready money, and civilisation, and common
+honesty, and other like things of which the Cymry stand in no
+need whatsoever?</p>
+<p>Or was it such a salmon stream as I trust you will see among
+the Hampshire water-meadows before your hairs are gray, under the
+wise new fishing-laws?&mdash;when Winchester apprentices shall
+covenant, as they did three hundred years ago, not to be made to
+eat salmon more than three days a week; and fresh-run fish shall
+be as plentiful under Salisbury spire as they are in Holly-hole
+at Christchurch; in the good time coming, when folks shall see
+that, of all Heaven&rsquo;s gifts of food, the one to be
+protected most carefully is that worthy gentleman salmon, who is
+generous enough to go down to the sea weighing five ounces, and
+to come back next year weighing five pounds, without having cost
+the soil or the state one farthing?</p>
+<p>Or was it like a Scotch stream, such as Arthur Clough drew in
+his &ldquo;Bothie&rdquo;:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;<i>Where
+over a ledge of granite</i><br />
+<i>Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended</i>. . . .
+.<br />
+<i>Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks
+under</i>;<br />
+<i>Beautiful most of all</i>, <i>where beads of foam
+uprising</i><br />
+<i>Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the
+stillness</i>. . . .<br />
+<i>Cliff over cliff for its sides</i>, <i>with rowan and pendant
+birch boughs</i>.&rdquo; . . .</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Ah, my little man, when you are a big man, and fish such a
+stream as that, you will hardly care, I think, whether she be
+roaring down in full spate, like coffee covered with scald cream,
+while the fish are swirling at your fly as an oar-blade swirls in
+a boat-race, or flashing up the cataract like silver arrows, out
+of the fiercest of the foam; or whether the fall be dwindled to a
+single thread, and the shingle below be as white and dusty as a
+turnpike road, while the salmon huddle together in one dark cloud
+in the clear amber pool, sleeping away their time till the rain
+creeps back again off the sea.&nbsp; You will not care much, if
+you have eyes and brains; for you will lay down your rod
+contentedly, and drink in at your eyes the beauty of that
+glorious place; and listen to the water-ouzel piping on the
+stones, and watch the yellow roes come down to drink and look up
+at you with their great soft trustful eyes, as much as to say,
+&ldquo;You could not have the heart to shoot at us?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And then, if you have sense, you will turn and talk to the great
+giant of a gilly who lies basking on the stone beside you.&nbsp;
+He will tell you no fibs, my little man; for he is a Scotchman,
+and fears God, and not the priest; and, as you talk with him, you
+will be surprised more and more at his knowledge, his sense, his
+humour, his courtesy; and you will find out&mdash;unless you have
+found it out before&mdash;that a man may learn from his Bible to
+be a more thorough gentleman than if he had been brought up in
+all the drawing-rooms in London.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p118b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Scotsman"
+title=
+"Scotsman"
+ src="images/p118s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>No.&nbsp; It was none of these, the salmon stream at
+Harthover.&nbsp; It was such a stream as you see in dear old
+Bewick; Bewick, who was born and bred upon them.&nbsp; A full
+hundred yards broad it was, sliding on from broad pool to broad
+shallow, and broad shallow to broad pool, over great fields of
+shingle, under oak and ash coverts, past low cliffs of sandstone,
+past green meadows, and fair parks, and a great house of gray
+stone, and brown moors above, and here and there against the sky
+the smoking chimney of a colliery.&nbsp; You must look at Bewick
+to see just what it was like, for he has drawn it a hundred times
+with the care and the love of a true north countryman; and, even
+if you do not care about the salmon river, you ought, like all
+good boys, to know your Bewick.</p>
+<p>At least, so old Sir John used to say, and very sensibly he
+put it too, as he was wont to do:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If they want to describe a finished young gentleman in
+France, I hear, they say of him, &lsquo;<i>Il sait son
+Rabelais</i>.&rsquo;&nbsp; But if I want to describe one in
+England, I say, &lsquo;<i>He knows his Bewick</i>.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+And I think that is the higher compliment.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But Tom thought nothing about what the river was like.&nbsp;
+All his fancy was, to get down to the wide wide sea.</p>
+<p>And after a while he came to a place where the river spread
+out into broad still shallow reaches, so wide that little Tom, as
+he put his head out of the water, could hardly see across.</p>
+<p>And there he stopped.&nbsp; He got a little frightened.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;This must be the sea,&rdquo; he thought.&nbsp; &ldquo;What
+a wide place it is!&nbsp; If I go on into it I shall surely lose
+my way, or some strange thing will bite me.&nbsp; I will stop
+here and look out for the otter, or the eels, or some one to tell
+me where I shall go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So he went back a little way, and crept into a crack of the
+rock, just where the river opened out into the wide shallows, and
+watched for some one to tell him his way: but the otter and the
+eels were gone on miles and miles down the stream.</p>
+<p>There he waited, and slept too, for he was quite tired with
+his night&rsquo;s journey; and, when he woke, the stream was
+clearing to a beautiful amber hue, though it was still very
+high.&nbsp; And after a while he saw a sight which made him jump
+up; for he knew in a moment it was one of the things which he had
+come to look for.</p>
+<p>Such a fish! ten times as big as the biggest trout, and a
+hundred times as big as Tom, sculling up the stream past him, as
+easily as Tom had sculled down.</p>
+<p>Such a fish! shining silver from head to tail, and here and
+there a crimson dot; with a grand hooked nose and grand curling
+lip, and a grand bright eye, looking round him as proudly as a
+king, and surveying the water right and left as if all belonged
+to him.&nbsp; Surely he must be the salmon, the king of all the
+fish.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p121b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Tom and the salmon"
+title=
+"Tom and the salmon"
+ src="images/p121s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Tom was so frightened that he longed to creep into a hole; but
+he need not have been; for salmon are all true gentlemen, and,
+like true gentlemen, they look noble and proud enough, and yet,
+like true gentlemen, they never harm or quarrel with any one, but
+go about their own business, and leave rude fellows to
+themselves.</p>
+<p>The salmon looked at him full in the face, and then went on
+without minding him, with a swish or two of his tail which made
+the stream boil again. And in a few minutes came another, and
+then four or five, and so on; and all passed Tom, rushing and
+plunging up the cataract with strong strokes of their silver
+tails, now and then leaping clean out of water and up over a
+rock, shining gloriously for a moment in the bright sun; while
+Tom was so delighted that he could have watched them all day
+long.</p>
+<p>And at last one came up bigger than all the rest; but he came
+slowly, and stopped, and looked back, and seemed very anxious and
+busy.&nbsp; And Tom saw that he was helping another salmon, an
+especially handsome one, who had not a single spot upon it, but
+was clothed in pure silver from nose to tail.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; said the great fish to his companion,
+&ldquo;you really look dreadfully tired, and you must not
+over-exert yourself at first.&nbsp; Do rest yourself behind this
+rock;&rdquo; and he shoved her gently with his nose, to the rock
+where Tom sat.</p>
+<p>You must know that this was the salmon&rsquo;s wife.&nbsp; For
+salmon, like other true gentlemen, always choose their lady, and
+love her, and are true to her, and take care of her and work for
+her, and fight for her, as every true gentleman ought; and are
+not like vulgar chub and roach and pike, who have no high
+feelings, and take no care of their wives.</p>
+<p>Then he saw Tom, and looked at him very fiercely one moment,
+as if he was going to bite him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you want here?&rdquo; he said, very
+fiercely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t hurt me!&rdquo; cried Tom.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I only want to look at you; you are so
+handsome.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah?&rdquo; said the salmon, very stately but very
+civilly.&nbsp; &ldquo;I really beg your pardon; I see what you
+are, my little dear.&nbsp; I have met one or two creatures like
+you before, and found them very agreeable and well-behaved.&nbsp;
+Indeed, one of them showed me a great kindness lately, which I
+hope to be able to repay.&nbsp; I hope we shall not be in your
+way here.&nbsp; As soon as this lady is rested, we shall proceed
+on our journey.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>What a well-bred old salmon he was!</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So you have seen things like me before?&rdquo; asked
+Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Several times, my dear.&nbsp; Indeed, it was only last
+night that one at the river&rsquo;s mouth came and warned me and
+my wife of some new stake-nets which had got into the stream, I
+cannot tell how, since last winter, and showed us the way round
+them, in the most charmingly obliging way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So there are babies in the sea?&rdquo; cried Tom, and
+clapped his little hands.&nbsp; &ldquo;Then I shall have some one
+to play with there?&nbsp; How delightful!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Were there no babies up this stream?&rdquo; asked the
+lady salmon.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No! and I grew so lonely.&nbsp; I thought I saw three
+last night; but they were gone in an instant, down to the
+sea.&nbsp; So I went too; for I had nothing to play with but
+caddises and dragon-flies and trout.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ugh!&rdquo; cried the lady, &ldquo;what low
+company!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear, if he has been in low company, he has
+certainly not learnt their low manners,&rdquo; said the
+salmon.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, indeed, poor little dear: but how sad for him to
+live among such people as caddises, who have actually six legs,
+the nasty things; and dragon-flies, too! why they are not even
+good to eat; for I tried them once, and they are all hard and
+empty; and, as for trout, every one knows what they
+are.&rdquo;&nbsp; Whereon she curled up her lip, and looked
+dreadfully scornful, while her husband curled up his too, till he
+looked as proud as Alcibiades.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why do you dislike the trout so?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear, we do not even mention them, if we can help
+it; for I am sorry to say they are relations of ours who do us no
+credit.&nbsp; A great many years ago they were just like us: but
+they were so lazy, and cowardly, and greedy, that instead of
+going down to the sea every year to see the world and grow strong
+and fat, they chose to stay and poke about in the little streams
+and eat worms and grubs; and they are very properly punished for
+it; for they have grown ugly and brown and spotted and small; and
+are actually so degraded in their tastes, that they will eat our
+children.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And then they pretend to scrape acquaintance with us
+again,&rdquo; said the lady.&nbsp; &ldquo;Why, I have actually
+known one of them propose to a lady salmon, the little impudent
+little creature.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p125b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Trout and salmon"
+title=
+"Trout and salmon"
+ src="images/p125s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should hope,&rdquo; said the gentleman, &ldquo;that
+there are very few ladies of our race who would degrade
+themselves by listening to such a creature for an instant.&nbsp;
+If I saw such a thing happen, I should consider it my duty to put
+them both to death upon the spot.&rdquo;&nbsp; So the old salmon
+said, like an old blue-blooded hidalgo of Spain; and what is
+more, he would have done it too.&nbsp; For you must know, no
+enemies are so bitter against each other as those who are of the
+same race; and a salmon looks on a trout, as some great folks
+look on some little folks, as something just too much like
+himself to be tolerated.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;<br
+/>
+Our meddling intellect<br />
+Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things<br />
+We murder to dissect.</p>
+<p>Enough of science and of art:<br />
+Close up these barren leaves;<br />
+Come forth, and bring with you a heart<br />
+That watches and receives.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="smcap">Wordsworth</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p128b.jpg">
+<img class='floatleft' alt=
+"Tom on rock"
+title=
+"Tom on rock"
+ src="images/p128s.jpg" />
+</a><span class="smcap">So</span> the salmon went up, after Tom
+had warned them of the wicked old otter; and Tom went down, but
+slowly and cautiously, coasting along shore.&nbsp; He was many
+days about it, for it was many miles down to the sea; and perhaps
+he would never have found his way, if the fairies had not guided
+him, without his seeing their fair faces, or feeling their gentle
+hands.</p>
+<p>And, as he went, he had a very strange adventure.&nbsp; It was
+a clear still September night, and the moon shone so brightly
+down through the water, that he could not sleep, though he shut
+his eyes as tight as possible.&nbsp; So at last he came up to the
+top, and sat upon a little point of rock, and looked up at the
+broad yellow moon, and wondered what she was, and thought that
+she looked at him.&nbsp; And he watched the moonlight on the
+rippling river, and the black heads of the firs, and the
+silver-frosted lawns, and listened to the owl&rsquo;s hoot, and
+the snipe&rsquo;s bleat, and the fox&rsquo;s bark, and the
+otter&rsquo;s laugh; and smelt the soft perfume of the birches,
+and the wafts of heather honey off the grouse moor far above; and
+felt very happy, though he could not well tell why.&nbsp; You, of
+course, would have been very cold sitting there on a September
+night, without the least bit of clothes on your wet back; but Tom
+was a water-baby, and therefore felt cold no more than a
+fish.</p>
+<p>Suddenly, he saw a beautiful sight.&nbsp; A bright red light
+moved along the river-side, and threw down into the water a long
+tap-root of flame.&nbsp; Tom, curious little rogue that he was,
+must needs go and see what it was; so he swam to the shore, and
+met the light as it stopped over a shallow run at the edge of a
+low rock.</p>
+<p>And there, underneath the light, lay five or six great salmon,
+looking up at the flame with their great goggle eyes, and wagging
+their tails, as if they were very much pleased at it.</p>
+<p>Tom came to the top, to look at this wonderful light nearer,
+and made a splash.</p>
+<p>And he heard a voice say:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There was a fish rose.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He did not know what the words meant: but he seemed to know
+the sound of them, and to know the voice which spoke them; and he
+saw on the bank three great two-legged creatures, one of whom
+held the light, flaring and sputtering, and another a long
+pole.&nbsp; And he knew that they were men, and was frightened,
+and crept into a hole in the rock, from which he could see what
+went on.</p>
+<p>The man with the torch bent down over the water, and looked
+earnestly in; and then he said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tak&rsquo; that muckle fellow, lad; he&rsquo;s ower
+fifteen punds; and haud your hand steady.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom felt that there was some danger coming, and longed to warn
+the foolish salmon, who kept staring up at the light as if he was
+bewitched.&nbsp; But before he could make up his mind, down came
+the pole through the water; there was a fearful splash and
+struggle, and Tom saw that the poor salmon was speared right
+through, and was lifted out of the water.</p>
+<p>And then, from behind, there sprang on these three men three
+other men; and there were shouts, and blows, and words which Tom
+recollected to have heard before; and he shuddered and turned
+sick at them now, for he felt somehow that they were strange, and
+ugly, and wrong, and horrible.&nbsp; And it all began to come
+back to him.&nbsp; They were men; and they were fighting; savage,
+desperate, up-and-down fighting, such as Tom had seen too many
+times before.</p>
+<p>And he stopped his little ears, and longed to swim away; and
+was very glad that he was a water-baby, and had nothing to do any
+more with horrid dirty men, with foul clothes on their backs, and
+foul words on their lips; but he dared not stir out of his hole:
+while the rock shook over his head with the trampling and
+struggling of the keepers and the poachers.</p>
+<p>All of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, and a frightful
+flash, and a hissing, and all was still.</p>
+<p>For into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the men; he who
+held the light in his hand.&nbsp; Into the swift river he sank,
+and rolled over and over in the current.&nbsp; Tom heard the men
+above run along seemingly looking for him; but he drifted down
+into the deep hole below, and there lay quite still, and they
+could not find him.</p>
+<p>Tom waited a long time, till all was quiet; and then he peeped
+out, and saw the man lying.&nbsp; At last he screwed up his
+courage and swam down to him.&nbsp; &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; he
+thought, &ldquo;the water has made him fall asleep, as it did
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then he went nearer.&nbsp; He grew more and more curious, he
+could not tell why.&nbsp; He must go and look at him.&nbsp; He
+would go very quietly, of course; so he swam round and round him,
+closer and closer; and, as he did not stir, at last he came quite
+close and looked him in the face.</p>
+<p>The moon shone so bright that Tom could see every feature;
+and, as he saw, he recollected, bit by bit, it was his old
+master, Grimes.</p>
+<p>Tom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he could.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh dear me!&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;now he will turn
+into a water-baby.&nbsp; What a nasty troublesome one he will
+be!&nbsp; And perhaps he will find me out, and beat me
+again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So he went up the river again a little way, and lay there the
+rest of the night under an alder root; but, when morning came, he
+longed to go down again to the big pool, and see whether Mr.
+Grimes had turned into a water-baby yet.</p>
+<p>So he went very carefully, peeping round all the rocks, and
+hiding under all the roots.&nbsp; Mr. Grimes lay there still; he
+had not turned into a water-baby.&nbsp; In the afternoon Tom went
+back again.&nbsp; He could not rest till he had found out what
+had become of Mr. Grimes.&nbsp; But this time Mr. Grimes was
+gone; and Tom made up his mind that he was turned into a
+water-baby.</p>
+<p>He might have made himself easy, poor little man; Mr. Grimes
+did not turn into a water-baby, or anything like one at
+all.&nbsp; But he did not make himself easy; and a long time he
+was fearful lest he should meet Grimes suddenly in some deep
+pool.&nbsp; He could not know that the fairies had carried him
+away, and put him, where they put everything which falls into the
+water, exactly where it ought to be.&nbsp; But, do you know, what
+had happened to Mr. Grimes had such an effect on him that he
+never poached salmon any more.&nbsp; And it is quite certain
+that, when a man becomes a confirmed poacher, the only way to
+cure him is to put him under water for twenty-four hours, like
+Grimes.&nbsp; So when you grow to be a big man, do you behave as
+all honest fellows should; and never touch a fish or a head of
+game which belongs to another man without his express leave; and
+then people will call you a gentleman, and treat you like one;
+and perhaps give you good sport: instead of hitting you into the
+river, or calling you a poaching snob.</p>
+<p>Then Tom went on down, for he was afraid of staying near
+Grimes: and as he went, all the vale looked sad.&nbsp; The red
+and yellow leaves showered down into the river; the flies and
+beetles were all dead and gone; the chill autumn fog lay low upon
+the hills, and sometimes spread itself so thickly on the river
+that he could not see his way.&nbsp; But he felt his way instead,
+following the flow of the stream, day after day, past great
+bridges, past boats and barges, past the great town, with its
+wharfs, and mills, and tall smoking chimneys, and ships which
+rode at anchor in the stream; and now and then he ran against
+their hawsers, and wondered what they were, and peeped out, and
+saw the sailors lounging on board smoking their pipes; and ducked
+under again, for he was terribly afraid of being caught by man
+and turned into a chimney-sweep once more.&nbsp; He did not know
+that the fairies were close to him always, shutting the
+sailors&rsquo; eyes lest they should see him, and turning him
+aside from millraces, and sewer-mouths, and all foul and
+dangerous things.&nbsp; Poor little fellow, it was a dreary
+journey for him; and more than once he longed to be back in
+Vendale, playing with the trout in the bright summer sun.&nbsp;
+But it could not be.&nbsp; What has been once can never come over
+again.&nbsp; And people can be little babies, even water-babies,
+only once in their lives.</p>
+<p>Besides, people who make up their minds to go and see the
+world, as Tom did, must needs find it a weary journey.&nbsp;
+Lucky for them if they do not lose heart and stop half-way,
+instead of going on bravely to the end as Tom did.&nbsp; For then
+they will remain neither boys nor men, neither fish, flesh, nor
+good red-herring: having learnt a great deal too much, and yet
+not enough; and sown their wild oats, without having the
+advantage of reaping them.</p>
+<p>But Tom was always a brave, determined, little English
+bull-dog, who never knew when he was beaten; and on and on he
+held, till he saw a long way off the red buoy through the
+fog.&nbsp; And then he found to his surprise, the stream turned
+round, and running up inland.</p>
+<p>It was the tide, of course: but Tom knew nothing of the
+tide.&nbsp; He only knew that in a minute more the water, which
+had been fresh, turned salt all round him.&nbsp; And then there
+came a change over him.&nbsp; He felt as strong, and light, and
+fresh, as if his veins had run champagne; and gave, he did not
+know why, three skips out of the water, a yard high, and head
+over heels, just as the salmon do when they first touch the noble
+rich salt water, which, as some wise men tell us, is the mother
+of all living things.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p135b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Seal"
+title=
+"Seal"
+ src="images/p135s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>He did not care now for the tide being against him.&nbsp; The
+red buoy was in sight, dancing in the open sea; and to the buoy
+he would go, and to it he went.&nbsp; He passed great shoals of
+bass and mullet, leaping and rushing in after the shrimps, but he
+never heeded them, or they him; and once he passed a great black
+shining seal, who was coming in after the mullet.&nbsp; The seal
+put his head and shoulders out of water, and stared at him,
+looking exactly like a fat old greasy negro with a gray
+pate.&nbsp; And Tom, instead of being frightened, said,
+&ldquo;How d&rsquo;ye do, sir; what a beautiful place the sea
+is!&rdquo;&nbsp; And the old seal, instead of trying to bite him,
+looked at him with his soft sleepy winking eyes, and said,
+&ldquo;Good tide to you, my little man; are you looking for your
+brothers and sisters?&nbsp; I passed them all at play
+outside.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, then,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;I shall have
+playfellows at last,&rdquo; and he swam on to the buoy, and got
+upon it (for he was quite out of breath) and sat there, and
+looked round for water-babies: but there were none to be
+seen.</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p136b.jpg">
+<img class='floatright' alt=
+"The old bouy"
+title=
+"The old bouy"
+ src="images/p136s.jpg" />
+</a>The sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and blew the fog
+away; and the little waves danced for joy around the buoy, and
+the old buoy danced with them.&nbsp; The shadows of the clouds
+ran races over the bright blue bay, and yet never caught each
+other up; and the breakers plunged merrily upon the wide white
+sands, and jumped up over the rocks, to see what the green fields
+inside were like, and tumbled down and broke themselves all to
+pieces, and never minded it a bit, but mended themselves and
+jumped up again.&nbsp; And the terns hovered over Tom like huge
+white dragon-flies with black heads, and the gulls laughed like
+girls at play, and the sea-pies, with their red bills and legs,
+flew to and fro from shore to shore, and whistled sweet and
+wild.&nbsp; And Tom looked and looked, and listened; and he would
+have been very happy, if he could only have seen the
+water-babies.&nbsp; Then when the tide turned, he left the buoy,
+and swam round and round in search of them: but in vain.&nbsp;
+Sometimes he thought he heard them laughing: but it was only the
+laughter of the ripples.&nbsp; And sometimes he thought he saw
+them at the bottom: but it was only white and pink shells.&nbsp;
+And once he was sure he had found one, for he saw two bright eyes
+peeping out of the sand.&nbsp; So he dived down, and began
+scraping the sand away, and cried, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t hide; I do
+want some one to play with so much!&rdquo;&nbsp; And out jumped a
+great turbot with his ugly eyes and mouth all awry, and flopped
+away along the bottom, knocking poor Tom over.&nbsp; And he sat
+down at the bottom of the sea, and cried salt tears from sheer
+disappointment.</p>
+<p>To have come all this way, and faced so many dangers, and yet
+to find no water-babies!&nbsp; How hard!&nbsp; Well, it did seem
+hard: but people, even little babies, cannot have all they want
+without waiting for it, and working for it too, my little man, as
+you will find out some day.</p>
+<p>And Tom sat upon the buoy long days, long weeks, looking out
+to sea, and wondering when the water-babies would come back; and
+yet they never came.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p139b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Tom and a flat-fish"
+title=
+"Tom and a flat-fish"
+ src="images/p139s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Then he began to ask all the strange things which came in out
+of the sea if they had seen any; and some said &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo;
+and some said nothing at all.</p>
+<p>He asked the bass and the pollock; but they were so greedy
+after the shrimps that they did not care to answer him a
+word.</p>
+<p>Then there came in a whole fleet of purple sea-snails,
+floating along, each on a sponge full of foam, and Tom said,
+&ldquo;Where do you come from, you pretty creatures? and have you
+seen the water-babies?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And the sea-snails answered, &ldquo;Whence we come we know
+not; and whither we are going, who can tell?&nbsp; We float out
+our life in the mid-ocean, with the warm sunshine above our
+heads, and the warm gulf-stream below; and that is enough for
+us.&nbsp; Yes; perhaps we have seen the water-babies.&nbsp; We
+have seen many strange things as we sailed along.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And they floated away, the happy stupid things, and all went
+ashore upon the sands.</p>
+<p>Then there came in a great lazy sunfish, as big as a fat pig
+cut in half; and he seemed to have been cut in half too, and
+squeezed in a clothes-press till he was flat; but to all his big
+body and big fins he had only a little rabbit&rsquo;s mouth, no
+bigger than Tom&rsquo;s; and, when Tom questioned him, he
+answered in a little squeaky feeble voice:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure I don&rsquo;t know; I&rsquo;ve lost my
+way.&nbsp; I meant to go to the Chesapeake, and I&rsquo;m afraid
+I&rsquo;ve got wrong somehow.&nbsp; Dear me! it was all by
+following that pleasant warm water.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m sure
+I&rsquo;ve lost my way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p140b.jpg">
+<img class='floatleft' alt=
+"Sunfish"
+title=
+"Sunfish"
+ src="images/p140s.jpg" />
+</a>And, when Tom asked him again, he could only answer,
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve lost my way.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t talk to me; I
+want to think.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But, like a good many other people, the more he tried to think
+the less he could think; and Tom saw him blundering about all
+day, till the coast-guardsmen saw his big fin above the water,
+and rowed out, and struck a boat-hook into him, and took him
+away.&nbsp; They took him up to the town and showed him for a
+penny a head, and made a good day&rsquo;s work of it.&nbsp; But
+of course Tom did not know that.</p>
+<p>Then there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling as they
+went&mdash;papas, and mammas, and little children&mdash;and all
+quite smooth and shiny, because the fairies French-polish them
+every morning; and they sighed so softly as they came by, that
+Tom took courage to speak to them: but all they answered was,
+&ldquo;Hush, hush, hush;&rdquo; for that was all they had learnt
+to say.</p>
+<p>And then there came a shoal of basking sharks&rsquo; some of
+them as long as a boat, and Tom was frightened at them.&nbsp; But
+they were very lazy good-natured fellows, not greedy tyrants,
+like white sharks and blue sharks and ground sharks and
+hammer-heads, who eat men, or saw-fish and threshers and
+ice-sharks, who hunt the poor old whales.&nbsp; They came and
+rubbed their great sides against the buoy, and lay basking in the
+sun with their backfins out of water; and winked at Tom: but he
+never could get them to speak.&nbsp; They had eaten so many
+herrings that they were quite stupid; and Tom was glad when a
+collier brig came by and frightened them all away; for they did
+smell most horribly, certainly, and he had to hold his nose tight
+as long as they were there.</p>
+<p>And then there came by a beautiful creature, like a ribbon of
+pure silver with a sharp head and very long teeth; but it seemed
+very sick and sad.&nbsp; Sometimes it rolled helpless on its
+side; and then it dashed away glittering like white fire; and
+then it lay sick again and motionless.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where do you come from?&rdquo; asked Tom.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;And why are <i>you</i> so sick and sad?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I come from the warm Carolinas, and the sandbanks
+fringed with pines; where the great owl-rays leap and flap, like
+giant bats, upon the tide.&nbsp; But I wandered north and north,
+upon the treacherous warm gulf-stream, till I met with the cold
+icebergs, afloat in the mid ocean.&nbsp; So I got tangled among
+the icebergs, and chilled with their frozen breath.&nbsp; But the
+water-babies helped me from among them, and set me free
+again.&nbsp; And now I am mending every day; but I am very sick
+and sad; and perhaps I shall never get home again to play with
+the owl-rays any more.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; cried Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;And you have seen
+water-babies?&nbsp; Have you seen any near here?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes; they helped me again last night, or I should have
+been eaten by a great black porpoise.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>How vexatious!&nbsp; The water-babies close to him, and yet he
+could not find one.</p>
+<p>And then he left the buoy, and used to go along the sands and
+round the rocks, and come out in the night&mdash;like the
+forsaken Merman in Mr. Arnold&rsquo;s beautiful, beautiful poem,
+which you must learn by heart some day&mdash;and sit upon a point
+of rock, among the shining sea-weeds, in the low October tides,
+and cry and call for the water-babies; but he never heard a voice
+call in return.&nbsp; And at last, with his fretting and crying,
+he grew quite lean and thin.</p>
+<p>But one day among the rocks he found a playfellow.&nbsp; It
+was not a water-baby, alas! but it was a lobster; and a very
+distinguished lobster he was; for he had live barnacles on his
+claws, which is a great mark of distinction in lobsterdom, and no
+more to be bought for money than a good conscience or the
+Victoria Cross.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p143b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Tom and the lobster"
+title=
+"Tom and the lobster"
+ src="images/p143s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Tom had never seen a lobster before; and he was mightily taken
+with this one; for he thought him the most curious, odd,
+ridiculous creature he had ever seen; and there he was not far
+wrong; for all the ingenious men, and all the scientific men, and
+all the fanciful men, in the world, with all the old German
+bogy-painters into the bargain, could never invent, if all their
+wits were boiled into one, anything so curious, and so
+ridiculous, as a lobster.</p>
+<p>He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and Tom
+delighted in watching him hold on to the seaweed with his knobbed
+claw, while he cut up salads with his jagged one, and then put
+them into his mouth, after smelling at them, like a monkey.&nbsp;
+And always the little barnacles threw out their casting-nets and
+swept the water, and came in for their share of whatever there
+was for dinner.</p>
+<p>But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired himself
+off&mdash;snap! like the leap-frogs which you make out of a
+goose&rsquo;s breast-bone.&nbsp; Certainly he took the most
+wonderful shots, and backwards, too.&nbsp; For, if he wanted to
+go into a narrow crack ten yards off, what do you think he
+did?&nbsp; If he had gone in head foremost, of course he could
+not have turned round.&nbsp; So he used to turn his tail to it,
+and lay his long horns, which carry his sixth sense in their tips
+(and nobody knows what that sixth sense is), straight down his
+back to guide him, and twist his eyes back till they almost came
+out of their sockets, and then made ready, present, fire,
+snap!&mdash;and away he went, pop into the hole; and peeped out
+and twiddled his whiskers, as much as to say, &ldquo;You
+couldn&rsquo;t do that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom asked him about water-babies.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he
+said.&nbsp; He had seen them often.&nbsp; But he did not think
+much of them.&nbsp; They were meddlesome little creatures, that
+went about helping fish and shells which got into scrapes.&nbsp;
+Well, for his part, he should be ashamed to be helped by little
+soft creatures that had not even a shell on their backs.&nbsp; He
+had lived quite long enough in the world to take care of
+himself.</p>
+<p>He was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not very civil
+to Tom; and you will hear how he had to alter his mind before he
+was done, as conceited people generally have.&nbsp; But he was so
+funny, and Tom so lonely, that he could not quarrel with him; and
+they used to sit in holes in the rocks, and chat for hours.</p>
+<p>And about this time there happened to Tom a very strange and
+important adventure&mdash;so important, indeed, that he was very
+near never finding the water-babies at all; and I am sure you
+would have been sorry for that.</p>
+<p>I hope that you have not forgotten the little white lady all
+this while.&nbsp; At least, here she comes, looking like a clean
+white good little darling, as she always was, and always will
+be.&nbsp; For it befell in the pleasant short December days, when
+the wind always blows from the south-west, till Old Father
+Christmas comes and spreads the great white table-cloth, ready
+for little boys and girls to give the birds their Christmas
+dinner of crumbs&mdash;it befell (to go on) in the pleasant
+December days, that Sir John was so busy hunting that nobody at
+home could get a word out of him.&nbsp; Four days a week he
+hunted, and very good sport he had; and the other two he went to
+the bench and the board of guardians, and very good justice he
+did; and, when he got home in time, he dined at five; for he
+hated this absurd new fashion of dining at eight in the hunting
+season, which forces a man to make interest with the footman for
+cold beef and beer as soon as he comes in, and so spoil his
+appetite, and then sleep in an arm-chair in his bedroom, all
+stiff and tired, for two or three hours before he can get his
+dinner like a gentleman.&nbsp; And do you be like Sir John, my
+dear little man, when you are your own master; and, if you want
+either to read hard or ride hard, stick to the good old Cambridge
+hours of breakfast at eight and dinner at five; by which you may
+get two days&rsquo; work out of one.&nbsp; But, of course, if you
+find a fox at three in the afternoon and run him till dark, and
+leave off twenty miles from home, why you must wait for your
+dinner till you can get it, as better men than you have
+done.&nbsp; Only see that, if you go hungry, your horse does not;
+but give him his warm gruel and beer, and take him gently home,
+remembering that good horses don&rsquo;t grow on the hedge like
+blackberries.</p>
+<p>It befell (to go on a second time) that Sir John, hunting all
+day, and dining at five, fell asleep every evening, and snored so
+terribly that all the windows in Harthover shook, and the soot
+fell down the chimneys.&nbsp; Whereon My Lady, being no more able
+to get conversation out of him than a song out of a dead
+nightingale, determined to go off and leave him, and the doctor,
+and Captain Swinger the agent, to snore in concert every evening
+to their hearts&rsquo; content.&nbsp; So she started for the
+seaside with all the children, in order to put herself and them
+into condition by mild applications of iodine.&nbsp; She might as
+well have stayed at home and used Parry&rsquo;s liquid
+horse-blister, for there was plenty of it in the stables; and
+then she would have saved her money, and saved the chance, also,
+of making all the children ill instead of well (as hundreds are
+made), by taking them to some nasty smelling undrained lodging,
+and then wondering how they caught scarlatina and diphtheria: but
+people won&rsquo;t be wise enough to understand that till they
+are dead of bad smells, and then it will be too late; besides you
+see, Sir John did certainly snore very loud.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p147b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Sir John with horse and groom"
+title=
+"Sir John with horse and groom"
+ src="images/p147s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>But where she went to nobody must know, for fear young ladies
+should begin to fancy that there are water-babies there! and so
+hunt and howk after them (besides raising the price of lodgings),
+and keep them in aquariums, as the ladies at Pompeii (as you may
+see by the paintings) used to keep Cupids in cages.&nbsp; But
+nobody ever heard that they starved the Cupids, or let them die
+of dirt and neglect, as English young ladies do by the poor
+sea-beasts.&nbsp; So nobody must know where My Lady went.&nbsp;
+Letting water-babies die is as bad as taking singing birds&rsquo;
+eggs; for, though there are thousands, ay, millions, of both of
+them in the world, yet there is not one too many.</p>
+<p>Now it befell that, on the very shore, and over the very
+rocks, where Tom was sitting with his friend the lobster, there
+walked one day the little white lady, Ellie herself, and with her
+a very wise man indeed&mdash;Professor Ptthmllnsprts.</p>
+<p>His mother was a Dutchwoman, and therefore he was born at
+Cura&ccedil;ao (of course you have learnt your geography, and
+therefore know why); and his father a Pole, and therefore he was
+brought up at Petropaulowski (of course you have learnt your
+modern politics, and therefore know why): but for all that he was
+as thorough an Englishman as ever coveted his neighbour&rsquo;s
+goods.&nbsp; And his name, as I said, was Professor
+Ptthmllnsprts, which is a very ancient and noble Polish name.</p>
+<p>He was, as I said, a very great naturalist, and chief
+professor of
+<i>Necrobioneopal&aelig;onthydrochthonanthropopithekology</i> in
+the new university which the king of the Cannibal Islands had
+founded; and, being a member of the Acclimatisation Society, he
+had come here to collect all the nasty things which he could find
+on the coast of England, and turn them loose round the Cannibal
+Islands, because they had not nasty things enough there to eat
+what they left.</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p149b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Professor"
+title=
+"The Professor"
+ src="images/p149s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>But he was a very worthy kind good-natured little old
+gentleman; and very fond of children (for he was not the least a
+cannibal himself); and very good to all the world as long as it
+was good to him.&nbsp; Only one fault he had, which cock-robins
+have likewise, as you may see if you look out of the nursery
+window&mdash;that, when any one else found a curious worm, he
+would hop round them, and peck them, and set up his tail, and
+bristle up his feathers, just as a cock-robin would; and declare
+that he found the worm first; and that it was his worm; and, if
+not, that then it was not a worm at all.</p>
+<p>He had met Sir John at Scarborough, or Fleetwood, or somewhere
+or other (if you don&rsquo;t care where, nobody else does), and
+had made acquaintance with him, and become very fond of his
+children.&nbsp; Now, Sir John knew nothing about
+sea-cockyolybirds, and cared less, provided the fishmonger sent
+him good fish for dinner; and My Lady knew as little: but she
+thought it proper that the children should know something.&nbsp;
+For in the stupid old times, you must understand, children were
+taught to know one thing, and to know it well; but in these
+enlightened new times they are taught to know a little about
+everything, and to know it all ill; which is a great deal
+pleasanter and easier, and therefore quite right.</p>
+<p>So Ellie and he were walking on the rocks, and he was showing
+her about one in ten thousand of all the beautiful and curious
+things which are to be seen there.&nbsp; But little Ellie was not
+satisfied with them at all.&nbsp; She liked much better to play
+with live children, or even with dolls, which she could pretend
+were alive; and at last she said honestly, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+care about all these things, because they can&rsquo;t play with
+me, or talk to me.&nbsp; If there were little children now in the
+water, as there used to be, and I could see them, I should like
+that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p151b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Ellie"
+title=
+"Ellie"
+ src="images/p151s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Children in the water, you strange little duck?&rdquo;
+said the professor.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Ellie.&nbsp; &ldquo;I know there used
+to be children in the water, and mermaids too, and mermen.&nbsp;
+I saw them all in a picture at home, of a beautiful lady sailing
+in a car drawn by dolphins, and babies flying round her, and one
+sitting in her lap; and the mermaids swimming and playing, and
+the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells; and it is called
+&lsquo;The Triumph of Galatea;&rsquo; and there is a burning
+mountain in the picture behind.&nbsp; It hangs on the great
+staircase, and I have looked at it ever since I was a baby, and
+dreamt about it a hundred times; and it is so beautiful, that it
+must be true.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But the professor had not the least notion of allowing that
+things were true, merely because people thought them
+beautiful.&nbsp; For at that rate, he said, the Baltas would be
+quite right in thinking it a fine thing to eat their grandpapas,
+because they thought it an ugly thing to put them
+underground.&nbsp; The professor, indeed, went further, and held
+that no man was forced to believe anything to be true, but what
+he could see, hear, taste, or handle.</p>
+<p>He held very strange theories about a good many things.&nbsp;
+He had even got up once at the British Association, and declared
+that apes had hippopotamus majors in their brains just as men
+have.&nbsp; Which was a shocking thing to say; for, if it were
+so, what would become of the faith, hope, and charity of immortal
+millions?&nbsp; You may think that there are other more important
+differences between you and an ape, such as being able to speak,
+and make machines, and know right from wrong, and say your
+prayers, and other little matters of that kind; but that is a
+child&rsquo;s fancy, my dear.&nbsp; Nothing is to be depended on
+but the great hippopotamus test.&nbsp; If you have a hippopotamus
+major in your brain, you are no ape, though you had four hands,
+no feet, and were more apish than the apes of all aperies.&nbsp;
+But if a hippopotamus major is ever discovered in one single
+ape&rsquo;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.&nbsp; No, my dear little man; always
+remember that the one true, certain, final, and all-important
+difference between you and an ape is, that you have a
+hippopotamus major in your brain, and it has none; and that,
+therefore, to discover one in its brain will be a very wrong and
+dangerous thing, at which every one will be very much shocked, as
+we may suppose they were at the professor.&mdash;Though really,
+after all, it don&rsquo;t much matter; because&mdash;as Lord
+Dundreary and others would put it&mdash;nobody but men have
+hippopotamuses in their brains; so, if a hippopotamus was
+discovered in an ape&rsquo;s brain, why it would not be one, you
+know, but something else.</p>
+<p>But the professor had gone, I am sorry to say, even further
+than that; for he had read at the British Association at
+Melbourne, Australia, in the year 1999, a paper which assured
+every one who found himself the better or wiser for the news,
+that there were not, never had been, and could not be, any
+rational or half-rational beings except men, anywhere, anywhen,
+or anyhow; that <i>nymphs</i>, <i>satyrs</i>, <i>fauns</i>,
+<i>inui</i>, <i>dwarfs</i>, <i>trolls</i>, <i>elves</i>,
+<i>gnomes</i>, <i>fairies</i>, <i>brownies</i>, <i>nixes</i>,
+<i>wills</i>, <i>kobolds</i>, <i>leprechaunes</i>,
+<i>cluricaunes</i>, <i>banshees</i>,
+<i>will-o&rsquo;-the-wisps</i>, <i>follets</i>, <i>lutins</i>,
+<i>magots</i>, <i>goblins</i>, <i>afrits</i>, <i>marids</i>,
+<i>jinns</i>, <i>ghouls</i>, <i>peris</i>, <i>deevs</i>,
+<i>angels</i>, <i>archangels</i>, <i>imps</i>, <i>bogies</i>, or
+worse, were nothing at all, and pure bosh and wind.&nbsp; And he
+had to get up very early in the morning to prove that, and to eat
+his breakfast overnight; but he did it, at least to his own
+satisfaction.&nbsp; Whereon a certain great divine, and a very
+clever divine was he, called him a regular Sadducee; and probably
+he was quite right.&nbsp; Whereon the professor, in return,
+called him a regular Pharisee; and probably he was quite right
+too.&nbsp; But they did not quarrel in the least; for, when men
+are men of the world, hard words run off them like water off a
+duck&rsquo;s back.&nbsp; So the professor and the divine met at
+dinner that evening, and sat together on the sofa afterwards for
+an hour, and talked over the state of female labour on the
+antarctic continent (for nobody talks shop after his claret), and
+each vowed that the other was the best company he ever met in his
+life.&nbsp; What an advantage it is to be men of the world!</p>
+<p>From all which you may guess that the professor was not the
+least of little Ellie&rsquo;s opinion.&nbsp; So he gave her a
+succinct compendium of his famous paper at the British
+Association, in a form suited for the youthful mind.&nbsp; But,
+as we have gone over his arguments against water-babies once
+already, which is once too often, we will not repeat them
+here.</p>
+<p>Now little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; for,
+instead of being convinced by Professor Ptthmllnsprts&rsquo;
+arguments, she only asked the same question over again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But why are there not water-babies?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at
+that moment on the edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt one of
+his corns sadly, that he answered quite sharply, forgetting that
+he was a scientific man, and therefore ought to have known that
+he couldn&rsquo;t know; and that he was a logician, and therefore
+ought to have known that he could not prove a universal
+negative&mdash;I say, I trust and hope it was because the mussel
+hurt his corn, that the professor answered quite sharply:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because there ain&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Which was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as
+you must know from Aunt Agitate&rsquo;s Arguments, the professor
+ought to have said, if he was so angry as to say anything of the
+kind&mdash;Because there are not: or are none: or are none of
+them; or (if he had been reading Aunt Agitate too) because they
+do not exist.</p>
+<p>And he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, that,
+as it befell, he caught poor little Tom.</p>
+<p>He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly, with
+Tom all entangled in the meshes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear me!&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;What a large
+pink Holothurian; with hands, too!&nbsp; It must be connected
+with Synapta.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And he took him out.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It has actually eyes!&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Why, it must be a Cephalopod!&nbsp; This is most
+extraordinary!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I ain&rsquo;t!&rdquo; cried Tom, as loud as he
+could; for he did not like to be called bad names.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is a water-baby!&rdquo; cried Ellie; and of course
+it was.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!&rdquo; said the professor;
+and he turned away sharply.</p>
+<p>There was no denying it.&nbsp; It was a water-baby: and he had
+said a moment ago that there were none.&nbsp; What was he to
+do?</p>
+<p>He would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom home in a
+bucket.&nbsp; He would not have put him in spirits.&nbsp; Of
+course not.&nbsp; He would have kept him alive, and petted him
+(for he was a very kind old gentleman), and written a book about
+him, and given him two long names, of which the first would have
+said a little about Tom, and the second all about himself; for of
+course he would have called him Hydrotecnon Ptthmllnsprtsianum,
+or some other long name like that; for they are forced to call
+everything by long names now, because they have used up all the
+short ones, ever since they took to making nine species out of
+one.&nbsp; But&mdash;what would all the learned men say to him
+after his speech at the British Association?&nbsp; And what would
+Ellie say, after what he had just told her?</p>
+<p>There was a wise old heathen once, who said, &ldquo;Maxima
+debetur pueris reverentia&rdquo;&mdash;The greatest reverence is
+due to children; that is, that grown people should never say or
+do anything wrong before children, lest they should set them a
+bad example.&mdash;Cousin Cramchild says it means, &ldquo;The
+greatest respectfulness is expected from little
+boys.&rdquo;&nbsp; But he was raised in a country where little
+boys are not expected to be respectful, because all of them are
+as good as the President:&mdash;Well, every one knows his own
+concerns best; so perhaps they are.&nbsp; But poor Cousin
+Cramchild, to do him justice, not being of that opinion, and
+having a moral mission, and being no scholar to speak of, and
+hard up for an authority&mdash;why, it was a very great
+temptation for him.&nbsp; But some people, and I am afraid the
+professor was one of them, interpret that in a more strange,
+curious, one-sided, left-handed, topsy-turvy, inside-out,
+behind-before fashion than even Cousin Cramchild; for they make
+it mean, that you must show your respect for children, by never
+confessing yourself in the wrong to them, even if you know that
+you are so, lest they should lose confidence in their elders.</p>
+<p>Now, if the professor had said to Ellie, &ldquo;Yes, my
+darling, it is a water-baby, and a very wonderful thing it is;
+and it shows how little I know of the wonders of nature, in spite
+of forty years&rsquo; honest labour.&nbsp; I was just telling you
+that there could be no such creatures; and, behold! here is one
+come to confound my conceit and show me that Nature can do, and
+has done, beyond all that man&rsquo;s poor fancy can
+imagine.&nbsp; So, let us thank the Maker, and Inspirer, and Lord
+of Nature for all His wonderful and glorious works, and try and
+find out something about this one;&rdquo;&mdash;I think that, if
+the professor had said that, little Ellie would have believed him
+more firmly, and respected him more deeply, and loved him better,
+than ever she had done before.&nbsp; But he was of a different
+opinion.&nbsp; He hesitated a moment.&nbsp; He longed to keep
+Tom, and yet he half wished he never had caught him; and at last
+he quite longed to get rid of him.&nbsp; So he turned away and
+poked Tom with his finger, for want of anything better to do; and
+said carelessly, &ldquo;My dear little maid, you must have dreamt
+of water-babies last night, your head is so full of
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable fright
+all the while; and had kept as quiet as he could, though he was
+called a Holothurian and a Cephalopod; for it was fixed in his
+little head that if a man with clothes on caught him, he might
+put clothes on him too, and make a dirty black chimney-sweep of
+him again.&nbsp; But, when the professor poked him, it was more
+than he could bear; and, between fright and rage, he turned to
+bay as valiantly as a mouse in a corner, and bit the
+professor&rsquo;s finger till it bled.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! ah! yah!&rdquo; cried he; and glad of an excuse to
+be rid of Tom, dropped him on to the seaweed, and thence he dived
+into the water and was gone in a moment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak!&rdquo;
+cried Ellie.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ah, it is gone!&rdquo;&nbsp; And she
+jumped down off the rock, to try and catch Tom before he slipped
+into the sea.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p159b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Ellie, the professor and Tom"
+title=
+"Ellie, the professor and Tom"
+ src="images/p159s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Too late! and what was worse, as she sprang down, she slipped,
+and fell some six feet, with her head on a sharp rock, and lay
+quite still.</p>
+<p>The professor picked her up, and tried to waken her, and
+called to her, and cried over her, for he loved her very much:
+but she would not waken at all.&nbsp; So he took her up in his
+arms and carried her to her governess, and they all went home;
+and little Ellie was put to bed, and lay there quite still; only
+now and then she woke up and called out about the water-baby: but
+no one knew what she meant, and the professor did not tell, for
+he was ashamed to tell.</p>
+<p>And, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies came
+flying in at the window and brought her such a pretty pair of
+wings that she could not help putting them on; and she flew with
+them out of the window, and over the land, and over the sea, and
+up through the clouds, and nobody heard or saw anything of her
+for a very long while.</p>
+<p>And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a
+water-baby.&nbsp; For my part, I believe that the naturalists get
+dozens of them when they are out dredging; but they say nothing
+about them, and throw them overboard again, for fear of spoiling
+their theories.&nbsp; But, you see the professor was found out,
+as every one is in due time.&nbsp; A very terrible old fairy
+found the professor out; she felt his bumps, and cast his
+nativity, and took the lunars of him carefully inside and out;
+and so she knew what he would do as well as if she had seen it in
+a print book, as they say in the dear old west country; and he
+did it; and so he was found out beforehand, as everybody always
+is; and the old fairy will find out the naturalists some day, and
+put them in the <i>Times</i>, and then on whose side will the
+laugh be?</p>
+<p>So the old fairy took him in hand very severely there and
+then.&nbsp; But she says she is always most severe with the best
+people, because there is most chance of curing them, and
+therefore they are the patients who pay her best; for she has to
+work on the same salary as the Emperor of China&rsquo;s
+physicians (it is a pity that all do not), no cure, no pay.</p>
+<p>So she took the poor professor in hand: and because he was not
+content with things as they are, she filled his head with things
+as they are not, to try if he would like them better; and because
+he did not choose to believe in a water-baby when he saw it, she
+made him believe in worse things than water-babies&mdash;in
+<i>unicorns</i>, <i>fire-drakes</i>, <i>manticoras</i>,
+<i>basilisks</i>, <i>amphisb&aelig;nas</i>, <i>griffins</i>,
+<i>phoenixes</i>, <i>rocs</i>, <i>orcs</i>, <i>dog-headed
+men</i>, <i>three-headed dogs</i>, <i>three-bodied geryons</i>,
+and other pleasant creatures, which folks think never existed
+yet, and which folks hope never will exist, though they know
+nothing about the matter, and never will; and these creatures so
+upset, terrified, flustered, aggravated, confused, astounded,
+horrified, and totally flabbergasted the poor professor that the
+doctors said that he was out of his wits for three months; and
+perhaps they were right, as they are now and then.</p>
+<p>So all the doctors in the county were called in to make a
+report on his case; and of course every one of them flatly
+contradicted the other: else what use is there in being men of
+science?&nbsp; But at last the majority agreed on a report in the
+true medical language, one half bad Latin, the other half worse
+Greek, and the rest what might have been English, if they had
+only learnt to write it.&nbsp; And this is the beginning
+thereof&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<i>The subanhypaposupernal anastomoses of
+peritomic diacellurite in the encephalo digital region of the
+distinguished individual of whose symptomatic ph&oelig;nomena we
+had the melancholy honour</i> (<i>subsequently to a preliminary
+diagnostic inspection</i>) <i>of making an inspectorial
+diagnosis</i>, <i>presenting the interexclusively quadrilateral
+and antinomian diathesis known as Bumpsterhausen&rsquo;s blue
+follicles</i>, <i>we proceeded</i>&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But what they proceeded to do My Lady never knew; for she was
+so frightened at the long words that she ran for her life, and
+locked herself into her bedroom, for fear of being squashed by
+the words and strangled by the sentence.&nbsp; A boa constrictor,
+she said, was bad company enough: but what was a boa constrictor
+made of paving stones?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was quite shocking!&nbsp; What can they think is the
+matter with him?&rdquo; said she to the old nurse.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That his wit&rsquo;s just addled; may be wi&rsquo;
+unbelief and heathenry,&rdquo; quoth she.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then why can&rsquo;t they say so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And the heaven, and the sea, and the rocks, and the vales
+re-echoed&mdash;&ldquo;Why indeed?&rdquo;&nbsp; But the doctors
+never heard them.</p>
+<p>So she made Sir John write to the <i>Times</i> to command the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being to put a tax on
+long words;&mdash;</p>
+<p>A light tax on words over three syllables, which are necessary
+evils, like rats: but, like them, must be kept down
+judiciously.</p>
+<p>A heavy tax on words over four syllables, as
+<i>heterodoxy</i>, <i>spontaneity</i>, <i>spiritualism</i>,
+<i>spuriosity</i>, <i>etc.</i></p>
+<p>And on words over five syllables (of which I hope no one will
+wish to see any examples), a totally prohibitory tax.</p>
+<p>And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from three or
+more languages at once; words derived from two languages having
+become so common that there was no more hope of rooting out them
+than of rooting out peth-winds.</p>
+<p>The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and a man of
+sense, jumped at the notion; for he saw in it the one and only
+plan for abolishing Schedule D: but when he brought in his bill,
+most of the Irish members, and (I am sorry to say) some of the
+Scotch likewise, opposed it most strongly, on the ground that in
+a free country no man was bound either to understand himself or
+to let others understand him.&nbsp; So the bill fell through on
+the first reading; and the Chancellor, being a philosopher,
+comforted himself with the thought that it was not the first time
+that a woman had hit off a grand idea and the men turned up their
+stupid noses thereat.</p>
+<p>Now the doctors had it all their own way; and to work they
+went in earnest, and they gave the poor professor divers and
+sundry medicines, as prescribed by the ancients and moderns, from
+Hippocrates to Feuchtersleben, as below, viz.&mdash;</p>
+<p>1.&nbsp; <i>Hellebore</i>, <i>to wit</i>&mdash;</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Hellebore of &AElig;ta</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Hellebore of Galatia</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Hellebore of Sicily</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>And all other Hellebores</i>, <i>after
+the method of the Helleborising Helleborists of the Helleboric
+era</i>.&nbsp; <i>But that would not do</i>.&nbsp;
+<i>Bumpsterhausen&rsquo;s blue follicles would not stir an inch
+out of his encephalo digital region</i>.</p>
+<p>2.&nbsp; <i>Trying to find out what was the matter with
+him</i>, <i>after the method of Hippocrates</i>,</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Aret&aelig;us</i>,</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Celsus</i>,</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Coelius Aurelianus</i>,</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>And Galen</i>.</p>
+<p>But they found that a great deal too much trouble, as most
+people have since; and so had recourse to&mdash;</p>
+<p>3.&nbsp; <i>Borage</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Cauteries</i>.</p>
+<p>Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says
+Gordonius) &ldquo;will, without doubt, do much good.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+But it didn&rsquo;t.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Bezoar stone</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Diamargaritum</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>A ram&rsquo;s brain boiled in
+spice</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Oil of wormwood</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Water of Nile</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Capers</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Good wine</i> (<i>but there was none to
+be got</i>).</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>The water of a smith&rsquo;s
+forge</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Ambergris</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Mandrake pillows</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Dormouse fat</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Hares&rsquo; ears</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Starvation</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Camphor</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Salts and senna</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Musk</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Opium</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Strait-waistcoats</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Bullyings</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Bumpings</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Bleedings</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Bucketings with cold water</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Knockings down</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Kneeling on his chest till they broke it
+in</i>, <i>etc. etc.</i>; <i>after the medi&aelig;val or monkish
+method</i>: <i>but that would not do</i>.&nbsp;
+<i>Bumpsterhausen&rsquo;s blue follicles stuck there
+still</i>.</p>
+<p>Then&mdash;</p>
+<p>4.&nbsp; <i>Coaxing</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Kissing</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Champagne and turtle</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Red herrings and soda water</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Good advice</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Gardening</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Croquet</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Musical soir&eacute;es</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Aunt Salty</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Mild tobacco</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>The Saturday Review</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>A carriage with outriders</i>, <i>etc.
+etc.</i></p>
+<p>After the modern method.&nbsp; But that would not do.</p>
+<p>And if he had but been a convict lunatic, and had shot at the
+Queen, killed all his creditors to avoid paying them, or indulged
+in any other little amiable eccentricity of that kind, they would
+have given him in addition&mdash;</p>
+<p>The healthiest situation in England, on Easthampstead
+Plain.</p>
+<p>Free run of Windsor Forest.</p>
+<p>The <i>Times</i> every morning.</p>
+<p>A double-barrelled gun and pointers, and leave to shoot three
+Wellington College boys a week (not more) in case black game was
+scarce.</p>
+<p>But as he was neither mad enough nor bad enough to be allowed
+such luxuries, they grew desperate, and fell into bad ways,
+viz.&mdash;</p>
+<p>5.&nbsp; <i>Suffumigations of sulphur</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Herrwiggius his</i>
+&ldquo;<i>Incomparable drink for madmen</i>:&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Only they could not find out what it was.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Suffumigation of the liver of the
+fish</i> * * *</p>
+<p>Only they had forgotten its name, so Dr. Gray could not well
+procure them a specimen.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Metallic tractors</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Holloway&rsquo;s Ointment</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Electro-biology</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Valentine Greatrakes his Stroking
+Cure</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Spirit-rapping</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Holloway&rsquo;s Pills</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Table-turning</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Morison&rsquo;s Pills</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Hom&oelig;opathy</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Parr&rsquo;s Life Pills</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Mesmerism</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Pure Bosh</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Exorcisms</i>, <i>for which the read
+Maleus Maleficarum</i>, <i>Nideri Formicarium</i>, <i>Delrio</i>,
+<i>Wierus</i>, <i>etc.</i></p>
+<p>But could not get one that mentioned water-babies.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Hydropathy</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Madame Rachel&rsquo;s Elixir of
+Youth</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>The Poughkeepsie Seer his
+Prophecies</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>The distilled liquor of addle
+eggs</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Pyropathy</i>.</p>
+<p>As successfully employed by the old inquisitors to cure the
+malady of thought, and now by the Persian Mollahs to cure that of
+rheumatism.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Geopathy</i>, <i>or burying him</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Atmopathy</i>, <i>or steaming
+him</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Sympathy</i>, <i>after the method of
+Basil Valentine his Triumph of Antimony</i>, <i>and Kenelm Digby
+his Weapon-salve</i>, <i>which some call a hair of the dog that
+bit him</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Hermopathy</i>, <i>or pouring mercury
+down his throat to move the animal spirits</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Meteoropathy</i>, <i>or going up to the
+moon to look for his lost wits</i>, <i>as Ruggiero did for
+Orlando Furioso&rsquo;s</i>: <i>only</i>, <i>having no
+hippogriff</i>, <i>they were forced to use a balloon</i>;
+<i>and</i>, <i>falling into the North Sea</i>, <i>were picked up
+by a Yarmouth herring-boat</i>, <i>and came home much the
+wiser</i>, <i>and all over scales</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Antipathy</i>, <i>or using him like</i>
+&ldquo;<i>a man and a brother</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>Apathy</i>, <i>or doing nothing at
+all</i>.</p>
+<p class="gutindent"><i>With all other ipathies and opathies
+which Noodle has invented</i>, <i>and Foodle tried</i>, <i>since
+black-fellows chipped flints at
+Abb&eacute;ville</i>&mdash;<i>which is a considerable time
+ago</i>, <i>to judge by the Great Exhibition</i>.</p>
+<p>But nothing would do; for he screamed and cried all day for a
+water-baby, to come and drive away the monsters; and of course
+they did not try to find one, because they did not believe in
+them, and were thinking of nothing but Bumpsterhausen&rsquo;s
+blue follicles; having, as usual, set the cart before the horse,
+and taken the effect for the cause.</p>
+<p>So they were forced at last to let the poor professor ease his
+mind by writing a great book, exactly contrary to all his old
+opinions; in which he proved that the moon was made of green
+cheese, and that all the mites in it (which you may see sometimes
+quite plain through a telescope, if you will only keep the lens
+dirty enough, as Mr. Weekes kept his voltaic battery) are nothing
+in the world but little babies, who are hatching and swarming up
+there in millions, ready to come down into this world whenever
+children want a new little brother or sister.</p>
+<p>Which must be a mistake, for this one reason: that, there
+being no atmosphere round the moon (though some one or other says
+there is, at least on the other side, and that he has been round
+at the back of it to see, and found that the moon was just the
+shape of a Bath bun, and so wet that the man in the moon went
+about on Midsummer-day in Macintoshes and Cording&rsquo;s boots,
+spearing eels and sneezing); that, therefore, I say, there being
+no atmosphere, there can be no evaporation; and therefore the
+dew-point can never fall below 71.5&deg; below zero of
+Fahrenheit: and, therefore, it cannot be cold enough there about
+four o&rsquo;clock in the morning to condense the babies&rsquo;
+mesenteric apophthegms into their left ventricles; and,
+therefore, they can never catch the hooping-cough; and if they do
+not have hooping-cough, they cannot be babies at all; and,
+therefore, there are no babies in the moon.&mdash;Q.E.D.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p170b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Man in rain"
+title=
+"Man in rain"
+ src="images/p170s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Which may seem a roundabout reason; and so, perhaps, it is:
+but you will have heard worse ones in your time, and from better
+men than you are.</p>
+<p>But one thing is certain; that, when the good old doctor got
+his book written, he felt considerably relieved from
+Bumpsterhausen&rsquo;s blue follicles, and a few things
+infinitely worse; to wit, from pride and vain-glory, and from
+blindness and hardness of heart; which are the true causes of
+Bumpsterhausen&rsquo;s blue follicles, and of a good many other
+ugly things besides.&nbsp; Whereon the foul flood-water in his
+brains ran down, and cleared to a fine coffee colour, such as
+fish like to rise in, till very fine clean fresh-run fish did
+begin to rise in his brains; and he caught two or three of them
+(which is exceedingly fine sport, for brain rivers), and
+anatomised them carefully, and never mentioned what he found out
+from them, except to little children; and became ever after a
+sadder and a wiser man; which is a very good thing to become, my
+dear little boy, even though one has to pay a heavy price for the
+blessing.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p171b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Bat with man&rsquo;s face"
+title=
+"Bat with man&rsquo;s face"
+ src="images/p171s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Stern
+Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Godhead&rsquo;s most benignant
+grace;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Nor know we anything so fair<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As is the smile upon thy face:<br
+/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Flowers laugh before thee on their
+beds<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And fragrance in thy footing
+treads;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thou dost preserve the stars from
+wrong;<br />
+And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and
+strong.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="smcap">Wordsworth</span>, <i>Ode to Duty</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p175b.jpg">
+<img class='floatleft' alt=
+"Dog and cat"
+title=
+"Dog and cat"
+ src="images/p175s.jpg" />
+</a><span class="smcap">But</span> what became of little Tom?</p>
+<p>He slipped away off the rocks into the water, as I said
+before.&nbsp; But he could not help thinking of little
+Ellie.&nbsp; He did not remember who she was; but he knew that
+she was a little girl, though she was a hundred times as big as
+he.&nbsp; That is not surprising: size has nothing to do with
+kindred.&nbsp; A tiny weed may be first cousin to a great tree;
+and a little dog like Vick knows that Lioness is a dog too,
+though she is twenty times larger than herself.&nbsp; So Tom knew
+that Ellie was a little girl, and thought about her all that day,
+and longed to have had her to play with; but he had very soon to
+think of something else.&nbsp; And here is the account of what
+happened to him, as it was published next morning, in the
+Water-proof Gazette, on the finest watered paper, for the use of
+the great fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, who reads the news very
+carefully every morning, and especially the police cases, as you
+will hear very soon.</p>
+<p>He was going along the rocks in three-fathom water, watching
+the pollock catch prawns, and the wrasses nibble barnacles off
+the rocks, shells and all, when he saw a round cage of green
+withes; and inside it, looking very much ashamed of himself, sat
+his friend the lobster, twiddling his horns, instead of
+thumbs.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p179b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Tom, the lobster and otter"
+title=
+"Tom, the lobster and otter"
+ src="images/p179s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;What, have you been naughty, and have they put you in
+the lock-up?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>The lobster felt a little indignant at such a notion, but he
+was too much depressed in spirits to argue; so he only said,
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t get out.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why did you get in?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;After that nasty piece of dead fish.&rdquo;&nbsp; He
+had thought it looked and smelt very nice when he was outside,
+and so it did, for a lobster: but now he turned round and abused
+it because he was angry with himself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where did you get in?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Through that round hole at the top.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then why don&rsquo;t you get out through it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I can&rsquo;t:&rdquo; and the lobster twiddled
+his horns more fiercely than ever, but he was forced to
+confess.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have jumped upwards, downwards, backwards, and
+sideways, at least four thousand times; and I can&rsquo;t get
+out: I always get up underneath there, and can&rsquo;t find the
+hole.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom looked at the trap, and having more wit than the lobster,
+he saw plainly enough what was the matter; as you may if you will
+look at a lobster-pot.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Stop a bit,&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Turn your
+tail up to me, and I&rsquo;ll pull you through hindforemost, and
+then you won&rsquo;t stick in the spikes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he
+couldn&rsquo;t hit the hole.&nbsp; Like a great many fox-hunters,
+he was very sharp as long as he was in his own country; but as
+soon as they get out of it they lose their heads; and so the
+lobster, so to speak, lost his tail.</p>
+<p>Tom reached and clawed down the hole after him, till he caught
+hold of him; and then, as was to be expected, the clumsy lobster
+pulled him in head foremost.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hullo! here is a pretty business,&rdquo; said
+Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Now take your great claws, and break the points
+off those spikes, and then we shall both get out
+easily.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear me, I never thought of that,&rdquo; said the
+lobster; &ldquo;and after all the experience of life that I have
+had!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>You see, experience is of very little good unless a man, or a
+lobster, has wit enough to make use of it.&nbsp; For a good many
+people, like old Polonius, have seen all the world, and yet
+remain little better than children after all.</p>
+<p>But they had not got half the spikes away when they saw a
+great dark cloud over them: and lo, and behold, it was the
+otter.</p>
+<p>How she did grin and grin when she saw Tom.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Yar!&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;you little meddlesome wretch,
+I have you now!&nbsp; I will serve you out for telling the salmon
+where I was!&rdquo;&nbsp; And she crawled all over the pot to get
+in.</p>
+<p>Tom was horribly frightened, and still more frightened when
+she found the hole in the top, and squeezed herself right down
+through it, all eyes and teeth.&nbsp; But no sooner was her head
+inside than valiant Mr. Lobster caught her by the nose and held
+on.</p>
+<p>And there they were all three in the pot, rolling over and
+over, and very tight packing it was.&nbsp; And the lobster tore
+at the otter, and the otter tore at the lobster, and both
+squeezed and thumped poor Tom till he had no breath left in his
+body; and I don&rsquo;t know what would have happened to him if
+he had not at last got on the otter&rsquo;s back, and safe out of
+the hole.</p>
+<p>He was right glad when he got out: but he would not desert his
+friend who had saved him; and the first time he saw his tail
+uppermost he caught hold of it, and pulled with all his
+might.</p>
+<p>But the lobster would not let go.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come along,&rdquo; said Tom; &ldquo;don&rsquo;t you see
+she is dead?&rdquo;&nbsp; And so she was, quite drowned and
+dead.</p>
+<p>And that was the end of the wicked otter.</p>
+<p>But the lobster would not let go.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come along, you stupid old stick-in-the-mud,&rdquo;
+cried Tom, &ldquo;or the fisherman will catch you!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And that was true, for Tom felt some one above beginning to haul
+up the pot.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p180b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Tom and the lobster"
+title=
+"Tom and the lobster"
+ src="images/p180s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>But the lobster would not let go.&nbsp; Tom saw the fisherman
+haul him up to the boat-side, and thought it was all up with
+him.&nbsp; But when Mr. Lobster saw the fisherman, he gave such a
+furious and tremendous snap, that he snapped out of his hand, and
+out of the pot, and safe into the sea.&nbsp; But he left his
+knobbed claw behind him; for it never came into his stupid head
+to let go after all, so he just shook his claw off as the easier
+method.&nbsp; It was something of a bull, that; but you must know
+the lobster was an Irish lobster, and was hatched off Island
+Magee at the mouth of Belfast Lough.</p>
+<p>Tom asked the lobster why he never thought of letting
+go.&nbsp; He said very determinedly that it was a point of honour
+among lobsters.&nbsp; And so it is, as the Mayor of Plymouth
+found out once to his cost&mdash;eight or nine hundred years ago,
+of course; for if it had happened lately it would be personal to
+mention it.</p>
+<p>For one day he was so tired with sitting on a hard chair, in a
+grand furred gown, with a gold chain round his neck, hearing one
+policeman after another come in and sing, &ldquo;What shall we do
+with the drunken sailor, so early in the morning?&rdquo; and
+answering them each exactly alike:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Put him in the round house till he gets sober, so early
+in the morning&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+<p>That, when it was over, he jumped up, and played leap-frog
+with the town-clerk till he burst his buttons, and then had his
+luncheon, and burst some more buttons, and then said: &ldquo;It
+is a low spring-tide; I shall go out this afternoon and cut my
+capers.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Now he did not mean to cut such capers as you eat with boiled
+mutton.&nbsp; It was the commandant of artillery at Valetta who
+used to amuse himself with cutting them, and who stuck upon one
+of the bastions a notice, &ldquo;No one allowed to cut capers
+here but me,&rdquo; which greatly edified the midshipmen in port,
+and the Maltese on the Nix Mangiare stairs.&nbsp; But all that
+the mayor meant was that he would go and have an
+afternoon&rsquo;s fun, like any schoolboy, and catch lobsters
+with an iron hook.</p>
+<p>So to the Mewstone he went, and for lobsters he looked.&nbsp;
+And when he came to a certain crack in the rocks he was so
+excited that, instead of putting in his hook, he put in his hand;
+and Mr. Lobster was at home, and caught him by the finger, and
+held on.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yah!&rdquo; said the mayor, and pulled as hard as he
+dared: but the more he pulled, the more the lobster pinched, till
+he was forced to be quiet.</p>
+<p>Then he tried to get his hook in with his other hand; but the
+hole was too narrow.</p>
+<p>Then he pulled again; but he could not stand the pain.</p>
+<p>Then he shouted and bawled for help: but there was no one
+nearer him than the men-of-war inside the breakwater.</p>
+<p>Then he began to turn a little pale; for the tide flowed, and
+still the lobster held on.</p>
+<p>Then he turned quite white; for the tide was up to his knees,
+and still the lobster held on.</p>
+<p>Then he thought of cutting off his finger; but he wanted two
+things to do it with&mdash;courage and a knife; and he had got
+neither.</p>
+<p>Then he turned quite yellow; for the tide was up to his waist,
+and still the lobster held on.</p>
+<p>Then he thought over all the naughty things he ever had done;
+all the sand which he had put in the sugar, and the sloe-leaves
+in the tea, and the water in the treacle, and the salt in the
+tobacco (because his brother was a brewer, and a man must help
+his own kin).</p>
+<p>Then he turned quite blue; for the tide was up to his breast,
+and still the lobster held on.</p>
+<p>Then, I have no doubt, he repented fully of all the said
+naughty things which he had done, and promised to mend his life,
+as too many do when they think they have no life left to
+mend.&nbsp; Whereby, as they fancy, they make a very cheap
+bargain.&nbsp; But the old fairy with the birch rod soon
+undeceives them.</p>
+<p>And then he grew all colours at once, and turned up his eyes
+like a duck in thunder; for the water was up to his chin, and
+still the lobster held on.</p>
+<p>And then came a man-of-war&rsquo;s boat round the Mewstone,
+and saw his head sticking up out of the water.&nbsp; One said it
+was a keg of brandy, and another that it was a cocoa-nut, and
+another that it was a buoy loose, and another that it was a black
+diver, and wanted to fire at it, which would not have been
+pleasant for the mayor: but just then such a yell came out of a
+great hole in the middle of it that the midshipman in charge
+guessed what it was, and bade pull up to it as fast as they
+could.&nbsp; So somehow or other the Jack-tars got the lobster
+out, and set the mayor free, and put him ashore at the
+Barbican.&nbsp; He never went lobster-catching again; and we will
+hope he put no more salt in the tobacco, not even to sell his
+brother&rsquo;s beer.</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p184b.jpg">
+<img class='floatright' alt=
+"The Mayor of Plymouth"
+title=
+"The Mayor of Plymouth"
+ src="images/p184s.jpg" />
+</a>And that is the story of the Mayor of Plymouth, which has two
+advantages&mdash;first, that of being quite true; and second,
+that of having (as folks say all good stories ought to have) no
+moral whatsoever: no more, indeed, has any part of this book,
+because it is a fairy tale, you know.</p>
+<p>And now happened to Tom a most wonderful thing; for he had not
+left the lobster five minutes before he came upon a
+water-baby.</p>
+<p>A real live water-baby, sitting on the white sand, very busy
+about a little point of rock.&nbsp; And when it saw Tom it looked
+up for a moment, and then cried, &ldquo;Why, you are not one of
+us.&nbsp; You are a new baby!&nbsp; Oh, how
+delightful!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And it ran to Tom, and Tom ran to it, and they hugged and
+kissed each other for ever so long, they did not know why.&nbsp;
+But they did not want any introductions there under the
+water.</p>
+<p>At last Tom said, &ldquo;Oh, where have you been all this
+while?&nbsp; I have been looking for you so long, and I have been
+so lonely.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We have been here for days and days.&nbsp; There are
+hundreds of us about the rocks.&nbsp; How was it you did not see
+us, or hear us when we sing and romp every evening before we go
+home?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom looked at the baby again, and then he said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, this is wonderful!&nbsp; I have seen things just
+like you again and again, but I thought you were shells, or
+sea-creatures.&nbsp; I never took you for water-babies like
+myself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Now, was not that very odd?&nbsp; So odd, indeed, that you
+will, no doubt, want to know how it happened, and why Tom could
+never find a water-baby till after he had got the lobster out of
+the pot.&nbsp; And, if you will read this story nine times over,
+and then think for yourself, you will find out why.&nbsp; It is
+not good for little boys to be told everything, and never to be
+forced to use their own wits.&nbsp; They would learn, then, no
+more than they do at Dr. Dulcimer&rsquo;s famous suburban
+establishment for the idler members of the youthful aristocracy,
+where the masters learn the lessons and the boys hear
+them&mdash;which saves a great deal of trouble&mdash;for the time
+being.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said the baby, &ldquo;come and help me, or
+I shall not have finished before my brothers and sisters come,
+and it is time to go home.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What shall I help you at?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At this poor dear little rock; a great clumsy boulder
+came rolling by in the last storm, and knocked all its head off,
+and rubbed off all its flowers.&nbsp; And now I must plant it
+again with seaweeds, and coralline, and anemones, and I will make
+it the prettiest little rock-garden on all the shore.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So they worked away at the rock, and planted it, and smoothed
+the sand down round, it, and capital fun they had till the tide
+began to turn.&nbsp; And then Tom heard all the other babies
+coming, laughing and singing and shouting and romping; and the
+noise they made was just like the noise of the ripple.&nbsp; So
+he knew that he had been hearing and seeing the water-babies all
+along; only he did not know them, because his eyes and ears were
+not opened.</p>
+<p>And in they came, dozens and dozens of them, some bigger than
+Tom and some smaller, all in the neatest little white bathing
+dresses; and when they found that he was a new baby, they hugged
+him and kissed him, and then put him in the middle and danced
+round him on the sand, and there was no one ever so happy as poor
+little Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now then,&rdquo; they cried all at once, &ldquo;we must
+come away home, we must come away home, or the tide will leave us
+dry.&nbsp; We have mended all the broken sea-weed, and put all
+the rock-pools in order, and planted all the shells again in the
+sand, and nobody will see where the ugly storm swept in last
+week.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And this is the reason why the rock-pools are always so neat
+and clean; because the water-babies come inshore after every
+storm to sweep them out, and comb them down, and put them all to
+rights again.</p>
+<p>Only where men are wasteful and dirty, and let sewers run into
+the sea instead of putting the stuff upon the fields like thrifty
+reasonable souls; or throw herrings&rsquo; heads and dead
+dog-fish, or any other refuse, into the water; or in any way make
+a mess upon the clean shore&mdash;there the water-babies will not
+come, sometimes not for hundreds of years (for they cannot abide
+anything smelly or foul), but leave the sea-anemones and the
+crabs to clear away everything, till the good tidy sea has
+covered up all the dirt in soft mud and clean sand, where the
+water-babies can plant live cockles and whelks and razor-shells
+and sea-cucumbers and golden-combs, and make a pretty live garden
+again, after man&rsquo;s dirt is cleared away.&nbsp; And that, I
+suppose, is the reason why there are no water-babies at any
+watering-place which I have ever seen.</p>
+<p>And where is the home of the water-babies?&nbsp; In St.
+Brandan&rsquo;s fairy isle.</p>
+<p>Did you never hear of the blessed St. Brandan, how he preached
+to the wild Irish on the wild, wild Kerry coast, he and five
+other hermits, till they were weary and longed to rest?&nbsp; For
+the wild Irish would not listen to them, or come to confession
+and to mass, but liked better to brew potheen, and dance the
+pater o&rsquo;pee, and knock each other over the head with
+shillelaghs, and shoot each other from behind turf-dykes, and
+steal each other&rsquo;s cattle, and burn each other&rsquo;s
+homes; till St. Brandan and his friends were weary of them, for
+they would not learn to be peaceable Christians at all.</p>
+<p>So St. Brandan went out to the point of Old Dunmore, and
+looked over the tide-way roaring round the Blasquets, at the end
+of all the world, and away into the ocean, and
+sighed&mdash;&ldquo;Ah that I had wings as a dove!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And far away, before the setting sun, he saw a blue fairy sea,
+and golden fairy islands, and he said, &ldquo;Those are the
+islands of the blest.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then he and his friends got
+into a hooker, and sailed away and away to the westward, and were
+never heard of more.&nbsp; But the people who would not hear him
+were changed into gorillas, and gorillas they are until this
+day.</p>
+<p>And when St. Brandan and the hermits came to that fairy isle
+they found it overgrown with cedars and full of beautiful birds;
+and he sat down under the cedars and preached to all the birds in
+the air.&nbsp; And they liked his sermons so well that they told
+the fishes in the sea; and they came, and St. Brandan preached to
+them; and the fishes told the water-babies, who live in the caves
+under the isle; and they came up by hundreds every Sunday, and
+St. Brandan got quite a neat little Sunday-school.&nbsp; And
+there he taught the water-babies for a great many hundred years,
+till his eyes grew too dim to see, and his beard grew so long
+that he dared not walk for fear of treading on it, and then he
+might have tumbled down.&nbsp; And at last he and the five
+hermits fell fast asleep under the cedar-shades, and there they
+sleep unto this day.&nbsp; But the fairies took to the
+water-babies, and taught them their lessons themselves.</p>
+<p>And some say that St. Brandan will awake and begin to teach
+the babies once more: but some think that he will sleep on, for
+better for worse, till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.&nbsp; But,
+on still clear summer evenings, when the sun sinks down into the
+sea, among golden cloud-capes and cloud-islands, and locks and
+friths of azure sky, the sailors fancy that they see, away to
+westward, St. Brandan&rsquo;s fairy isle.</p>
+<p>But whether men can see it or not, St. Brandan&rsquo;s Isle
+once actually stood there; a great land out in the ocean, which
+has sunk and sunk beneath the waves.&nbsp; Old Plato called it
+Atlantis, and told strange tales of the wise men who lived
+therein, and of the wars they fought in the old times.&nbsp; And
+from off that island came strange flowers, which linger still
+about this land:&mdash;the Cornish heath, and Cornish moneywort,
+and the delicate Venus&rsquo;s hair, and the London-pride which
+covers the Kerry mountains, and the little pink butterwort of
+Devon, and the great blue butterwort of Ireland, and the
+Connemara heath, and the bristle-fern of the Turk waterfall, and
+many a strange plant more; all fairy tokens left for wise men and
+good children from off St. Brandan&rsquo;s Isle.</p>
+<p>Now when Tom got there, he found that the isle stood all on
+pillars, and that its roots were full of caves.&nbsp; There were
+pillars of black basalt, like Staffa; and pillars of green and
+crimson serpentine, like Kynance; and pillars ribboned with red
+and white and yellow sandstone, like Livermead; and there were
+blue grottoes like Capri, and white grottoes like Adelsberg; all
+curtained and draped with seaweeds, purple and crimson, green and
+brown; and strewn with soft white sand, on which the water-babies
+sleep every night.&nbsp; But, to keep the place clean and sweet,
+the crabs picked up all the scraps off the floor and ate them
+like so many monkeys; while the rocks were covered with ten
+thousand sea-anemones, and corals and madrepores, who scavenged
+the water all day long, and kept it nice and pure.&nbsp; But, to
+make up to them for having to do such nasty work, they were not
+left black and dirty, as poor chimney-sweeps and dustmen
+are.&nbsp; No; the fairies are more considerate and just than
+that, and have dressed them all in the most beautiful colours and
+patterns, till they look like vast flower-beds of gay
+blossoms.&nbsp; If you think I am talking nonsense, I can only
+say that it is true; and that an old gentleman named Fourier used
+to say that we ought to do the same by chimney-sweeps and
+dustmen, and honour them instead of despising them; and he was a
+very clever old gentleman: but, unfortunately for him and the
+world, as mad as a March hare.</p>
+<p>And, instead of watchmen and policemen to keep out nasty
+things at night, there were thousands and thousands of
+water-snakes, and most wonderful creatures they were.&nbsp; They
+were all named after the Nereids, the sea-fairies who took care
+of them, Eunice and Polynoe, Phyllodoce and Psamathe, and all the
+rest of the pretty darlings who swim round their Queen
+Amphitrite, and her car of cameo shell.&nbsp; They were dressed
+in green velvet, and black velvet, and purple velvet; and were
+all jointed in rings; and some of them had three hundred brains
+apiece, so that they must have been uncommonly shrewd detectives;
+and some had eyes in their tails; and some had eyes in every
+joint, so that they kept a very sharp look-out; and when they
+wanted a baby-snake, they just grew one at the end of their own
+tails, and when it was able to take care of itself it dropped
+off; so that they brought up their families very cheaply.&nbsp;
+But if any nasty thing came by, out they rushed upon it; and then
+out of each of their hundreds of feet there sprang a whole
+cutler&rsquo;s shop of</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Scythes</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Javelins</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Billhooks</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Lances</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Pickaxes</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Halberts</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Forks</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Gisarines</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Penknives</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Poleaxes</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Rapiers</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Fishhooks</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Sabres</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Bradawls</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Yataghans</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Gimblets</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Creeses</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Corkscrews</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Ghoorka swords</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Pins</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Tucks</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Needles</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center"><i>And so
+forth</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>which stabbed, shot, poked, pricked, scratched, ripped,
+pinked, and crimped those naughty beasts so terribly, that they
+had to run for their lives, or else be chopped into small pieces
+and be eaten afterwards.&nbsp; And, if that is not all, every
+word, true, then there is no faith in microscopes, and all is
+over with the Linn&aelig;an Society.</p>
+<p>And there were the water-babies in thousands, more than Tom,
+or you either, could count.&mdash;All the little children whom
+the good fairies take to, because their cruel mothers and fathers
+will not; all who are untaught and brought up heathens, and all
+who come to grief by ill-usage or ignorance or neglect; all the
+little children who are overlaid, or given gin when they are
+young, or are let to drink out of hot kettles, or to fall into
+the fire; all the little children in alleys and courts, and
+tumble-down cottages, who die by fever, and cholera, and measles,
+and scarlatina, and nasty complaints which no one has any
+business to have, and which no one will have some day, when folks
+have common sense; and all the little children who have been
+killed by cruel masters and wicked soldiers; they were all there,
+except, of course, the babes of Bethlehem who were killed by
+wicked King Herod; for they were taken straight to heaven long
+ago, as everybody knows, and we call them the Holy Innocents.</p>
+<p>But I wish Tom had given up all his naughty tricks, and left
+off tormenting dumb animals now that he had plenty of playfellows
+to amuse him.&nbsp; Instead of that, I am sorry to say, he would
+meddle with the creatures, all but the water-snakes, for they
+would stand no nonsense.&nbsp; So he tickled the madrepores, to
+make them shut up; and frightened the crabs, to make them hide in
+the sand and peep out at him with the tips of their eyes; and put
+stones into the anemones&rsquo; mouths, to make them fancy that
+their dinner was coming.</p>
+<p>The other children warned him, and said, &ldquo;Take care what
+you are at.&nbsp; Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is coming.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+But Tom never heeded them, being quite riotous with high spirits
+and good luck, till, one Friday morning early, Mrs.
+Bedonebyasyoudid came indeed.</p>
+<p>A very tremendous lady she was; and when the children saw her
+they all stood in a row, very upright indeed, and smoothed down
+their bathing dresses, and put their hands behind them, just as
+if they were going to be examined by the inspector.</p>
+<p>And she had on a black bonnet, and a black shawl, and no
+crinoline at all; and a pair of large green spectacles, and a
+great hooked nose, hooked so much that the bridge of it stood
+quite up above her eyebrows; and under her arm she carried a
+great birch-rod.&nbsp; Indeed, she was so ugly that Tom was
+tempted to make faces at her: but did not; for he did not admire
+the look of the birch-rod under her arm.</p>
+<p>And she looked at the children one by one, and seemed very
+much pleased with them, though she never asked them one question
+about how they were behaving; and then began giving them all
+sorts of nice sea-things&mdash;sea-cakes, sea-apples,
+sea-oranges, sea-bullseyes, sea-toffee; and to the very best of
+all she gave sea-ices, made out of sea-cows&rsquo; cream, which
+never melt under water.</p>
+<p>And, if you don&rsquo;t quite believe me, then just
+think&mdash;What is more cheap and plentiful than sea-rock?&nbsp;
+Then why should there not be sea-toffee as well?&nbsp; And every
+one can find sea-lemons (ready quartered too) if they will look
+for them at low tide; and sea-grapes too sometimes, hanging in
+bunches; and, if you will go to Nice, you will find the
+fish-market full of sea-fruit, which they call &ldquo;frutta di
+mare:&rdquo; though I suppose they call them &ldquo;fruits de
+mer&rdquo; now, out of compliment to that most successful, and
+therefore most immaculate, potentate who is seemingly desirous of
+inheriting the blessing pronounced on those who remove their
+neighbours&rsquo; land-mark.&nbsp; And, perhaps, that is the very
+reason why the place is called Nice, because there are so many
+nice things in the sea there: at least, if it is not, it ought to
+be.</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p195b.jpg">
+<img class='floatright' alt=
+"Tom"
+title=
+"Tom"
+ src="images/p195s.jpg" />
+</a>Now little Tom watched all these sweet things given away,
+till his mouth watered, and his eyes grew as round as an
+owl&rsquo;s.&nbsp; For he hoped that his turn would come at last;
+and so it did.&nbsp; For the lady called him up, and held out her
+fingers with something in them, and popped it into his mouth;
+and, lo and behold, it was a nasty cold hard pebble.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are a very cruel woman,&rdquo; said he, and began
+to whimper.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you are a very cruel boy; who puts pebbles into the
+sea-anemones&rsquo; mouths, to take them in, and make them fancy
+that they had caught a good dinner!&nbsp; As you did to them, so
+I must do to you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who told you that?&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You did yourself, this very minute.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom had never opened his lips; so he was very much taken aback
+indeed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes; every one tells me exactly what they have done
+wrong; and that without knowing it themselves.&nbsp; So there is
+no use trying to hide anything from me.&nbsp; Now go, and be a
+good boy, and I will put no more pebbles in your mouth, if you
+put none in other creatures&rsquo;.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I did not know there was any harm in it,&rdquo; said
+Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then you know now.&nbsp; People continually say that to
+me: but I tell them, if you don&rsquo;t know that fire burns,
+that is no reason that it should not burn you; and if you
+don&rsquo;t know that dirt breeds fever, that is no reason why
+the fevers should not kill you.&nbsp; The lobster did not know
+that there was any harm in getting into the lobster-pot; but it
+caught him all the same.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear me,&rdquo; thought Tom, &ldquo;she knows
+everything!&rdquo;&nbsp; And so she did, indeed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And so, if you do not know that things are wrong that
+is no reason why you should not be punished for them; though not
+as much, not as much, my little man&rdquo; (and the lady looked
+very kindly, after all), &ldquo;as if you did know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you are a little hard on a poor lad,&rdquo; said
+Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not at all; I am the best friend you ever had in all
+your life.&nbsp; But I will tell you; I cannot help punishing
+people when they do wrong.&nbsp; I like it no more than they do;
+I am often very, very sorry for them, poor things: but I cannot
+help it.&nbsp; If I tried not to do it, I should do it all the
+same.&nbsp; For I work by machinery, just like an engine; and am
+full of wheels and springs inside; and am wound up very
+carefully, so that I cannot help going.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Was it long ago since they wound you up?&rdquo; asked
+Tom.&nbsp; For he thought, the cunning little fellow, &ldquo;She
+will run down some day: or they may forget to wind her up, as old
+Grimes used to forget to wind up his watch when he came in from
+the public-house; and then I shall be safe.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was wound up once and for all, so long ago, that I
+forget all about it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear me,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;you must have been
+made a long time!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I never was made, my child; and I shall go for ever and
+ever; for I am as old as Eternity, and yet as young as
+Time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And there came over the lady&rsquo;s face a very curious
+expression&mdash;very solemn, and very sad; and yet very, very
+sweet.&nbsp; And she looked up and away, as if she were gazing
+through the sea, and through the sky, at something far, far off;
+and as she did so, there came such a quiet, tender, patient,
+hopeful smile over her face that Tom thought for the moment that
+she did not look ugly at all.&nbsp; And no more she did; for she
+was like a great many people who have not a pretty feature in
+their faces, and yet are lovely to behold, and draw little
+children&rsquo;s hearts to them at once because though the house
+is plain enough, yet from the windows a beautiful and good spirit
+is looking forth.</p>
+<p>And Tom smiled in her face, she looked so pleasant for the
+moment. And the strange fairy smiled too, and said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&nbsp; You thought me very ugly just now, did you
+not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom hung down his head, and got very red about the ears.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And I am very ugly.&nbsp; I am the ugliest fairy in the
+world; and I shall be, till people behave themselves as they
+ought to do.&nbsp; And then I shall grow as handsome as my
+sister, who is the loveliest fairy in the world; and her name is
+Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.&nbsp; So she begins where I end, and I
+begin where she ends; and those who will not listen to her must
+listen to me, as you will see.&nbsp; Now, all of you run away,
+except Tom; and he may stay and see what I am going to do.&nbsp;
+It will be a very good warning for him to begin with, before he
+goes to school.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now, Tom, every Friday I come down here and call up all
+who have ill-used little children and serve them as they served
+the children.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And at that Tom was frightened, and crept under a stone; which
+made the two crabs who lived there very angry, and frightened
+their friend the butter-fish into flapping hysterics: but he
+would not move for them.</p>
+<p>And first she called up all the doctors who give little
+children so much physic (they were most of them old ones; for the
+young ones have learnt better, all but a few army surgeons, who
+still fancy that a baby&rsquo;s inside is much like a Scotch
+grenadier&rsquo;s), and she set them all in a row; and very
+rueful they looked; for they knew what was coming.</p>
+<p>And first she pulled all their teeth out; and then she bled
+them all round: and then she dosed them with calomel, and jalap,
+and salts and senna, and brimstone and treacle; and horrible
+faces they made; and then she gave them a great emetic of mustard
+and water, and no basons; and began all over again; and that was
+the way she spent the morning.</p>
+<p>And then she called up a whole troop of foolish ladies, who
+pinch up their children&rsquo;s waists and toes; and she laced
+them all up in tight stays, so that they were choked and sick,
+and their noses grew red, and their hands and feet swelled; and
+then she crammed their poor feet into the most dreadfully tight
+boots, and made them all dance, which they did most clumsily
+indeed; and then she asked them how they liked it; and when they
+said not at all, she let them go: because they had only done it
+out of foolish fashion, fancying it was for their
+children&rsquo;s good, as if wasps&rsquo; waists and pigs&rsquo;
+toes could be pretty, or wholesome, or of any use to anybody.</p>
+<p>Then she called up all the careless nurserymaids, and stuck
+pins into them all over, and wheeled them about in perambulators
+with tight straps across their stomachs and their heads and arms
+hanging over the side, till they were quite sick and stupid, and
+would have had sun-strokes: but, being under the water, they
+could only have water-strokes; which, I assure you, are nearly as
+bad, as you will find if you try to sit under a mill-wheel.&nbsp;
+And mind&mdash;when you hear a rumbling at the bottom of the sea,
+sailors will tell you that it is a ground-swell: but now you know
+better.&nbsp; It is the old lady wheeling the maids about in
+perambulators.</p>
+<p>And by that time she was so tired, she had to go to
+luncheon.</p>
+<p>And after luncheon she set to work again, and called up all
+the cruel schoolmasters&mdash;whole regiments and brigades of
+them; and when she saw them, she frowned most terribly, and set
+to work in earnest, as if the best part of the day&rsquo;s work
+was to come.&nbsp; More than half of them were nasty, dirty,
+frowzy, grubby, smelly old monks, who, because they dare not hit
+a man of their own size, amused themselves with beating little
+children instead; as you may see in the picture of old Pope
+Gregory (good man and true though he was, when he meddled with
+things which he did understand), teaching children to sing their
+fa-fa-mi-fa with a cat-o&rsquo;-nine tails under his chair: but,
+because they never had any children of their own, they took into
+their heads (as some folks do still) that they were the only
+people in the world who knew how to manage children: and they
+first brought into England, in the old Anglo-Saxon times, the
+fashion of treating free boys, and girls too, worse than you
+would treat a dog or a horse: but Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has
+caught them all long ago; and given them many a taste of their
+own rods; and much good may it do them.</p>
+<p>And she boxed their ears, and thumped them over the head with
+rulers, and pandied their hands with canes, and told them that
+they told stories, and were this and that bad sort of people; and
+the more they were very indignant, and stood upon their honour,
+and declared they told the truth, the more she declared they were
+not, and that they were only telling lies; and at last she
+birched them all round soundly with her great birch-rod and set
+them each an imposition of three hundred thousand lines of Hebrew
+to learn by heart before she came back next Friday.&nbsp; And at
+that they all cried and howled so, that their breaths came all up
+through the sea like bubbles out of soda-water; and that is one
+reason of the bubbles in the sea.&nbsp; There are others: but
+that is the one which principally concerns little boys.&nbsp; And
+by that time she was so tired that she was glad to stop; and,
+indeed, she had done a very good day&rsquo;s work.</p>
+<p>Tom did not quite dislike the old lady: but he could not help
+thinking her a little spiteful&mdash;and no wonder if she was,
+poor old soul; for if she has to wait to grow handsome till
+people do as they would be done by, she will have to wait a very
+long time.</p>
+<p>Poor old Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid! she has a great deal of hard
+work before her, and had better have been born a washerwoman, and
+stood over a tub all day: but, you see, people cannot always
+choose their own profession.</p>
+<p>But Tom longed to ask her one question; and after all,
+whenever she looked at him, she did not look cross at all; and
+now and then there was a funny smile in her face, and she
+chuckled to herself in a way which gave Tom courage, and at last
+he said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Pray, ma&rsquo;am, may I ask you a question?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly, my little dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you bring all the bad masters here and
+serve them out too?&nbsp; The butties that knock about the poor
+collier-boys; and the nailers that file off their lads&rsquo;
+noses and hammer their fingers; and all the master sweeps, like
+my master Grimes?&nbsp; I saw him fall into the water long ago;
+so I surely expected he would have been here.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m
+sure he was bad enough to me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then the old lady looked so very stern that Tom was quite
+frightened, and sorry that he had been so bold.&nbsp; But she was
+not angry with him.&nbsp; She only answered, &ldquo;I look after
+them all the week round; and they are in a very different place
+from this, because they knew that they were doing
+wrong.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She spoke very quietly; but there was something in her voice
+which made Tom tingle from head to foot, as if he had got into a
+shoal of sea-nettles.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But these people,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;did not
+know that they were doing wrong: they were only stupid and
+impatient; and therefore I only punish them till they become
+patient, and learn to use their common sense like reasonable
+beings.&nbsp; But as for chimney-sweeps, and collier-boys, and
+nailer lads, my sister has set good people to stop all that sort
+of thing; and very much obliged to her I am; for if she could
+only stop the cruel masters from ill-using poor children, I
+should grow handsome at least a thousand years sooner.&nbsp; And
+now do you be a good boy, and do as you would be done by, which
+they did not; and then, when my sister, <span
+class="smcap">Madame Doasyouwouldbedoneby</span>, comes on
+Sunday, perhaps she will take notice of you, and teach you how to
+behave.&nbsp; She understands that better than I do.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And so she went.</p>
+<p>Tom was very glad to hear that there was no chance of meeting
+Grimes again, though he was a little sorry for him, considering
+that he used sometimes to give him the leavings of the beer: but
+he determined to be a very good boy all Saturday; and he was; for
+he never frightened one crab, nor tickled any live corals, nor
+put stones into the sea anemones&rsquo; mouths, to make them
+fancy they had got a dinner; and when Sunday morning came, sure
+enough, <span class="smcap">Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby</span> came
+too.&nbsp; Whereat all the little children began dancing and
+clapping their hands, and Tom danced too with all his might.</p>
+<p>And as for the pretty lady, I cannot tell you what the colour
+of her hair was, or, of her eyes: no more could Tom; for, when
+any one looks at her, all they can think of is, that she has the
+sweetest, kindest, tenderest, funniest, merriest face they ever
+saw, or want to see.&nbsp; But Tom saw that she was a very tall
+woman, as tall as her sister: but instead of being gnarly and
+horny, and scaly, and prickly, like her, she was the most nice,
+soft, fat, smooth, pussy, cuddly, delicious creature who ever
+nursed a baby; and she understood babies thoroughly, for she had
+plenty of her own, whole rows and regiments of them, and has to
+this day.&nbsp; And all her delight was, whenever she had a spare
+moment, to play with babies, in which she showed herself a woman
+of sense; for babies are the best company, and the pleasantest
+playfellows, in the world; at least, so all the wise people in
+the world think.&nbsp; And therefore when the children saw her,
+they naturally all caught hold of her, and pulled her till she
+sat down on a stone, and climbed into her lap, and clung round
+her neck, and caught hold of her hands; and then they all put
+their thumbs into their mouths, and began cuddling and purring
+like so many kittens, as they ought to have done.&nbsp; While
+those who could get nowhere else sat down on the sand, and
+cuddled her feet&mdash;for no one, you know, wear shoes in the
+water, except horrid old bathing-women, who are afraid of the
+water-babies pinching their horny toes.&nbsp; And Tom stood
+staring at them; for he could not understand what it was all
+about.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And who are you, you little darling?&rdquo; she
+said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, that is the new baby!&rdquo; they all cried,
+pulling their thumbs out of their mouths; &ldquo;and he never had
+any mother,&rdquo; and they all put their thumbs back again, for
+they did not wish to lose any time.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I will be his mother, and he shall have the very
+best place; so get out, all of you, this moment.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she took up two great armfuls of babies&mdash;nine hundred
+under one arm, and thirteen hundred under the other&mdash;and
+threw them away, right and left, into the water.&nbsp; But they
+minded it no more than the naughty boys in Struwelpeter minded
+when St. Nicholas dipped them in his inkstand; and did not even
+take their thumbs out of their mouths, but came paddling and
+wriggling back to her like so many tadpoles, till you could see
+nothing of her from head to foot for the swarm of little
+babies.</p>
+<p>But she took Tom in her arms, and laid him in the softest
+place of all, and kissed him, and patted him, and talked to him,
+tenderly and low, such things as he had never heard before in his
+life; and Tom looked up into her eyes, and loved her, and loved,
+till he fell fast asleep from pure love.</p>
+<p>And when he woke she was telling the children a story.&nbsp;
+And what story did she tell them?&nbsp; One story she told them,
+which begins every Christmas Eve, and yet never ends at all for
+ever and ever; and, as she went on, the children took their
+thumbs out of their mouths and listened quite seriously; but not
+sadly at all; for she never told them anything sad; and Tom
+listened too, and never grew tired of listening.&nbsp; And he
+listened so long that he fell fast asleep again, and, when he
+woke, the lady was nursing him still.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t go away,&rdquo; said little Tom.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;This is so nice.&nbsp; I never had any one to cuddle me
+before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t go away,&rdquo; said all the children;
+&ldquo;you have not sung us one song.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I have time for only one.&nbsp; So what shall it
+be?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The doll you lost!&nbsp; The doll you lost!&rdquo;
+cried all the babies at once.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p206b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The doll"
+title=
+"The doll"
+ src="images/p206s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>So the strange fairy sang:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p><i>I once had a sweet little doll</i>,
+<i>dears</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>The prettiest doll in the world</i>;<br />
+<i>Her cheeks were so red and so white</i>, <i>dears</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>And her hair was so charmingly curled</i>.<br />
+<i>But I lost my poor little doll</i>, <i>dears</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>As I played in the heath one day</i>;<br />
+<i>And I cried for her more than a week</i>, <i>dears</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>But I never could find where she lay</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p207b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The broken doll"
+title=
+"The broken doll"
+ src="images/p207s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<blockquote><p><i>I found my poor little doll</i>,
+<i>dears</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>As I played in the heath one day</i>:<br />
+<i>Folks say she is terribly changed</i>, <i>dears</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>For her paint is all washed away</i>,<br />
+<i>And her arm trodden off by the cows</i>, <i>dears</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>And her hair not the least bit curled</i>:<br />
+<i>Yet</i>, <i>for old sakes&rsquo; sake she is still</i>,
+<i>dears</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>The prettiest doll in the world</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>What a silly song for a fairy to sing!</p>
+<p>And what silly water-babies to be quite delighted at it!</p>
+<p>Well, but you see they have not the advantage of Aunt
+Agitate&rsquo;s Arguments in the sea-land down below.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said the fairy to Tom, &ldquo;will you be a
+good boy for my sake, and torment no more sea-beasts till I come
+back?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you will cuddle me again?&rdquo; said poor little
+Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I will, you little duck.&nbsp; I should like
+to take you with me and cuddle you all the way, only I must
+not;&rdquo; and away she went.</p>
+<p>So Tom really tried to be a good boy, and tormented no
+sea-beasts after that as long as he lived; and he is quite alive,
+I assure you, still.</p>
+<p>Oh, how good little boys ought to be who have kind pussy
+mammas to cuddle them and tell them stories; and how afraid they
+ought to be of growing naughty, and bringing tears into their
+mammas&rsquo; pretty eyes!</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p208b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Little both with mother"
+title=
+"Little both with mother"
+ src="images/p208s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Thou little child, yet glorious in the
+night<br />
+Of heaven-born freedom on thy Being&rsquo;s height,<br />
+Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke<br />
+The Years to bring the inevitable yoke&mdash;<br />
+Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?<br />
+Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,<br />
+And custom lie upon thee with a weight<br />
+Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="smcap">Wordsworth</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p211b.jpg">
+<img class='floatleft' alt=
+"The Officer and a crying child"
+title=
+"The Officer and a crying child"
+ src="images/p211s.jpg" />
+</a><span class="smcap">Here</span> I come to the very saddest
+part of all my story.&nbsp; I know some people will only laugh at
+it, and call it much ado about nothing.&nbsp; But I know one man
+who would not; and he was an officer with a pair of gray
+moustaches as long as your arm, who said once in company that two
+of the most heart-rending sights in the world, which moved him
+most to tears, which he would do anything to prevent or remedy,
+were a child over a broken toy and a child stealing sweets.</p>
+<p>The company did not laugh at him; his moustaches were too long
+and too gray for that: but, after he was gone, they called him
+sentimental and so forth, all but one dear little old Quaker lady
+with a soul as white as her cap, who was not, of course,
+generally partial to soldiers; and she said very quietly, like a
+Quaker:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Friends, it is borne upon my mind that that is a truly
+brave man.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Now you may fancy that Tom was quite good, when he had
+everything that he could want or wish: but you would be very much
+mistaken.&nbsp; Being quite comfortable is a very good thing; but
+it does not make people good.&nbsp; Indeed, it sometimes makes
+them naughty, as it has made the people in America; and as it
+made the people in the Bible, who waxed fat and kicked, like
+horses overfed and underworked.&nbsp; And I am very sorry to say
+that this happened to little Tom.&nbsp; For he grew so fond of
+the sea-bullseyes and sea-lollipops that his foolish little head
+could think of nothing else: and he was always longing for more,
+and wondering when the strange lady would come again and give him
+some, and what she would give him, and how much, and whether she
+would give him more than the others.&nbsp; And he thought of
+nothing but lollipops by day, and dreamt of nothing else by
+night&mdash;and what happened then?</p>
+<p>That he began to watch the lady to see where she kept the
+sweet things: and began hiding, and sneaking, and following her
+about, and pretending to be looking the other way, or going after
+something else, till he found out that she kept them in a
+beautiful mother-of-pearl cabinet away in a deep crack of the
+rocks.</p>
+<p>And he longed to go to the cabinet, and yet he was afraid; and
+then he longed again, and was less afraid; and at last, by
+continual thinking about it, he longed so violently that he was
+not afraid at all.&nbsp; And one night, when all the other
+children were asleep, and he could not sleep for thinking of
+lollipops, he crept away among the rocks, and got to the cabinet,
+and behold! it was open.</p>
+<p>But, when he saw all the nice things inside, instead of being
+delighted, he was quite frightened, and wished he had never come
+there.&nbsp; And then he would only touch them, and he did; and
+then he would only taste one, and he did; and then he would only
+eat one, and he did; and then he would only eat two, and then
+three, and so on; and then he was terrified lest she should come
+and catch him, and began gobbling them down so fast that he did
+not taste them, or have any pleasure in them; and then he felt
+sick, and would have only one more; and then only one more again;
+and so on till he had eaten them all up.</p>
+<p>And all the while, close behind him, stood Mrs.
+Bedonebyasyoudid.</p>
+<p>Some people may say, But why did she not keep her cupboard
+locked?&nbsp; Well, I know.&mdash;It may seem a very strange
+thing, but she never does keep her cupboard locked; every one may
+go and taste for themselves, and fare accordingly.&nbsp; It is
+very odd, but so it is; and I am quite sure that she knows
+best.&nbsp; Perhaps she wishes people to keep their fingers out
+of the fire, by having them burned.</p>
+<p>She took off her spectacles, because she did not like to see
+too much; and in her pity she arched up her eyebrows into her
+very hair, and her eyes grew so wide that they would have taken
+in all the sorrows of the world, and filled with great big tears,
+as they too often do.</p>
+<p>But all she said was:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, you poor little dear! you are just like all the
+rest.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But she said it to herself, and Tom neither heard nor saw
+her.&nbsp; Now, you must not fancy that she was sentimental at
+all.&nbsp; If you do, and think that she is going to let off you,
+or me, or any human being when we do wrong, because she is too
+tender-hearted to punish us, then you will find yourself very
+much mistaken, as many a man does every year and every day.</p>
+<p>But what did the strange fairy do when she saw all her
+lollipops eaten?</p>
+<p>Did she fly at Tom, catch him by the scruff of the neck, hold
+him, howk him, hump him, hurry him, hit him, poke him, pull him,
+pinch him, pound him, put him in the corner, shake him, slap him,
+set him on a cold stone to reconsider himself, and so forth?</p>
+<p>Not a bit.&nbsp; You may watch her at work if you know where
+to find her.&nbsp; But you will never see her do that.&nbsp; For,
+if she had, she knew quite well Tom would have fought, and
+kicked, and bit, and said bad words, and turned again that moment
+into a naughty little heathen chimney-sweep, with his hand, like
+Ishmael&rsquo;s of old, against every man, and every man&rsquo;s
+hand against him.</p>
+<p>Did she question him, hurry him, frighten him, threaten him,
+to make him confess?&nbsp; Not a bit.&nbsp; You may see her, as I
+said, at her work often enough if you know where to look for her:
+but you will never see her do that.&nbsp; For, if she had, she
+would have tempted him to tell lies in his fright; and that would
+have been worse for him, if possible, than even becoming a
+heathen chimney-sweep again.</p>
+<p>No.&nbsp; She leaves that for anxious parents and teachers
+(lazy ones, some call them), who, instead of giving children a
+fair trial, such as they would expect and demand for themselves,
+force them by fright to confess their own faults&mdash;which is
+so cruel and unfair that no judge on the bench dare do it to the
+wickedest thief or murderer, for the good British law forbids
+it&mdash;ay, and even punish them to make them confess, which is
+so detestable a crime that it is never committed now, save by
+Inquisitors, and Kings of Naples, and a few other wretched people
+of whom the world is weary.&nbsp; And then they say, &ldquo;We
+have trained up the child in the way he should go, and when he
+grew up he has departed from it.&nbsp; Why then did Solomon say
+that he would not depart from it?&rdquo;&nbsp; But perhaps the
+way of beating, and hurrying and frightening, and questioning,
+was not the way that the child should go; for it is not even the
+way in which a colt should go if you want to break it in and make
+it a quiet serviceable horse.</p>
+<p>Some folks may say, &ldquo;Ah! but the Fairy does not need to
+do that if she knows everything already.&rdquo;&nbsp; True.&nbsp;
+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.</p>
+<p>So she just said nothing at all about the matter, not even
+when Tom came next day with the rest for sweet things.&nbsp; He
+was horribly afraid of coming: but he was still more afraid of
+staying away, lest any one should suspect him.&nbsp; He was
+dreadfully afraid, too, lest there should be no sweets&mdash;as
+was to be expected, he having eaten them all&mdash;and lest then
+the fairy should inquire who had taken them.&nbsp; But, behold!
+she pulled out just as many as ever, which astonished Tom, and
+frightened him still more.</p>
+<p>And, when the fairy looked him full in the face, he shook from
+head to foot: however she gave him his share like the rest, and
+he thought within himself that she could not have found him
+out.</p>
+<p>But, when he put the sweets into his mouth, he hated the taste
+of them; and they made him so sick that he had to get away as
+fast as he could; and terribly sick he was, and very cross and
+unhappy, all the week after.</p>
+<p>Then, when next week came, he had his share again; and again
+the fairy looked him full in the face; but more sadly than she
+had ever looked.&nbsp; And he could not bear the sweets: but took
+them again in spite of himself.</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p217b.jpg">
+<img class='floatright' alt=
+"Prickly Tom"
+title=
+"Prickly Tom"
+ src="images/p217s.jpg" />
+</a>And when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, he wanted to be
+cuddled like the rest; but she said very seriously:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should like to cuddle you; but I cannot, you are so
+horny and prickly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And Tom looked at himself: and he was all over prickles, just
+like a sea-egg.</p>
+<p>Which was quite natural; for you must know and believe that
+people&rsquo;s souls make their bodies just as a snail makes its
+shell (I am not joking, my little man; I am in serious, solemn
+earnest).&nbsp; And therefore, when Tom&rsquo;s soul grew all
+prickly with naughty tempers, his body could not help growing
+prickly, too, so that nobody would cuddle him, or play with him,
+or even like to look at him.</p>
+<p>What could Tom do now but go away and hide in a corner and
+cry?&nbsp; For nobody would play with him, and he knew full well
+why.</p>
+<p>And he was so miserable all that week that when the ugly fairy
+came and looked at him once more full in the face, more seriously
+and sadly than ever, he could stand it no longer, and thrust the
+sweetmeats away, saying, &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t want any: I
+can&rsquo;t bear them now,&rdquo; and then burst out crying, poor
+little man, and told Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid every word as it
+happened.</p>
+<p>He was horribly frightened when he had done so; for he
+expected her to punish him very severely.&nbsp; But, instead, she
+only took him up and kissed him, which was not quite pleasant,
+for her chin was very bristly indeed; but he was so
+lonely-hearted, he thought that rough kissing was better than
+none.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will forgive you, little man,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I always forgive every one the moment they tell me the
+truth of their own accord.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then you will take away all these nasty
+prickles?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That is a very different matter.&nbsp; You put them
+there yourself, and only you can take them away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But how can I do that?&rdquo; asked Tom, crying
+afresh.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I think it is time for you to go to school; so I
+shall fetch you a schoolmistress, who will teach you how to get
+rid of your prickles.&rdquo;&nbsp; And so she went away.</p>
+<p>Tom was frightened at the notion of a school-mistress; for he
+thought she would certainly come with a birch-rod or a cane; but
+he comforted himself, at last, that she might be something like
+the old woman in Vendale&mdash;which she was not in the least;
+for, when the fairy brought her, she was the most beautiful
+little girl that ever was seen, with long curls floating behind
+her like a golden cloud, and long robes floating all round her
+like a silver one.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p219b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Tom and the little girl"
+title=
+"Tom and the little girl"
+ src="images/p219s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;There he is,&rdquo; said the fairy; &ldquo;and you must
+teach him to be good, whether you like or not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know,&rdquo; said the little girl; but she did not
+seem quite to like, for she put her finger in her mouth, and
+looked at Tom under her brows; and Tom put his finger in his
+mouth, and looked at her under his brows, for he was horribly
+ashamed of himself.</p>
+<p>The little girl seemed hardly to know how to begin; and
+perhaps she would never have begun at all if poor Tom had not
+burst out crying, and begged her to teach him to be good and help
+him to cure his prickles; and at that she grew so tender-hearted
+that she began teaching him as prettily as ever child was taught
+in the world.</p>
+<p>And what did the little girl teach Tom?&nbsp; She taught him,
+first, what you have been taught ever since you said your first
+prayers at your mother&rsquo;s knees; but she taught him much
+more simply.&nbsp; For the lessons in that world, my child, have
+no such hard words in them as the lessons in this, and therefore
+the water-babies like them better than you like your lessons, and
+long to learn them more and more; and grown men cannot puzzle nor
+quarrel over their meaning, as they do here on land; for those
+lessons all rise clear and pure, like the Test out of Overton
+Pool, out of the everlasting ground of all life and truth.</p>
+<p>So she taught Tom every day in the week; only on Sundays she
+always went away home, and the kind fairy took her place.&nbsp;
+And before she had taught Tom many Sundays, his prickles had
+vanished quite away, and his skin was smooth and clean again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear me!&rdquo; said the little girl; &ldquo;why, I
+know you now.&nbsp; You are the very same little chimney-sweep
+who came into my bedroom.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear me!&rdquo; cried Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;And I know you,
+too, now.&nbsp; You are the very little white lady whom I saw in
+bed.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he jumped at her, and longed to hug and
+kiss her; but did not, remembering that she was a lady born; so
+he only jumped round and round her till he was quite tired.</p>
+<p>And then they began telling each other all their
+story&mdash;how he had got into the water, and she had fallen
+over the rock; and how he had swum down to the sea, and how she
+had flown out of the window; and how this, that, and the other,
+till it was all talked out: and then they both began over again,
+and I can&rsquo;t say which of the two talked fastest.</p>
+<p>And then they set to work at their lessons again, and both
+liked them so well that they went on well till seven full years
+were past and gone.</p>
+<p>You may fancy that Tom was quite content and happy all those
+seven years; but the truth is, he was not.&nbsp; He had always
+one thing on his mind, and that was&mdash;where little Ellie
+went, when she went home on Sundays.</p>
+<p>To a very beautiful place, she said.</p>
+<p>But what was the beautiful place like, and where was it?</p>
+<p>Ah! that is just what she could not say.&nbsp; And it is
+strange, but true, that no one can say; and that those who have
+been oftenest in it, or even nearest to it, can say least about
+it, and make people understand least what it is like.&nbsp; There
+are a good many folks about the Other-end-of-Nowhere (where Tom
+went afterwards), who pretend to know it from north to south as
+well as if they had been penny postmen there; but, as they are
+safe at the Other-end-of-Nowhere, nine hundred and ninety-nine
+million miles away, what they say cannot concern us.</p>
+<p>But the dear, sweet, loving, wise, good, self-sacrificing
+people, who really go there, can never tell you anything about
+it, save that it is the most beautiful place in all the world;
+and, if you ask them more, they grow modest, and hold their
+peace, for fear of being laughed at; and quite right they
+are.</p>
+<p>So all that good little Ellie could say was, that it was worth
+all the rest of the world put together.&nbsp; And of course that
+only made Tom the more anxious to go likewise.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Ellie,&rdquo; he said at last, &ldquo;I will know
+why I cannot go with you when you go home on Sundays, or I shall
+have no peace, and give you none either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You must ask the fairies that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So when the fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, came next, Tom asked
+her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Little boys who are only fit to play with sea-beasts
+cannot go there,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Those who go there
+must go first where they do not like, and do what they do not
+like, and help somebody they do not like.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, did Ellie do that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ask her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And Ellie blushed, and said, &ldquo;Yes, Tom; I did not like
+coming here at first; I was so much happier at home, where it is
+always Sunday.&nbsp; And I was afraid of you, Tom, at first,
+because&mdash;because&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I was all over prickles?&nbsp; But I am not
+prickly now, am I, Miss Ellie?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Ellie.&nbsp; &ldquo;I like you very
+much now; and I like coming here, too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And perhaps,&rdquo; said the fairy, &ldquo;you will
+learn to like going where you don&rsquo;t like, and helping some
+one that you don&rsquo;t like, as Ellie has.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But Tom put his finger in his mouth, and hung his head down;
+for he did not see that at all.</p>
+<p>So when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, Tom asked her; for he
+thought in his little head, She is not so strict as her sister,
+and perhaps she may let me off more easily.</p>
+<p>Ah, Tom, Tom, silly fellow! and yet I don&rsquo;t know why I
+should blame you, while so many grown people have got the very
+same notion in their heads.</p>
+<p>But, when they try it, they get just the same answer as Tom
+did.&nbsp; For, when he asked the second fairy, she told him just
+what the first did, and in the very same words.</p>
+<p>Tom was very unhappy at that.&nbsp; And, when Ellie went home
+on Sunday, he fretted and cried all day, and did not care to
+listen to the fairy&rsquo;s stories about good children, though
+they were prettier than ever.&nbsp; Indeed, the more he overheard
+of them, the less he liked to listen, because they were all about
+children who did what they did not like, and took trouble for
+other people, and worked to feed their little brothers and
+sisters instead of caring only for their play.&nbsp; And, when
+she began to tell a story about a holy child in old times, who
+was martyred by the heathen because it would not worship idols,
+Tom could bear no more, and ran away and hid among the rocks.</p>
+<p>And, when Ellie came back, he was shy with her, because he
+fancied she looked down on him, and thought him a coward.&nbsp;
+And then he grew quite cross with her, because she was superior
+to him, and did what he could not do.&nbsp; And poor Ellie was
+quite surprised and sad; and at last Tom burst out crying; but he
+would not tell her what was really in his mind.</p>
+<p>And all the while he was eaten up with curiosity to know where
+Ellie went to; so that he began not to care for his playmates, or
+for the sea-palace or anything else.&nbsp; But perhaps that made
+matters all the easier for him; for he grew so discontented with
+everything round him that he did not care to stay, and did not
+care where he went.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, at last, &ldquo;I am so miserable
+here, I&rsquo;ll go; if only you will go with me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Ellie, &ldquo;I wish I might; but the
+worst of it is, that the fairy says that you must go alone if you
+go at all.&nbsp; Now don&rsquo;t poke that poor crab about,
+Tom&rdquo; (for he was feeling very naughty and mischievous),
+&ldquo;or the fairy will have to punish you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom was very nearly saying, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care if she
+does;&rdquo; but he stopped himself in time.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know what she wants me to do,&rdquo; he said, whining
+most dolefully.&nbsp; &ldquo;She wants me to go after that horrid
+old Grimes.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t like him, that&rsquo;s
+certain.&nbsp; And if I find him, he will turn me into a
+chimney-sweep again, I know.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s what I have been
+afraid of all along.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, he won&rsquo;t&mdash;I know as much as that.&nbsp;
+Nobody can turn water-babies into sweeps, or hurt them at all, as
+long as they are good.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said naughty Tom, &ldquo;I see what you
+want; you are persuading me all along to go, because you are
+tired of me, and want to get rid of me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Little Ellie opened her eyes very wide at that, and they were
+all brimming over with tears.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Tom, Tom!&rdquo; she said, very
+mournfully&mdash;and then she cried, &ldquo;Oh, Tom! where are
+you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And Tom cried, &ldquo;Oh, Ellie, where are you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>For neither of them could see each other&mdash;not the
+least.&nbsp; Little Ellie vanished quite away, and Tom heard her
+voice calling him, and growing smaller and smaller, and fainter
+and fainter, till all was silent.</p>
+<p>Who was frightened then but Tom?&nbsp; He swam up and down
+among the rocks, into all the halls and chambers, faster than
+ever he swam before, but could not find her.&nbsp; He shouted
+after her, but she did not answer; he asked all the other
+children, but they had not seen her; and at last he went up to
+the top of the water and began crying and screaming for Mrs.
+Bedonebyasyoudid&mdash;which perhaps was the best thing to
+do&mdash;for she came in a moment.</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p226b.jpg">
+<img class='floatleft' alt=
+"Tom crying"
+title=
+"Tom crying"
+ src="images/p226s.jpg" />
+</a>&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh dear, oh
+dear!&nbsp; I have been naughty to Ellie, and I have killed
+her&mdash;I know I have killed her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not quite that,&rdquo; said the fairy; &ldquo;but I
+have sent her away home, and she will not come back again for I
+do not know how long.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And at that Tom cried so bitterly that the salt sea was
+swelled with his tears, and the tide was .3,954,620,819 of an
+inch higher than it had been the day before: but perhaps that was
+owing to the waxing of the moon.&nbsp; It may have been so; but
+it is considered right in the new philosophy, you know, to give
+spiritual causes for physical phenomena&mdash;especially in
+parlour-tables; and, of course, physical causes for spiritual
+ones, like thinking, and praying, and knowing right from
+wrong.&nbsp; And so they odds it till it comes even, as folks say
+down in Berkshire.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How cruel of you to send Ellie away!&rdquo; sobbed
+Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;However, I will find her again, if I go to the
+world&rsquo;s end to look for her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The fairy did not slap Tom, and tell him to hold his tongue:
+but she took him on her lap very kindly, just as her sister would
+have done; and put him in mind how it was not her fault, because
+she was wound up inside, like watches, and could not help doing
+things whether she liked or not.&nbsp; And then she told him how
+he had been in the nursery long enough, and must go out now and
+see the world, if he intended ever to be a man; and how he must
+go all alone by himself, as every one else that ever was born has
+to go, and see with his own eyes, and smell with his own nose,
+and make his own bed and lie on it, and burn his own fingers if
+he put them into the fire.&nbsp; And then she told him how many
+fine things there were to be seen in the world, and what an odd,
+curious, pleasant, orderly, respectable, well-managed, and, on
+the whole, successful (as, indeed, might have been expected) sort
+of a place it was, if people would only be tolerably brave and
+honest and good in it; and then she told him not to be afraid of
+anything he met, for nothing would harm him if he remembered all
+his lessons, and did what he knew was right.&nbsp; And at last
+she comforted poor little Tom so much that he was quite eager to
+go, and wanted to set out that minute.&nbsp; &ldquo;Only,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;if I might see Ellie once before I
+went!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why do you want that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because&mdash;because I should be so much happier if I
+thought she had forgiven me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And in the twinkling of an eye there stood Ellie, smiling, and
+looking so happy that Tom longed to kiss her; but was still
+afraid it would not be respectful, because she was a lady
+born.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am going, Ellie!&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am
+going, if it is to the world&rsquo;s end.&nbsp; But I don&rsquo;t
+like going at all, and that&rsquo;s the truth.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Pooh! pooh! pooh!&rdquo; said the fairy.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;You will like it very well indeed, you little rogue, and
+you know that at the bottom of your heart.&nbsp; But if you
+don&rsquo;t, I will make you like it.&nbsp; Come here, and see
+what happens to people who do only what is pleasant.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she took out of one of her cupboards (she had all sorts of
+mysterious cupboards in the cracks of the rocks) the most
+wonderful waterproof book, full of such photographs as never were
+seen.&nbsp; For she had found out photography (and this is a
+fact) more than 13,598,000 years before anybody was born; and,
+what is more, her photographs did not merely represent light and
+shade, as ours do, but colour also, and all colours, as you may
+see if you look at a black-cock&rsquo;s tail, or a
+butterfly&rsquo;s wing, or indeed most things that are or can be,
+so to speak.&nbsp; And therefore her photographs were very
+curious and famous, and the children looked with great delight
+for the opening of the book.</p>
+<p>And on the title-page was written, &ldquo;The History of the
+great and famous nation of the Doasyoulikes, who came away from
+the country of Hardwork, because they wanted to play on the
+Jews&rsquo; harp all day long.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In the first picture they saw these Doasyoulikes living in the
+land of Readymade, at the foot of the Happy-go-lucky Mountains,
+where flapdoodle grows wild; and if you want to know what that
+is, you must read Peter Simple.</p>
+<p>They lived very much such a life as those jolly old Greeks in
+Sicily, whom you may see painted on the ancient vases, and really
+there seemed to be great excuses for them, for they had no need
+to work.</p>
+<p>Instead of houses they lived in the beautiful caves of tufa,
+and bathed in the warm springs three times a day; and, as for
+clothes, it was so warm there that the gentlemen walked about in
+little beside a cocked hat and a pair of straps, or some light
+summer tackle of that kind; and the ladies all gathered gossamer
+in autumn (when they were not too lazy) to make their winter
+dresses.</p>
+<p>They were very fond of music, but it was too much trouble to
+learn the piano or the violin; and as for dancing, that would
+have been too great an exertion.&nbsp; So they sat on ant-hills
+all day long, and played on the Jews&rsquo; harp; and, if the
+ants bit them, why they just got up and went to the next
+ant-hill, till they were bitten there likewise.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p230b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Woman surrounded by fairies"
+title=
+"Woman surrounded by fairies"
+ src="images/p230s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>And they sat under the flapdoodle-trees, and let the
+flapdoodle drop into their mouths; and under the vines, and
+squeezed the grape-juice down their throats; and, if any little
+pigs ran about ready roasted, crying, &ldquo;Come and eat
+me,&rdquo; as was their fashion in that country, they waited till
+the pigs ran against their mouths, and then took a bite, and were
+content, just as so many oysters would have been.</p>
+<p>They needed no weapons, for no enemies ever came near their
+land; and no tools, for everything was readymade to their hand;
+and the stern old fairy Necessity never came near them to hunt
+them up, and make them use their wits, or die.</p>
+<p>And so on, and so on, and so on, till there were never such
+comfortable, easy-going, happy-go-lucky people in the world.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, that is a jolly life,&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You think so?&rdquo; said the fairy.&nbsp; &ldquo;Do
+you see that great peaked mountain there behind,&rdquo; said the
+fairy, &ldquo;with smoke coming out of its top?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And do you see all those ashes, and slag, and cinders
+lying about?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then turn over the next five hundred years, and you
+will see what happens next.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And behold the mountain had blown up like a barrel of
+gunpowder, and then boiled over like a kettle; whereby one-third
+of the Doasyoulikes were blown into the air, and another third
+were smothered in ashes; so that there was only one-third
+left.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; said the fairy, &ldquo;what comes of
+living on a burning mountain.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, why did you not warn them?&rdquo; said little
+Ellie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I did warn them all that I could.&nbsp; I let the smoke
+come out of the mountain; and wherever there is smoke there is
+fire.&nbsp; And I laid the ashes and cinders all about; and
+wherever there are cinders, cinders may be again.&nbsp; But they
+did not like to face facts, my dears, as very few people do; and
+so they invented a cock-and-bull story, which, I am sure, I never
+told them, that the smoke was the breath of a giant, whom some
+gods or other had buried under the mountain; and that the cinders
+were what the dwarfs roasted the little pigs whole with; and
+other nonsense of that kind.&nbsp; And, when folks are in that
+humour, I cannot teach them, save by the good old
+birch-rod.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And then she turned over the next five hundred years: and
+there were the remnant of the Doasyoulikes, doing as they liked,
+as before.&nbsp; They were too lazy to move away from the
+mountain; so they said, If it has blown up once, that is all the
+more reason that it should not blow up again.&nbsp; And they were
+few in number: but they only said, The more the merrier, but the
+fewer the better fare.&nbsp; However, that was not quite true;
+for all the flapdoodle-trees were killed by the volcano, and they
+had eaten all the roast pigs, who, of course, could not be
+expected to have little ones.&nbsp; So they had to live very
+hard, on nuts and roots which they scratched out of the ground
+with sticks.&nbsp; Some of them talked of sowing corn, as their
+ancestors used to do, before they came into the land of
+Readymade; but they had forgotten how to make ploughs (they had
+forgotten even how to make Jews&rsquo; harps by this time), and
+had eaten all the seed-corn which they brought out of the land of
+Hardwork years since; and of course it was too much trouble to go
+away and find more.&nbsp; So they lived miserably on roots and
+nuts, and all the weakly little children had great stomachs, and
+then died.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;they are growing no better
+than savages.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And look how ugly they are all getting,&rdquo; said
+Ellie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes; when people live on poor vegetables instead of
+roast beef and plum-pudding, their jaws grow large, and their
+lips grow coarse, like the poor Paddies who eat
+potatoes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she turned over the next five hundred years.&nbsp; And
+there they were all living up in trees, and making nests to keep
+off the rain.&nbsp; And underneath the trees lions were prowling
+about.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said Ellie, &ldquo;the lions seem to have
+eaten a good many of them, for there are very few left
+now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the fairy; &ldquo;you see it was only
+the strongest and most active ones who could climb the trees, and
+so escape.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But what great, hulking, broad-shouldered chaps they
+are,&rdquo; said Tom; &ldquo;they are a rough lot as ever I
+saw.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, they are getting very strong now; for the ladies
+will not marry any but the very strongest and fiercest gentlemen,
+who can help them up the trees out of the lions&rsquo;
+way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she turned over the next five hundred years.&nbsp; And in
+that they were fewer still, and stronger, and fiercer; but their
+feet had changed shape very oddly, for they laid hold of the
+branches with their great toes, as if they had been thumbs, just
+as a Hindoo tailor uses his toes to thread his needle.</p>
+<p>The children were very much surprised, and asked the fairy
+whether that was her doing.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, and no,&rdquo; she said, smiling.&nbsp; &ldquo;It
+was only those who could use their feet as well as their hands
+who could get a good living: or, indeed, get married; so that
+they got the best of everything, and starved out all the rest;
+and those who are left keep up a regular breed of toe-thumb-men,
+as a breed of short-horns, or are skye-terriers, or fancy pigeons
+is kept up.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But there is a hairy one among them,&rdquo; said
+Ellie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said the fairy, &ldquo;that will be a great
+man in his time, and chief of all the tribe.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And, when she turned over the next five hundred years, it was
+true.</p>
+<p>For this hairy chief had had hairy children, and they hairier
+children still; and every one wished to marry hairy husbands, and
+have hairy children too; for the climate was growing so damp that
+none but the hairy ones could live: all the rest coughed and
+sneezed, and had sore throats, and went into consumptions, before
+they could grow up to be men and women.</p>
+<p>Then the fairy turned over the next five hundred years.&nbsp;
+And they were fewer still.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, there is one on the ground picking up
+roots,&rdquo; said Ellie, &ldquo;and he cannot walk
+upright.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>No more he could; for in the same way that the shape of their
+feet had altered, the shape of their backs had altered also.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; cried Tom, &ldquo;I declare they are all
+apes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Something fearfully like it, poor foolish
+creatures,&rdquo; said the fairy.&nbsp; &ldquo;They are grown so
+stupid now, that they can hardly think: for none of them have
+used their wits for many hundred years.&nbsp; They have almost
+forgotten, too, how to talk.&nbsp; For each stupid child forgot
+some of the words it heard from its stupid parents, and had not
+wits enough to make fresh words for itself.&nbsp; Beside, they
+are grown so fierce and suspicious and brutal that they keep out
+of each other&rsquo;s way, and mope and sulk in the dark forests,
+never hearing each other&rsquo;s voice, till they have forgotten
+almost what speech is like.&nbsp; I am afraid they will all be
+apes very soon, and all by doing only what they liked.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And in the next five hundred years they were all dead and
+gone, by bad food and wild beasts and hunters; all except one
+tremendous old fellow with jaws like a jack, who stood full seven
+feet high; and M. Du Chaillu came up to him, and shot him, as he
+stood roaring and thumping his breast.&nbsp; And he remembered
+that his ancestors had once been men, and tried to say, &ldquo;Am
+I not a man and a brother?&rdquo; but had forgotten how to use
+his tongue; and then he had tried to call for a doctor, but he
+had forgotten the word for one.&nbsp; So all he said was
+&ldquo;Ubboboo!&rdquo; and died.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p236b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Ape"
+title=
+"Ape"
+ src="images/p236s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>And that was the end of the great and jolly nation of the
+Doasyoulikes.&nbsp; And, when Tom and Ellie came to the end of
+the book, they looked very sad and solemn; and they had good
+reason so to do, for they really fancied that the men were apes,
+and never thought, in their simplicity, of asking whether the
+creatures had hippopotamus majors in their brains or not; in
+which case, as you have been told already, they could not
+possibly have been apes, though they were more apish than the
+apes of all aperies.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But could you not have saved them from becoming
+apes?&rdquo; said little Ellie, at last.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At first, my dear; if only they would have behaved like
+men, and set to work to do what they did not like.&nbsp; But the
+longer they waited, and behaved like the dumb beasts, who only do
+what they like, the stupider and clumsier they grew; till at last
+they were past all cure, for they had thrown their own wits
+away.&nbsp; It is such things as this that help to make me so
+ugly, that I know not when I shall grow fair.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And where are they all now?&rdquo; asked Ellie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Exactly where they ought to be, my dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; said the fairy, solemnly, half to herself,
+as she closed the wonderful book.&nbsp; &ldquo;Folks say now that
+I can make beasts into men, by circumstance, and selection, and
+competition, and so forth.&nbsp; Well, perhaps they are right;
+and perhaps, again, they are wrong.&nbsp; That is one of the
+seven things which I am forbidden to tell, till the coming of the
+Cocqcigrues; and, at all events, it is no concern of
+theirs.&nbsp; Whatever their ancestors were, men they are; and I
+advise them to behave as such, and act accordingly.&nbsp; But let
+them recollect this, that there are two sides to every question,
+and a downhill as well as an uphill road; and, if I can turn
+beasts into men, I can, by the same laws of circumstance, and
+selection, and competition, turn men into beasts.&nbsp; You were
+very near being turned into a beast once or twice, little
+Tom.&nbsp; Indeed, if you had not made up your mind to go on this
+journey, and see the world, like an Englishman, I am not sure but
+that you would have ended as an eft in a pond.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear me!&rdquo; said Tom; &ldquo;sooner than that,
+and be all over slime, I&rsquo;ll go this minute, if it is to the
+world&rsquo;s end.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p238b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Newt"
+title=
+"Newt"
+ src="images/p238s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;And Nature, the old Nurse, took<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; The child upon her knee,<br />
+Saying, &lsquo;Here is a story book<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; Thy father hath written for thee.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Come wander with me,&rsquo; she said,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; &lsquo;Into regions yet untrod,<br />
+And read what is still unread<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; In the Manuscripts of God.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And he wandered away and away<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; With Nature, the dear old Nurse,<br />
+Who sang to him night and day<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; The rhymes of the universe.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="smcap">Longfellow</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p241b.jpg">
+<img class='floatleft' alt=
+"Tom about to dive"
+title=
+"Tom about to dive"
+ src="images/p241s.jpg" />
+</a>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">Now</span>,&rdquo; said Tom,
+&ldquo;I am ready be off, if it&rsquo;s to the world&rsquo;s
+end.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said the fairy, &ldquo;that is a brave, good
+boy.&nbsp; But you must go farther than the world&rsquo;s end, if
+you want to find Mr. Grimes; for he is at the
+Other-end-of-Nowhere.&nbsp; You must go to Shiny Wall, and
+through the white gate that never was opened; and then you will
+come to Peacepool, and Mother Carey&rsquo;s Haven, where the good
+whales go when they die.&nbsp; And there Mother Carey will tell
+you the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere, and there you will find
+Mr. Grimes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear!&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;But I do not
+know my way to Shiny Wall, or where it is at all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Little boys must take the trouble to find out things
+for themselves, or they will never grow to be men; so that you
+must ask all the beasts in the sea and the birds in the air, and
+if you have been good to them, some of them will tell you the way
+to Shiny Wall.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;it will be a long
+journey, so I had better start at once.&nbsp; Good-bye, Miss
+Ellie; you know I am getting a big boy, and I must go out and see
+the world.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know you must,&rdquo; said Ellie; &ldquo;but you will
+not forget me, Tom.&nbsp; I shall wait here till you
+come.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she shook hands with him, and bade him good-bye.&nbsp; Tom
+longed very much again to kiss her; but he thought it would not
+be respectful, considering she was a lady born; so he promised
+not to forget her: but his little whirl-about of a head was so
+full of the notion of going out to see the world, that it forgot
+her in five minutes: however, though his head forgot her, I am
+glad to say his heart did not.</p>
+<p>So he asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the birds in
+the air, but none of them knew the way to Shiny Wall.&nbsp; For
+why?&nbsp; He was still too far down south.</p>
+<p>Then he met a ship, far larger than he had ever seen&mdash;a
+gallant ocean-steamer, with a long cloud of smoke trailing
+behind; and he wondered how she went on without sails, and swam
+up to her to see.&nbsp; A school of dolphins were running races
+round and round her, going three feet for her one, and Tom asked
+them the way to Shiny Wall: but they did not know.&nbsp; Then he
+tried to find out how she moved, and at last he saw her screw,
+and was so delighted with it that he played under her quarter all
+day, till he nearly had his nose knocked off by the fans, and
+thought it time to move.&nbsp; Then he watched the sailors upon
+deck, and the ladies, with their bonnets and parasols: but none
+of them could see him, because their eyes were not
+opened,&mdash;as, indeed, most people&rsquo;s eyes are not.</p>
+<p>At last there came out into the quarter-gallery a very pretty
+lady, in deep black widow&rsquo;s weeds, and in her arms a
+baby.&nbsp; She leaned over the quarter-gallery, and looked back
+and back toward England far away; and as she looked she sang:</p>
+<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">I.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Soft soft wind</i>, <i>from out the sweet south
+sliding</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Waft thy silver cloud-webs athwart the summer
+sea</i>;<br />
+<i>Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining</i><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe
+and me</i>.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">II.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Deep deep Love</i>, <i>within thine own abyss
+abiding</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Pour Thyself abroad</i>, <i>O Lord</i>, <i>on
+earth and air and sea</i>;<br />
+<i>Worn weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Shield from sorrow</i>, <i>sin</i>, <i>and shame
+my helpless babe and me</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Her voice was so soft and low, and the music of the air so
+sweet, that Tom could have listened to it all day.&nbsp; But as
+she held the baby over the gallery rail, to show it the dolphins
+leaping and the water gurgling in the ship&rsquo;s wake, lo! and
+behold, the baby saw Tom.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p244b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The lady"
+title=
+"The lady"
+ src="images/p244s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>He was quite sure of that for when their eyes met, the baby
+smiled and held out his hands; and Tom smiled and held out his
+hands too; and the baby kicked and leaped, as if it wanted to
+jump overboard to him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you see, my darling?&rdquo; said the lady; and
+her eyes followed the baby&rsquo;s till she too caught sight of
+Tom, swimming about among the foam-beads below.</p>
+<p>She gave a little shriek and start; and then she said, quite
+quietly, &ldquo;Babies in the sea?&nbsp; Well, perhaps it is the
+happiest place for them;&rdquo; and waved her hand to Tom, and
+cried, &ldquo;Wait a little, darling, only a little: and perhaps
+we shall go with you and be at rest.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And at that an old nurse, all in black, came out and talked to
+her, and drew her in.&nbsp; And Tom turned away northward, sad
+and wondering; and watched the great steamer slide away into the
+dusk, and the lights on board peep out one by one, and die out
+again, and the long bar of smoke fade away into the evening mist,
+till all was out of sight.</p>
+<p>And he swam northward again, day after day, till at last he
+met the King of the Herrings, with a curry-comb growing out of
+his nose, and a sprat in his mouth for a cigar, and asked him the
+way to Shiny Wall; so he bolted his sprat head foremost, and
+said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I were you, young Gentleman, I should go to the
+Allalonestone, and ask the last of the Gairfowl.&nbsp; She is of
+a very ancient clan, very nearly as ancient as my own; and knows
+a good deal which these modern upstarts don&rsquo;t, as ladies of
+old houses are likely to do.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p246b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The King of the Herrings"
+title=
+"The King of the Herrings"
+ src="images/p246s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Tom asked his way to her, and the King of the Herrings told
+him very kindly, for he was a courteous old gentleman of the old
+school, though he was horribly ugly, and strangely bedizened too,
+like the old dandies who lounge in the club-house windows.</p>
+<p>But just as Tom had thanked him and set off, he called after
+him: &ldquo;Hi!&nbsp; I say, can you fly?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I never tried,&rdquo; says Tom.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because, if you can, I should advise you to say nothing
+to the old lady about it.&nbsp; There; take a hint.&nbsp;
+Good-bye.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And away Tom went for seven days and seven nights due
+north-west, till he came to a great codbank, the like of which he
+never saw before.&nbsp; The great cod lay below in tens of
+thousands, and gobbled shell-fish all day long; and the blue
+sharks roved above in hundreds, and gobbled them when they came
+up.&nbsp; So they ate, and ate, and ate each other, as they had
+done since the making of the world; for no man had come here yet
+to catch them, and find out how rich old Mother Carey is.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p247b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Gairfowl"
+title=
+"The Gairfowl"
+ src="images/p247s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>And there he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing up on the
+Allalonestones all alone.&nbsp; And a very grand old lady she
+was, full three feet high, and bolt upright, like some old
+Highland chieftainess.&nbsp; She had on a black velvet gown, and
+a white pinner and apron, and a very high bridge to her nose
+(which is a sure mark of high breeding), and a large pair of
+white spectacles on it, which made her look rather odd: but it
+was the ancient fashion of her house.</p>
+<p>And instead of wings, she had two little feathery arms, with
+which she fanned herself, and complained of the dreadful heat;
+and she kept on crooning an old song to herself, which she learnt
+when she was a little baby-bird, long ago&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<i>Two little birds they sat on a
+stone</i>,<br />
+<i>One swam away</i>, <i>and then there was one</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>With a fal-lal-la-lady</i>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>The other swam after</i>, <i>and then there was
+none</i>,<br />
+<i>And so the poor stone was left all alone</i>;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>With a
+fal-lal-la-lady</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>It was &ldquo;flew&rdquo; away, properly, and not
+&ldquo;swam&rdquo; away: but, as she could not fly, she had a
+right to alter it.&nbsp; However, it was a very fit song for her
+to sing, because she was a lady herself.</p>
+<p>Tom came up to her very humbly, and made his bow; and the
+first thing she said was&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you wings?&nbsp; Can you fly?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh dear, no, ma&rsquo;am; I should not think of such
+thing,&rdquo; said cunning little Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I shall have great pleasure in talking to you, my
+dear.&nbsp; It is quite refreshing nowadays to see anything
+without wings.&nbsp; They must all have wings, forsooth, now,
+every new upstart sort of bird, and fly.&nbsp; What can they want
+with flying, and raising themselves above their proper station in
+life?&nbsp; In the days of my ancestors no birds ever thought of
+having wings, and did very well without; and now they all laugh
+at me because I keep to the good old fashion.&nbsp; Why, the very
+marrocks and dovekies have got wings, the vulgar creatures, and
+poor little ones enough they are; and my own cousins too, the
+razor-bills, who are gentlefolk born, and ought to know better
+than to ape their inferiors.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And so she was running on, while Tom tried to get in a word
+edgeways; and at last he did, when the old lady got out of
+breath, and began fanning herself again; and then he asked if she
+knew the way to Shiny Wall.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shiny Wall?&nbsp; Who should know better than I?&nbsp;
+We all came from Shiny Wall, thousands of years ago, when it was
+decently cold, and the climate was fit for gentlefolk; but now,
+what with the heat, and what with these vulgar-winged things who
+fly up and down and eat everything, so that gentlepeople&rsquo;s
+hunting is all spoilt, and one really cannot get one&rsquo;s
+living, or hardly venture off the rock for fear of being flown
+against by some creature that would not have dared to come within
+a mile of one a thousand years ago&mdash;what was I saying?&nbsp;
+Why, we have quite gone down in the world, my dear, and have
+nothing left but our honour.&nbsp; And I am the last of my
+family.&nbsp; A friend of mine and I came and settled on this
+rock when we were young, to be out of the way of low
+people.&nbsp; Once we were a great nation, and spread over all
+the Northern Isles.&nbsp; But men shot us so, and knocked us on
+the head, and took our eggs&mdash;why, if you will believe it,
+they say that on the coast of Labrador the sailors used to lay a
+plank from the rock on board the thing called their ship, and
+drive us along the plank by hundreds, till we tumbled down into
+the ship&rsquo;s waist in heaps; and then, I suppose, they ate
+us, the nasty fellows!&nbsp; Well&mdash;but&mdash;what was I
+saying?&nbsp; At last, there were none of us left, except on the
+old Gairfowlskerry, just off the Iceland coast, up which no man
+could climb.&nbsp; Even there we had no peace; for one day, when
+I was quite a young girl, the land rocked, and the sea boiled,
+and the sky grew dark, and all the air was filled with smoke and
+dust, and down tumbled the old Gairfowlskerry into the sea.&nbsp;
+The dovekies and marrocks, of course, all flew away; but we were
+too proud to do that.&nbsp; Some of us were dashed to pieces, and
+some drowned; and those who were left got away to Eldey, and the
+dovekies tell me they are all dead now, and that another
+Gairfowlskerry has risen out of the sea close to the old one, but
+that it is such a poor flat place that it is not safe to live on:
+and so here I am left alone.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This was the Gairfowl&rsquo;s story, and, strange as it may
+seem, it is every word of it true.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you only had had wings!&rdquo; said Tom; &ldquo;then
+you might all have flown away too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, young gentleman: and if people are not gentleman
+and ladies, and forget that <i>noblesse oblige</i>, they will
+find it as easy to get on in the world as other people who
+don&rsquo;t care what they do.&nbsp; Why, if I had not
+recollected that <i>noblesse oblige</i>, I should not have been
+all alone now.&rdquo;&nbsp; And the poor old lady sighed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How was that, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, my dear, a gentleman came hither with me, and
+after we had been here some time, he wanted to marry&mdash;in
+fact, he actually proposed to me.&nbsp; Well, I can&rsquo;t blame
+him; I was young, and very handsome then, I don&rsquo;t deny: but
+you see, I could not hear of such a thing, because he was my
+deceased sister&rsquo;s husband, you see?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course not, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said Tom; though, of
+course, he knew nothing about it.&nbsp; &ldquo;She was very much
+diseased, I suppose?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You do not understand me, my dear.&nbsp; I mean, that
+being a lady, and with right and honourable feelings, as our
+house always has had, I felt it my duty to snub him, and howk
+him, and peck him continually, to keep him at his proper
+distance; and, to tell the truth, I once pecked him a little too
+hard, poor fellow, and he tumbled backwards off the rock,
+and&mdash;really, it was very unfortunate, but it was not my
+fault&mdash;a shark coming by saw him flapping, and snapped him
+up. And since then I have lived all alone&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&lsquo;<i>With a fal-lal-la-lady</i>.&rsquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And soon I shall be gone, my little dear, and nobody will miss
+me; and then the poor stone will be left all alone.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But, please, which is the way to Shiny Wall?&rdquo;
+said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you must go, my little dear&mdash;you must
+go.&nbsp; Let me see&mdash;I am sure&mdash;that is&mdash;really,
+my poor old brains are getting quite puzzled.&nbsp; Do you know,
+my little dear, I am afraid, if you want to know, you must ask
+some of these vulgar birds about, for I have quite
+forgotten.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And the poor old Gairfowl began to cry tears of pure oil; and
+Tom was quite sorry for her; and for himself too, for he was at
+his wit&rsquo;s end whom to ask.</p>
+<p>But by there came a flock of petrels, who are Mother
+Carey&rsquo;s own chickens; and Tom thought them much prettier
+than Lady Gairfowl, and so perhaps they were; for Mother Carey
+had had a great deal of fresh experience between the time that
+she invented the Gairfowl and the time that she invented
+them.&nbsp; They flitted along like a flock of black swallows,
+and hopped and skipped from wave to wave, lifting up their little
+feet behind them so daintily, and whistling to each other so
+tenderly, that Tom fell in love with them at once, and called
+them to know the way to Shiny Wall.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shiny Wall?&nbsp; Do you want Shiny Wall?&nbsp; Then
+come with us, and we will show you.&nbsp; We are Mother
+Carey&rsquo;s own chickens, and she sends us out over all the
+seas, to show the good birds the way home.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom was delighted, and swam off to them, after he had made his
+bow to the Gairfowl.&nbsp; But she would not return his bow: but
+held herself bolt upright, and wept tears of oil as she sang:</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<i>And so the poor stone was left all
+alone</i>;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>With a
+fal-lal-la-lady</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But she was wrong there; for the stone was not left all alone:
+and the next time that Tom goes by it, he will see a sight worth
+seeing.</p>
+<p>The old Gairfowl is gone already: but there are better things
+come in her place; and when Tom comes he will see the
+fishing-smacks anchored there in hundreds, from Scotland, and
+from Ireland, and from the Orkneys, and the Shetlands, and from
+all the Northern ports, full of the children of the old Norse
+Vikings, the masters of the sea.&nbsp; And the men will be
+hauling in the great cod by thousands, till their hands are sore
+from the lines; and they will be making cod-liver oil and guano,
+and salting down the fish; and there will be a man-of-war steamer
+there to protect them, and a lighthouse to show them the way; and
+you and I, perhaps, shall go some day to the Allalonestone to the
+great summer sea-fair, and dredge strange creatures such as man
+never saw before; and we shall hear the sailors boast that it is
+not the worst jewel in Queen Victoria&rsquo;s crown, for there
+are eighty miles of codbank, and food for all the poor folk in
+the land.&nbsp; That is what Tom will see, and perhaps you and I
+shall see it too.&nbsp; And then we shall not be sorry because we
+cannot get a Gairfowl to stuff, much less find gairfowl enough to
+drive them into stone pens and slaughter them, as the old
+Norsemen did, or drive them on board along a plank till the ship
+was victualled with them, as the old English and French rovers
+used to do, of whom dear old Hakluyt tells: but we shall remember
+what Mr. Tennyson says: how</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<i>The old order changeth</i>, <i>giving
+place to the new</i>,<br />
+<i>And God fulfils himself in many ways</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And now Tom was all agog to start for Shiny Wall; but the
+petrels said no.&nbsp; They must go first to Allfowlsness, and
+wait there for the great gathering of all the sea-birds, before
+they start for their summer breeding-places far away in the
+Northern Isles; and there they would be sure to find some birds
+which were going to Shiny Wall: but where Allfowlsness was, he
+must promise never to tell, lest men should go there and shoot
+the birds, and stuff them, and put them into stupid museums,
+instead of leaving them to play and breed and work in Mother
+Carey&rsquo;s water-garden, where they ought to be.</p>
+<p>So where Allfowlsness is nobody must know; and all that is to
+be said about it is, that Tom waited there many days; and as he
+waited, he saw a very curious sight.&nbsp; On the rabbit burrows
+on the shore there gathered hundreds and hundreds of
+hoodie-crows, such as you see in Cambridgeshire.&nbsp; And they
+made such a noise, that Tom came on shore and went up to see what
+was the matter.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p256b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Crows"
+title=
+"Crows"
+ src="images/p256s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>And there he found them holding their great caucus, which they
+hold every year in the North; and all their stump-orators were
+speechifying; and for a tribune, the speaker stood on an old
+sheep&rsquo;s skull.</p>
+<p>And they cawed and cawed, and boasted of all the clever things
+they had done; how many lambs&rsquo; eyes they had picked out,
+and how many dead bullocks they had eaten, and how many young
+grouse they had swallowed whole, and how many grouse-eggs they
+had flown away with, stuck on the point of their bills, which is
+the hoodie-crow&rsquo;s particularly clever feat, of which he is
+as proud as a gipsy is of doing the hokany-baro; and what that
+is, I won&rsquo;t tell you.</p>
+<p>And at last they brought out the prettiest, neatest young
+lady-crow that ever was seen, and set her in the middle, and all
+began abusing and vilifying, and rating, and bullyragging at her,
+because she had stolen no grouse-eggs, and had actually dared to
+say that she would not steal any.&nbsp; So she was to be tried
+publicly by their laws (for the hoodies always try some offenders
+in their great yearly parliament).&nbsp; And there she stood in
+the middle, in her black gown and gray hood, looking as meek and
+as neat as a Quakeress, and they all bawled at her at
+once&mdash;</p>
+<p>And it was in vain that she pleaded&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p><i>That she did not like grouse-eggs</i>;</p>
+<p><i>That she could get her living very well without
+them</i>;</p>
+<p><i>That she was afraid to eat them</i>, <i>for fear of the
+gamekeepers</i>;</p>
+<p><i>That she had not the heart to eat them</i>, <i>because the
+grouse were such pretty</i>, <i>kind</i>, <i>jolly birds</i>;</p>
+<p><i>And a dozen reasons more</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>For all the other scaul-crows set upon her, and pecked her to
+death there and then, before Tom could come to help her; and then
+flew away, very proud of what they had done.</p>
+<p>Now, was not this a scandalous transaction?</p>
+<p>But they are true republicans, these hoodies, who do every one
+just what he likes, and make other people do so too; so that, for
+any freedom of speech, thought, or action, which is allowed among
+them, they might as well be American citizens of the new
+school.</p>
+<p>But the fairies took the good crow, and gave her nine new sets
+of feathers running, and turned her at last into the most
+beautiful bird of paradise with a green velvet suit and a long
+tail, and sent her to eat fruit in the Spice Islands, where
+cloves and nutmegs grow.</p>
+<p>And Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid settled her account with the wicked
+hoodies.&nbsp; For, as they flew away, what should they find but
+a nasty dead dog?&mdash;on which they all set to work, peeking
+and gobbling and cawing and quarrelling to their hearts&rsquo;
+content.&nbsp; But the moment afterwards, they all threw up their
+bills into the air, and gave one screech; and then turned head
+over heels backward, and fell down dead, one hundred and
+twenty-three of them at once.&nbsp; For why?&nbsp; The fairy had
+told the gamekeeper in a dream, to fill the dead dog full of
+strychnine; and so he did.</p>
+<p>And after a while the birds began to gather at Allfowlsness,
+in thousands and tens of thousands, blackening all the air; swans
+and brant geese, harlequins and eiders, harolds and garganeys,
+smews and goosanders, divers and loons, grebes and dovekies, auks
+and razor-bills, gannets and petrels, skuas and terns, with gulls
+beyond all naming or numbering; and they paddled and washed and
+splashed and combed and brushed themselves on the sand, till the
+shore was white with feathers; and they quacked and clucked and
+gabbled and chattered and screamed and whooped as they talked
+over matters with their friends, and settled where they were to
+go and breed that summer, till you might have heard them ten
+miles off; and lucky it was for them that there was no one to
+hear them but the old keeper, who lived all alone upon the Ness,
+in a turf hut thatched with heather and fringed round with great
+stones slung across the roof by bent-ropes, lest the winter gales
+should blow the hut right away.&nbsp; But he never minded the
+birds nor hurt them, because they were not in season; indeed, he
+minded but two things in the whole world, and those were, his
+Bible and his grouse; for he was as good an old Scotchman as ever
+knit stockings on a winter&rsquo;s night: only, when all the
+birds were going, he toddled out, and took off his cap to them,
+and wished them a merry journey and a safe return; and then
+gathered up all the feathers which they had left, and cleaned
+them to sell down south, and make feather-beds for stuffy people
+to lie on.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p259b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The Scotchman"
+title=
+"The Scotchman"
+ src="images/p259s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Then the petrels asked this bird and that whether they would
+take Tom to Shiny Wall: but one set was going to Sutherland, and
+one to the Shetlands, and one to Norway, and one to Spitzbergen,
+and one to Iceland, and one to Greenland: but none would go to
+Shiny Wall.&nbsp; So the good-natured petrels said that they
+would show him part of the way themselves, but they were only
+going as far as Jan Mayen&rsquo;s Land; and after that he must
+shift for himself.</p>
+<p>And then all the birds rose up, and streamed away in long
+black lines, north, and north-east, and north-west, across the
+bright blue summer sky; and their cry was like ten thousand packs
+of hounds, and ten thousand peals of bells.&nbsp; Only the
+puffins stayed behind, and killed the young rabbits, and laid
+their eggs in the rabbit-burrows; which was rough practice,
+certainly; but a man must see to his own family.</p>
+<p>And, as Tom and the petrels went north-eastward, it began to
+blow right hard; for the old gentleman in the gray great-coat,
+who looks after the big copper boiler, in the gulf of Mexico, had
+got behindhand with his work; so Mother Carey had sent an
+electric message to him for more steam; and now the steam was
+coming, as much in an hour as ought to have come in a week,
+puffing and roaring and swishing and swirling, till you could not
+see where the sky ended and the sea began.&nbsp; But Tom and the
+petrels never cared, for the gale was right abaft, and away they
+went over the crests of the billows, as merry as so many
+flying-fish.</p>
+<p>And at last they saw an ugly sight&mdash;the black side of a
+great ship, waterlogged in the trough of the sea.&nbsp; Her
+funnel and her masts were overboard, and swayed and surged under
+her lee; her decks were swept as clean as a barn floor, and there
+was no living soul on board.</p>
+<p>The petrels flew up to her, and wailed round her; for they
+were very sorry indeed, and also they expected to find some salt
+pork; and Tom scrambled on board of her and looked round,
+frightened and sad.</p>
+<p>And there, in a little cot, lashed tight under the bulwark,
+lay a baby fast asleep; the very same baby, Tom saw at once,
+which he had seen in the singing lady&rsquo;s arms.</p>
+<p>He went up to it, and wanted to wake it; but behold, from
+under the cot out jumped a little black and tan terrier dog, and
+began barking and snapping at Tom, and would not let him touch
+the cot.</p>
+<p>Tom knew the dog&rsquo;s teeth could not hurt him: but at
+least it could shove him away, and did; and he and the dog fought
+and struggled, for he wanted to help the baby, and did not want
+to throw the poor dog overboard: but as they were struggling
+there came a tall green sea, and walked in over the weather side
+of the ship, and swept them all into the waves.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, the baby, the baby!&rdquo; screamed Tom: but the
+next moment he did not scream at all; for he saw the cot settling
+down through the green water, with the baby, smiling in it, fast
+asleep; and he saw the fairies come up from below, and carry baby
+and cradle gently down in their soft arms; and then he knew it
+was all right, and that there would be a new water-baby in St.
+Brandan&rsquo;s Isle.</p>
+<p>And the poor little dog?</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p262b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The dog"
+title=
+"The dog"
+ src="images/p262s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Why, after he had kicked and coughed a little, he sneezed so
+hard, that he sneezed himself clean out of his skin, and turned
+into a water-dog, and jumped and danced round Tom, and ran over
+the crests of the waves, and snapped at the jelly-fish and the
+mackerel, and followed Tom the whole way to the
+Other-end-of-Nowhere.</p>
+<p>Then they went on again, till they began to see the peak of
+Jan Mayen&rsquo;s Land, standing-up like a white sugar-loaf, two
+miles above the clouds.</p>
+<p>And there they fell in with a whole flock of molly-mocks, who
+were feeding on a dead whale.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;These are the fellows to show you the way,&rdquo; said
+Mother Carey&rsquo;s chickens; &ldquo;we cannot help you farther
+north.&nbsp; We don&rsquo;t like to get among the ice pack, for
+fear it should nip our toes: but the mollys dare fly
+anywhere.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p264b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Mother Carey&rsquo;s chickens"
+title=
+"Mother Carey&rsquo;s chickens"
+ src="images/p264s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>So the petrels called to the mollys: but they were so busy and
+greedy, gobbling and peeking and spluttering and fighting over
+the blubber, that they did not take the least notice.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come, come,&rdquo; said the petrels, &ldquo;you lazy
+greedy lubbers, this young gentleman is going to Mother Carey,
+and if you don&rsquo;t attend on him, you won&rsquo;t earn your
+discharge from her, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Greedy we are,&rdquo; says a great fat old molly,
+&ldquo;but lazy we ain&rsquo;t; and, as for lubbers, we&rsquo;re
+no more lubbers than you.&nbsp; Let&rsquo;s have a look at the
+lad.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And he flapped right into Tom&rsquo;s face, and stared at him
+in the most impudent way (for the mollys are audacious fellows,
+as all whalers know), and then asked him where he hailed from,
+and what land he sighted last.</p>
+<p>And, when Tom told him, he seemed pleased, and said he was a
+good plucked one to have got so far.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come along, lads,&rdquo; he said to the rest,
+&ldquo;and give this little chap a cast over the pack, for Mother
+Carey&rsquo;s sake.&nbsp; We&rsquo;ve eaten blubber enough for
+to-day, and we&rsquo;ll e&rsquo;en work out a bit of our time by
+helping the lad.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So the mollys took Tom up on their backs, and flew off with
+him, laughing and joking&mdash;and oh, how they did smell of
+train oil!</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who are you, you jolly birds?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We are the spirits of the old Greenland skippers (as
+every sailor knows), who hunted here, right whales and
+horse-whales, full hundreds of years agone.&nbsp; But, because we
+were saucy and greedy, we were all turned into mollys, to eat
+whale&rsquo;s blubber all our days.&nbsp; But lubbers we are
+none, and could sail a ship now against any man in the North
+seas, though we don&rsquo;t hold with this new-fangled
+steam.&nbsp; And it&rsquo;s a shame of those black imps of
+petrels to call us so; but because they&rsquo;re her
+grace&rsquo;s pets, they think they may say anything they
+like.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And who are you?&rdquo; asked Tom of him, for he saw
+that he was the king of all the birds.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My name is Hendrick Hudson, and a right good skipper
+was I; and my name will last to the world&rsquo;s end, in spite
+of all the wrong I did.&nbsp; For I discovered Hudson River, and
+I named Hudson&rsquo;s Bay; and many have come in my wake that
+dared not have shown me the way.&nbsp; But I was a hard man in my
+time, that&rsquo;s truth, and stole the poor Indians off the
+coast of Maine, and sold them for slaves down in Virginia; and at
+last I was so cruel to my sailors, here in these very seas, that
+they set me adrift in an open boat, and I never was heard of
+more.&nbsp; So now I&rsquo;m the king of all mollys, till
+I&rsquo;ve worked out my time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And now they came to the edge of the pack, and beyond it they
+could see Shiny Wall looming, through mist, and snow, and
+storm.&nbsp; But the pack rolled horribly upon the swell, and the
+ice giants fought and roared, and leapt upon each other&rsquo;s
+backs, and ground each other to powder, so that Tom was afraid to
+venture among them, lest he should be ground to powder too.&nbsp;
+And he was the more afraid, when he saw lying among the ice pack
+the wrecks of many a gallant ship; some with masts and yards all
+standing, some with the seamen frozen fast on board.&nbsp; Alas,
+alas, for them!&nbsp; They were all true English hearts; and they
+came to their end like good knights-errant, in searching for the
+white gate that never was opened yet.</p>
+<p>But the good mollys took Tom and his dog up, and flew with
+them safe over the pack and the roaring ice giants, and set them
+down at the foot of Shiny Wall.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And where is the gate?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There is no gate,&rdquo; said the mollys.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No gate?&rdquo; cried Tom, aghast.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;None; never a crack of one, and that&rsquo;s the whole
+of the secret, as better fellows, lad, than you have found to
+their cost; and if there had been, they&rsquo;d have killed by
+now every right whale that swims the sea.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What am I to do, then?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dive under the floe, to be sure, if you have
+pluck.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve not come so far to turn now,&rdquo; said
+Tom; &ldquo;so here goes for a header.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A lucky voyage to you, lad,&rdquo; said the mollys;
+&ldquo;we knew you were one of the right sort.&nbsp; So
+good-bye.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you come too?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>But the mollys only wailed sadly, &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t go
+yet, we can&rsquo;t go yet,&rdquo; and flew away over the
+pack.</p>
+<p>So Tom dived under the great white gate which never was opened
+yet, and went on in black darkness, at the bottom of the sea, for
+seven days and seven nights.&nbsp; And yet he was not a bit
+frightened.&nbsp; Why should he be?&nbsp; He was a brave English
+lad, whose business is to go out and see all the world.</p>
+<p>And at last he saw the light, and clear clear water overhead;
+and up he came a thousand fathoms, among clouds of sea-moths,
+which fluttered round his head.&nbsp; There were moths with pink
+heads and wings and opal bodies, that flapped about slowly; moths
+with brown wings that flapped about quickly; yellow shrimps that
+hopped and skipped most quickly of all; and jellies of all the
+colours in the world, that neither hopped nor skipped, but only
+dawdled and yawned, and would not get out of his way.&nbsp; The
+dog snapped at them till his jaws were tired; but Tom hardly
+minded them at all, he was so eager to get to the top of the
+water, and see the pool where the good whales go.</p>
+<p>And a very large pool it was, miles and miles across, though
+the air was so clear that the ice cliffs on the opposite side
+looked as if they were close at hand.&nbsp; All round it the ice
+cliffs rose, in walls and spires and battlements, and caves and
+bridges, and stories and galleries, in which the ice-fairies
+live, and drive away the storms and clouds, that Mother
+Carey&rsquo;s pool may lie calm from year&rsquo;s end to
+year&rsquo;s end.&nbsp; And the sun acted policeman, and walked
+round outside every day, peeping just over the top of the ice
+wall, to see that all went right; and now and then he played
+conjuring tricks, or had an exhibition of fireworks, to amuse the
+ice-fairies.&nbsp; For he would make himself into four or five
+suns at once, or paint the sky with rings and crosses and
+crescents of white fire, and stick himself in the middle of them,
+and wink at the fairies; and I daresay they were very much
+amused; for anything&rsquo;s fun in the country.</p>
+<p>And there the good whales lay, the happy sleepy beasts, upon
+the still oily sea.&nbsp; They were all right whales, you must
+know, and finners, and razor-backs, and bottle-noses, and spotted
+sea-unicorns with long ivory horns.&nbsp; But the sperm whales
+are such raging, ramping, roaring, rumbustious fellows, that, if
+Mother Carey let them in, there would be no more peace in
+Peacepool.&nbsp; So she packs them away in a great pond by
+themselves at the South Pole, two hundred and sixty-three miles
+south-south-east of Mount Erebus, the great volcano in the ice;
+and there they butt each other with their ugly noses, day and
+night from year&rsquo;s end to year&rsquo;s end.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p269b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Mother Carey"
+title=
+"Mother Carey"
+ src="images/p269s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>But here there were only good quiet beasts, lying about like
+the black hulls of sloops, and blowing every now and then jets of
+white steam, or sculling round with their huge mouths open, for
+the sea-moths to swim down their throats.&nbsp; There were no
+threshers there to thresh their poor old backs, or sword-fish to
+stab their stomachs, or saw-fish to rip them up, or ice-sharks to
+bite lumps out of their sides, or whalers to harpoon and lance
+them.&nbsp; They were quite safe and happy there; and all they
+had to do was to wait quietly in Peacepool, till Mother Carey
+sent for them to make them out of old beasts into new.</p>
+<p>Tom swam up to the nearest whale, and asked the way to Mother
+Carey.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There she sits in the middle,&rdquo; said the
+whale.</p>
+<p>Tom looked; but he could see nothing in the middle of the
+pool, but one peaked iceberg: and he said so.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s Mother Carey,&rdquo; said the whale,
+&ldquo;as you will find when you get to her.&nbsp; There she sits
+making old beasts into new all the year round.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How does she do that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s her concern, not mine,&rdquo; said the old
+whale; and yawned so wide (for he was very large) that there swam
+into his mouth 943 sea-moths, 13,846 jelly-fish no bigger than
+pins&rsquo; heads, a string of salp&aelig; nine yards long, and
+forty-three little ice-crabs, who gave each other a parting pinch
+all round, tucked their legs under their stomachs, and determined
+to die decently, like Julius C&aelig;sar.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;she cuts up a great
+whale like you into a whole shoal of porpoises?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At which the old whale laughed so violently that he coughed up
+all the creatures; who swam away again very thankful at having
+escaped out of that terrible whalebone net of his, from which
+bourne no traveller returns; and Tom went on to the iceberg,
+wondering.</p>
+<p>And, when he came near it, it took the form of the grandest
+old lady he had ever seen&mdash;a white marble lady, sitting on a
+white marble throne.&nbsp; And from the foot of the throne there
+swum away, out and out into the sea, millions of new-born
+creatures, of more shapes and colours than man ever
+dreamed.&nbsp; And they were Mother Carey&rsquo;s children, whom
+she makes out of the sea-water all day long.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p271b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Mother Carey"
+title=
+"Mother Carey"
+ src="images/p271s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>He expected, of course&mdash;like some grown people who ought
+to know better&mdash;to find her snipping, piecing, fitting,
+stitching, cobbling, basting, filing, planing, hammering,
+turning, polishing, moulding, measuring, chiselling, clipping,
+and so forth, as men do when they go to work to make
+anything.</p>
+<p>But, instead of that, she sat quite still with her chin upon
+her hand, looking down into the sea with two great grand blue
+eyes, as blue as the sea itself.&nbsp; Her hair was as white as
+the snow&mdash;for she was very very old&mdash;in fact, as old as
+anything which you are likely to come across, except the
+difference between right and wrong.</p>
+<p>And, when she saw Tom, she looked at him very kindly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you want, my little man?&nbsp; It is long since
+I have seen a water-baby here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom told her his errand, and asked the way to the
+Other-end-of-Nowhere.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You ought to know yourself, for you have been there
+already.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have I, ma&rsquo;am?&nbsp; I&rsquo;m sure I forget all
+about it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then look at me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And, as Tom looked into her great blue eyes, he recollected
+the way perfectly.</p>
+<p>Now, was not that strange?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thank you, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Then I won&rsquo;t trouble your ladyship any more; I hear
+you are very busy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am never more busy than I am now,&rdquo; she said,
+without stirring a finger.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I heard, ma&rsquo;am, that you were always making new
+beasts out of old.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So people fancy.&nbsp; But I am not going to trouble
+myself to make things, my little dear.&nbsp; I sit here and make
+them make themselves.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are a clever fairy, indeed,&rdquo; thought
+Tom.&nbsp; And he was quite right.</p>
+<p>That is a grand trick of good old Mother Carey&rsquo;s, and a
+grand answer, which she has had occasion to make several times to
+impertinent people.</p>
+<p>There was once, for instance, a fairy who was so clever that
+she found out how to make butterflies.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t mean
+sham ones; no: but real live ones, which would fly, and eat, and
+lay eggs, and do everything that they ought; and she was so proud
+of her skill that she went flying straight off to the North Pole,
+to boast to Mother Carey how she could make butterflies.</p>
+<p>But Mother Carey laughed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Know, silly child,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that any one
+can make things, if they will take time and trouble enough: but
+it is not every one who, like me, can make things make
+themselves.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But people do not yet believe that Mother Carey is as clever
+as all that comes to; and they will not till they, too, go the
+journey to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now, my pretty little man,&rdquo; said Mother
+Carey, &ldquo;you are sure you know the way to the
+Other-end-of-Nowhere?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom thought; and behold, he had forgotten it utterly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That is because you took your eyes off me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom looked at her again, and recollected; and then looked
+away, and forgot in an instant.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But what am I to do, ma&rsquo;am?&nbsp; For I
+can&rsquo;t keep looking at you when I am somewhere
+else.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You must do without me, as most people have to do, for
+nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of their lives; and look
+at the dog instead; for he knows the way well enough, and will
+not forget it.&nbsp; Besides, you may meet some very
+queer-tempered people there, who will not let you pass without
+this passport of mine, which you must hang round your neck and
+take care of; and, of course, as the dog will always go behind
+you, you must go the whole way backward.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Backward!&rdquo; cried Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Then I shall
+not be able to see my way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On the contrary, if you look forward, you will not see
+a step before you, and be certain to go wrong; but, if you look
+behind you, and watch carefully whatever you have passed, and
+especially keep your eye on the dog, who goes by instinct, and
+therefore can&rsquo;t go wrong, then you will know what is coming
+next, as plainly as if you saw it in a looking-glass.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom was very much astonished: but he obeyed her, for he had
+learnt always to believe what the fairies told him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So it is, my dear child,&rdquo; said Mother Carey;
+&ldquo;and I will tell you a story, which will show you that I am
+perfectly right, as it is my custom to be.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Once on a time, there were two brothers.&nbsp; One was
+called Prometheus, because he always looked before him, and
+boasted that he was wise beforehand.&nbsp; The other was called
+Epimetheus, because he always looked behind him, and did not
+boast at all; but said humbly, like the Irishman, that he had
+sooner prophesy after the event.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, Prometheus was a very clever fellow, of course,
+and invented all sorts of wonderful things.&nbsp; But,
+unfortunately, when they were set to work, to work was just what
+they would not do: wherefore very little has come of them, and
+very little is left of them; and now nobody knows what they were,
+save a few arch&aelig;ological old gentlemen who scratch in queer
+corners, and find little there save Ptinum Furem, Blaptem
+Mortisagam, Acarum Horridum, and Tineam Laciniarum.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But Epimetheus was a very slow fellow, certainly, and
+went among men for a clod, and a muff, and a milksop, and a
+slowcoach, and a bloke, and a boodle, and so forth.&nbsp; And
+very little he did, for many years: but what he did, he never had
+to do over again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what happened at last?&nbsp; There came to the two
+brothers the most beautiful creature that ever was seen, Pandora
+by name; which means, All the gifts of the Gods.&nbsp; But
+because she had a strange box in her hand, this fanciful,
+forecasting, suspicious, prudential, theoretical, deductive,
+prophesying Prometheus, who was always settling what was going to
+happen, would have nothing to do with pretty Pandora and her
+box.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But Epimetheus took her and it, as he took everything
+that came; and married her for better for worse, as every man
+ought, whenever he has even the chance of a good wife.&nbsp; And
+they opened the box between them, of course, to see what was
+inside: for, else, of what possible use could it have been to
+them?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And out flew all the ills which flesh is heir to; all
+the children of the four great bogies, Self-will, Ignorance,
+Fear, and Dirt&mdash;for instance:</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Measles</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Famines</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Monks</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Quacks</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Scarlatina</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Unpaid bills</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Idols</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Tight stays</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Hooping-coughs</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Potatoes</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Popes</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Bad Wine</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Wars</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Despots</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><i>Peacemongers</i>,</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><i>Demagogues</i>,</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p><i>And</i>, <i>worst of all</i>, <i>Naughty
+Boys and Girls</i>.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>But one thing remained at the bottom of the box, and that was,
+Hope.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, as most men
+do in this world: but he got the three best things in the world
+into the bargain&mdash;a good wife, and experience, and hope:
+while Prometheus had just as much trouble, and a great deal more
+(as you will hear), of his own making; with nothing beside, save
+fancies spun out of his own brain, as a spider spins her web out
+of her stomach.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And Prometheus kept on looking before him so far ahead,
+that as he was running about with a box of lucifers (which were
+the only useful things he ever invented, and do as much harm as
+good), he trod on his own nose, and tumbled down (as most
+deductive philosophers do), whereby he set the Thames on fire;
+and they have hardly put it out again yet.&nbsp; So he had to be
+chained to the top of a mountain, with a vulture by him to give
+him a peck whenever he stirred, lest he should turn the whole
+world upside down with his prophecies and his theories.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But stupid old Epimetheus went working and grubbing on,
+with the help of his wife Pandora, always looking behind him to
+see what had happened, till he really learnt to know now and then
+what would happen next; and understood so well which side his
+bread was buttered, and which way the cat jumped, that he began
+to make things which would work, and go on working, too; to till
+and drain the ground, and to make looms, and ships, and
+railroads, and steam ploughs, and electric telegraphs, and all
+the things which you see in the Great Exhibition; and to foretell
+famine, and bad weather, and the price of stocks and (what is
+hardest of all) the next vagary of the great idol Whirligig,
+which some call Public Opinion; till at last he grew as rich as a
+Jew, and as fat as a farmer, and people thought twice before they
+meddled with him, but only once before they asked him to help
+them; for, because he earned his money well, he could afford to
+spend it well likewise.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And his children are the men of science, who get good
+lasting work done in the world; but the children of Prometheus
+are the fanatics, and the theorists, and the bigots, and the
+bores, and the noisy windy people, who go telling silly folk what
+will happen, instead of looking to see what has happened
+already.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Now, was not Mother Carey&rsquo;s a wonderful story?&nbsp;
+And, I am happy to say, Tom believed it every word.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p278b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Old Mother Shipton"
+title=
+"Old Mother Shipton"
+ src="images/p278s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>For so it happened to Tom likewise.&nbsp; He was very sorely
+tried; for though, by keeping the dog to heels (or rather to
+toes, for he had to walk backward), he could see pretty well
+which way the dog was hunting, yet it was much slower work to go
+backwards than to go forwards.&nbsp; But, what was more trying
+still, no sooner had he got out of Peacepool, than there came
+running to him all the conjurors, fortune-tellers, astrologers,
+prophesiers, projectors, prestigiators, as many as were in those
+parts (and there are too many of them everywhere), Old Mother
+Shipton on her broomstick, with Merlin, Thomas the Rhymer,
+Gerbertus, Rabanus Maurus, Nostradamus, Zadkiel, Raphael, Moore,
+Old Nixon, and a good many in black coats and white ties who
+might have known better, considering in what century they were
+born, all bawling and screaming at him, &ldquo;Look a-head, only
+look a-head; and we will show you what man never saw before, and
+right away to the end of the world!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But I am proud to say that, though Tom had not been to
+Cambridge&mdash;for, if he had, he would have certainly been
+senior wrangler&mdash;he was such a little dogged, hard, gnarly,
+foursquare brick of an English boy, that he never turned his head
+round once all the way from Peacepool to the
+Other-end-of-Nowhere: but kept his eye on the dog, and let him
+pick out the scent, hot or cold, straight or crooked, wet or dry,
+up hill or down dale; by which means he never made a single
+mistake, and saw all the wonderful and hitherto
+by-no-mortal-man-imagined things, which it is my duty to relate
+to you in the next chapter.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p279b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Tom and dog"
+title=
+"Tom and dog"
+ src="images/p279s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII <span class="GutSmall">AND</span> LAST</h2>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Come to me, O ye children!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; For I hear you at your play;<br />
+And the questions that perplexed me<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; Have vanished quite away.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ye open the Eastern windows,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; That look towards the sun,<br />
+Where thoughts are singing swallows,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; And the brooks of morning run.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p282b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Two young girls"
+title=
+"Two young girls"
+ src="images/p282s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;For what are all our contrivings<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; And the wisdom of our books,<br />
+When compared with your caresses,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; And the gladness of your looks?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ye are better than all the ballads<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; That ever were sung or said;<br />
+For ye are living poems,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; And all the rest are dead.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="smcap">Longfellow</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p283b.jpg">
+<img class='floatleft' alt=
+"Tom and dog"
+title=
+"Tom and dog"
+ src="images/p283s.jpg" />
+</a><span class="smcap">Here</span> begins the
+never-to-be-too-much-studied account of the
+nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth part of the wonderful things which
+Tom saw on his journey to the Other-end-of-Nowhere; which all
+good little children are requested to read; that, if ever they
+get to the Other-end-of-Nowhere, as they may very probably do,
+they may not burst out laughing, or try to run away, or do any
+other silly vulgar thing which may offend Mrs.
+Bedonebyasyoudid.</p>
+<p>Now, as soon as Tom had left Peacepool, he came to the white
+lap of the great sea-mother, ten thousand fathoms deep; where she
+makes world-pap all day long, for the steam-giants to knead, and
+the fire-giants to bake, till it has risen and hardened into
+mountain-loaves and island-cakes.</p>
+<p>And there Tom was very near being kneaded up in the world-pap,
+and turned into a fossil water-baby; which would have astonished
+the Geological Society of New Zealand some hundreds of thousands
+of years hence.</p>
+<p>For, as he walked along in the silence of the sea-twilight, on
+the soft white ocean floor, he was aware of a hissing, and a
+roaring, and a thumping, and a pumping, as of all the
+steam-engines in the world at once.&nbsp; And, when he came near,
+the water grew boiling-hot; not that that hurt him in the least:
+but it also grew as foul as gruel; and every moment he stumbled
+over dead shells, and fish, and sharks, and seals, and whales,
+which had been killed by the hot water.</p>
+<p>And at last he came to the great sea-serpent himself, lying
+dead at the bottom; and as he was too thick to scramble over, Tom
+had to walk round him three-quarters of a mile and more, which
+put him out of his path sadly; and, when he had got round, he
+came to the place called Stop.&nbsp; And there he stopped, and
+just in time.</p>
+<p>For he was on the edge of a vast hole in the bottom of the
+sea, up which was rushing and roaring clear steam enough to work
+all the engines in the world at once; so clear, indeed, that it
+was quite light at moments; and Tom could see almost up to the
+top of the water above, and down below into the pit for nobody
+knows how far.</p>
+<p>But, as soon as he bent his head over the edge, he got such a
+rap on the nose from pebbles, that he jumped back again; for the
+steam, as it rushed up, rasped away the sides of the hole, and
+hurled it up into the sea in a shower of mud and gravel and
+ashes; and then it spread all around, and sank again, and covered
+in the dead fish so fast, that before Tom had stood there five
+minutes he was buried in silt up to his ankles, and began to be
+afraid that he should have been buried alive.</p>
+<p>And perhaps he would have been, but that while he was
+thinking, the whole piece of ground on which he stood was torn
+off and blown upwards, and away flew Tom a mile up through the
+sea, wondering what was coming next.</p>
+<p>At last he stopped&mdash;thump! and found himself tight in the
+legs of the most wonderful bogy which he had ever seen.</p>
+<p>It had I don&rsquo;t know how many wings, as big as the sails
+of a windmill, and spread out in a ring like them; and with them
+it hovered over the steam which rushed up, as a ball hovers over
+the top of a fountain.&nbsp; And for every wing above it had a
+leg below, with a claw like a comb at the tip, and a nostril at
+the root; and in the middle it had no stomach and one eye; and as
+for its mouth, that was all on one side, as the madreporiform
+tubercle in a star-fish is.&nbsp; Well, it was a very strange
+beast; but no stranger than some dozens which you may see.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you want here,&rdquo; it cried quite peevishly,
+&ldquo;getting in my way?&rdquo; and it tried to drop Tom: but he
+held on tight to its claws, thinking himself safer where he
+was.</p>
+<p>So Tom told him who he was, and what his errand was.&nbsp; And
+the thing winked its one eye, and sneered:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am too old to be taken in in that way.&nbsp; You are
+come after gold&mdash;I know you are.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Gold!&nbsp; What is gold?&rdquo;&nbsp; And really Tom
+did not know; but the suspicious old bogy would not believe
+him.</p>
+<p>But after a while Tom began to understand a little.&nbsp; For,
+as the vapours came up out of the hole, the bogy smelt them with
+his nostrils, and combed them and sorted them with his combs; and
+then, when they steamed up through them against his wings, they
+were changed into showers and streams of metal.&nbsp; From one
+wing fell gold-dust, and from another silver, and from another
+copper, and from another tin, and from another lead, and so on,
+and sank into the soft mud, into veins and cracks, and hardened
+there.&nbsp; Whereby it comes to pass that the rocks are full of
+metal.</p>
+<p>But, all of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam below, and
+the hole was left empty in an instant: and then down rushed the
+water into the hole, in such a whirlpool that the bogy spun round
+and round as fast as a teetotum.&nbsp; But that was all in his
+day&rsquo;s work, like a fair fall with the hounds; so all he did
+was to say to Tom&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now is your time, youngster, to get down, if you are in
+earnest, which I don&rsquo;t believe.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll soon see,&rdquo; said Tom; and away he
+went, as bold as Baron Munchausen, and shot down the rushing
+cataract like a salmon at Ballisodare.</p>
+<p>And, when he got to the bottom, he swam till he was washed on
+shore safe upon the Other-end-of-Nowhere; and he found it, to his
+surprise, as most other people do, much more like
+This-End-of-Somewhere than he had been in the habit of
+expecting.</p>
+<p>And first he went through Waste-paper-land, where all the
+stupid books lie in heaps, up hill and down dale, like leaves in
+a winter wood; and there he saw people digging and grubbing among
+them, to make worse books out of bad ones, and thrashing chaff to
+save the dust of it; and a very good trade they drove thereby,
+especially among children.</p>
+<p>Then he went by the sea of slops, to the mountain of messes,
+and the territory of tuck, where the ground was very sticky, for
+it was all made of bad toffee (not Everton toffee, of course),
+and full of deep cracks and holes choked with wind-fallen fruit,
+and green goose-berries, and sloes, and crabs, and whinberries,
+and hips and haws, and all the nasty things which little children
+will eat, if they can get them.&nbsp; But the fairies hide them
+out of the way in that country as fast as they can, and very hard
+work they have, and of very little use it is.&nbsp; For as fast
+as they hide away the old trash, foolish and wicked people make
+fresh trash full of lime and poisonous paints, and actually go
+and steal receipts out of old Madame Science&rsquo;s big book to
+invent poisons for little children, and sell them at wakes and
+fairs and tuck-shops.&nbsp; Very well.&nbsp; Let them go
+on.&nbsp; Dr. Letheby and Dr. Hassall cannot catch them, though
+they are setting traps for them all day long.&nbsp; But the Fairy
+with the birch-rod will catch them all in time, and make them
+begin at one corner of their shops, and eat their way out at the
+other: by which time they will have got such stomach-aches as
+will cure them of poisoning little children.</p>
+<p>Next he saw all the little people in the world, writing all
+the little books in the world, about all the other little people
+in the world; probably because they had no great people to write
+about: and if the names of the books were not Squeeky, nor the
+Pump-lighter, nor the Narrow Narrow World, nor the Hills of the
+Chattermuch, nor the Children&rsquo;s Twaddeday, why then they
+were something else.&nbsp; And, all the rest of the little people
+in the world read the books, and thought themselves each as good
+as the President; and perhaps they were right, for every one
+knows his own business best.&nbsp; But Tom thought he would
+sooner have a jolly good fairy tale, about Jack the Giant-killer
+or Beauty and the Beast, which taught him something that he
+didn&rsquo;t know already.</p>
+<p>And next he came to the centre of Creation (the hub, they call
+it there), which lies in latitude 42.21&deg; south, and longitude
+108.56&deg; east.</p>
+<p>And there he found all the wise people instructing mankind in
+the science of spirit-rapping, while their house was burning over
+their heads: and when Tom told them of the fire, they held an
+indignation meeting forthwith, and unanimously determined to hang
+Tom&rsquo;s dog for coming into their country with gunpowder in
+his mouth.&nbsp; Tom couldn&rsquo;t help saying that though they
+did fancy they had carried all the wit away with them out of
+Lincolnshire two hundred years ago, yet if they had had one such
+Lincolnshire nobleman among them as good old Lord Yarborough, he
+would have called for the fire-engines before he hanged other
+people&rsquo;s dogs.&nbsp; But it was of no use, and the dog was
+hanged: and Tom couldn&rsquo;t even have his carcase; for they
+had abolished the have-his-carcase act in that country, for fear
+lest when rogues fell out, honest men should come by their
+own.&nbsp; And so they would have succeeded perfectly, as they
+always do, only that (as they also always do) they failed in one
+little particular, viz. that the dog would not die, being a
+water-dog, but bit their fingers so abominably that they were
+forced to let him go, and Tom likewise, as British
+subjects.&nbsp; Whereon they recommenced rapping for the spirits
+of their fathers; and very much astonished the poor old spirits
+were when they came, and saw how, according to the laws of Mrs.
+Bedonebyasyoudid, their descendants had weakened their
+constitution by hard living.</p>
+<p>Then came Tom to the Island of Polupragmosyne (which some call
+Rogues&rsquo; Harbour; but they are wrong; for that is in the
+middle of Bramshill Bushes, and the county police have cleared it
+out long ago).&nbsp; There every one knows his neighbour&rsquo;s
+business better than his own; and a very noisy place it is, as
+might be expected, considering that all the inhabitants are <i>ex
+officio</i> on the wrong side of the house in the
+&ldquo;Parliament of Man, and the Federation of the World;&rdquo;
+and are always making wry mouths, and crying that the
+fairies&rsquo; grapes were sour.</p>
+<p>There Tom saw ploughs drawing horses, nails driving hammers,
+birds&rsquo; nests taking boys, books making authors, bulls
+keeping china-shops, monkeys shaving cats, dead dogs drilling
+live lions, blind brigadiers shelfed as principals of colleges,
+play-actors not in the least shelfed as popular preachers; and,
+in short, every one set to do something which he had not learnt,
+because in what he had learnt, or pretended to learn, he had
+failed.</p>
+<p>There stands the Pantheon of the Great Unsuccessful, from the
+builders of the Tower of Babel to those of the Trafalgar
+Fountains; in which politicians lecture on the constitutions
+which ought to have marched, conspirators on the revolutions
+which ought to have succeeded, economists on the schemes which
+ought to have made every one&rsquo;s fortune, and projectors on
+the discoveries which ought to have set the Thames on fire.&nbsp;
+There cobblers lecture on orthopedy (whatsoever that may be)
+because they cannot sell their shoes; and poets on
+&AElig;sthetics (whatsoever that may be) because they cannot sell
+their poetry.&nbsp; There philosophers demonstrate that England
+would be the freest and richest country in the world, if she
+would only turn Papist again; penny-a-liners abuse the Times,
+because they have not wit enough to get on its staff; and young
+ladies walk about with lockets of Charles the First&rsquo;s hair
+(or of somebody else&rsquo;s, when the Jews&rsquo; genuine stock
+is used up), inscribed with the neat and appropriate
+legend&mdash;which indeed is popular through all that land, and
+which, I hope, you will learn to translate in due time and to
+perpend likewise:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<i>Victrix causa diis placuit</i>, <i>sed
+victa puellis</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>When he got into the middle of the town, they all set on him
+at once, to show him his way; or rather, to show him that he did
+not know his way; for as for asking him what way he wanted to go,
+no one ever thought of that.</p>
+<p>But one pulled him hither, and another poked him thither, and
+a third cried&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You mustn&rsquo;t go west, I tell you; it is
+destruction to go west.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But I am not going west, as you may see,&rdquo; said
+Tom.</p>
+<p>And another, &ldquo;The east lies here, my dear; I assure you
+this is the east.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t want to go east,&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then, at all events, whichever way you are going,
+you are going wrong,&rdquo; cried they all with one
+voice&mdash;which was the only thing which they ever agreed
+about; and all pointed at once to all the thirty-and-two points
+of the compass, till Tom thought all the sign-posts in England
+had got together, and fallen fighting.</p>
+<p>And whether he would have ever escaped out of the town, it is
+hard to say, if the dog had not taken it into his head that they
+were going to pull his master in pieces, and tackled them so
+sharply about the gastrocnemius muscle, that he gave them some
+business of their own to think of at last; and while they were
+rubbing their bitten calves, Tom and the dog got safe away.</p>
+<p>On the borders of that island he found Gotham, where the wise
+men live; the same who dragged the pond because the moon had
+fallen into it, and planted a hedge round the cuckoo, to keep
+spring all the year.&nbsp; And he found them bricking up the town
+gate, because it was so wide that little folks could not get
+through.&nbsp; And, when he asked why, they told him they were
+expanding their liturgy.&nbsp; So he went on; for it was no
+business of his: only he could not help saying that in his
+country, if the kitten could not get in at the same hole as the
+cat, she might stay outside and mew.</p>
+<p>But he saw the end of such fellows, when he came to the island
+of the Golden Asses, where nothing but thistles grow.&nbsp; For
+there they were all turned into mokes with ears a yard long, for
+meddling with matters which they do not understand, as Lucius did
+in the story.&nbsp; And like him, mokes they must remain, till,
+by the laws of development, the thistles develop into
+roses.&nbsp; Till then, they must comfort themselves with the
+thought, that the longer their ears are, the thicker their hides;
+and so a good beating don&rsquo;t hurt them.</p>
+<p>Then came Tom to the great land of Hearsay, in which are no
+less than thirty and odd kings, beside half a dozen Republics,
+and perhaps more by next mail.</p>
+<p>And there he fell in with a deep, dark, deadly, and
+destructive war, waged by the princes and potentates of those
+parts, both spiritual and temporal, against what do you
+think?&nbsp; One thing I am sure of.&nbsp; That unless I told
+you, you would never know; nor how they waged that war either;
+for all their strategy and art military consisted in the safe and
+easy process of stopping their ears and screaming, &ldquo;Oh,
+don&rsquo;t tell us!&rdquo; and then running away.</p>
+<p>So when Tom came into that land, he found them all, high and
+low, man, woman, and child, running for their lives day and night
+continually, and entreating not to be told they didn&rsquo;t know
+what: only the land being an island, and they having a dislike to
+the water (being a musty lot for the most part), they ran round
+and round the shore for ever, which (as the island was exactly of
+the same circumference as the planet on which we have the honour
+of living) was hard work, especially to those who had business to
+look after.&nbsp; But before them, as bandmaster and fugleman,
+ran a gentleman shearing a pig; the melodious strains of which
+animal led them for ever, if not to conquest, still to flight;
+and kept up their spirits mightily with the thought that they
+would at least have the pig&rsquo;s wool for their pains.</p>
+<p>And running after them, day and night, came such a poor, lean,
+seedy, hard-worked old giant, as ought to have been cockered up,
+and had a good dinner given him, and a good wife found him, and
+been set to play with little children; and then he would have
+been a very presentable old fellow after all; for he had a heart,
+though it was considerably overgrown with brains.</p>
+<p>He was made up principally of fish bones and parchment, put
+together with wire and Canada balsam; and smelt strongly of
+spirits, though he never drank anything but water: but spirits he
+used somehow, there was no denying.&nbsp; He had a great pair of
+spectacles on his nose, and a butterfly-net in one hand, and a
+geological hammer in the other; and was hung all over with
+pockets, full of collecting boxes, bottles, microscopes,
+telescopes, barometers, ordnance maps, scalpels, forceps,
+photographic apparatus, and all other tackle for finding out
+everything about everything, and a little more too.&nbsp; And,
+most strange of all, he was running not forwards but backwards,
+as fast as he could.</p>
+<p>Away all the good folks ran from him, except Tom, who stood
+his ground and dodged between his legs; and the giant, when he
+had passed him, looked down, and cried, as if he was quite
+pleased and comforted,&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What? who are you?&nbsp; And you actually don&rsquo;t
+run away, like all the rest?&rdquo;&nbsp; But he had to take his
+spectacles off, Tom remarked, in order to see him plainly.</p>
+<p>Tom told him who he was; and the giant pulled out a bottle and
+a cork instantly, to collect him with.</p>
+<p>But Tom was too sharp for that, and dodged between his legs
+and in front of him; and then the giant could not see him at
+all.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, no, no!&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve not been
+round the world, and through the world, and up to Mother
+Carey&rsquo;s haven, beside being caught in a net and called a
+Holothurian and a Cephalopod, to be bottled up by any old giant
+like you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And when the giant understood what a great traveller Tom had
+been, he made a truce with him at once, and would have kept him
+there to this day to pick his brains, so delighted was he at
+finding any one to tell him what he did not know before.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, you lucky little dog!&rdquo; said he at last, quite
+simply&mdash;for he was the simplest, pleasantest, honestest,
+kindliest old Dominie Sampson of a giant that ever turned the
+world upside down without intending it&mdash;&ldquo;ah, you lucky
+little dog!&nbsp; If I had only been where you have been, to see
+what you have seen!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;if you want to do that,
+you had best put your head under water for a few hours, as I did,
+and turn into a water-baby, or some other baby, and then you
+might have a chance.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Turn into a baby, eh?&nbsp; If I could do that, and
+know what was happening to me for but one hour, I should know
+everything then, and be at rest.&nbsp; But I can&rsquo;t; I
+can&rsquo;t be a little child again; and I suppose if I could, it
+would be no use, because then I should then know nothing about
+what was happening to me.&nbsp; Ah, you lucky little dog!&rdquo;
+said the poor old giant.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But why do you run after all these poor people?&rdquo;
+said Tom, who liked the giant very much.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear, it&rsquo;s they that have been running after
+me, father and son, for hundreds and hundreds of years, throwing
+stones at me till they have knocked off my spectacles fifty
+times, and calling me a malignant and a turbaned Turk, who beat a
+Venetian and traduced the State&mdash;goodness only knows what
+they mean, for I never read poetry&mdash;and hunting me round and
+round&mdash;though catch me they can&rsquo;t, for every time I go
+over the same ground, I go the faster, and grow the bigger.&nbsp;
+While all I want is to be friends with them, and to tell them
+something to their advantage, like Mr. Joseph Ady: only somehow
+they are so strangely afraid of hearing it.&nbsp; But, I suppose
+I am not a man of the world, and have no tact.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But why don&rsquo;t you turn round and tell them
+so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I can&rsquo;t.&nbsp; You see, I am one of the
+sons of Epimetheus, and must go backwards, if I am to go at
+all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But why don&rsquo;t you stop, and let them come up to
+you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, my dear, only think.&nbsp; If I did, all the
+butterflies and cockyolybirds would fly past me, and then I
+should catch no more new species, and should grow rusty and
+mouldy, and die.&nbsp; And I don&rsquo;t intend to do that, my
+dear; for I have a destiny before me, they say: though what it is
+I don&rsquo;t know, and don&rsquo;t care.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t care?&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&nbsp; Do the duty which lies nearest you, and catch
+the first beetle you come across, is my motto; and I have thriven
+by it for some hundred years.&nbsp; Now I must go on.&nbsp; Dear
+me, while I have been talking to you, at least nine new species
+have escaped me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And on went the giant, behind before, like a bull in a
+china-shop, till he ran into the steeple of the great idol temple
+(for they are all idolaters in those parts, of course, else they
+would never be afraid of giants), and knocked the upper half
+clean off, hurting himself horribly about the small of the
+back.</p>
+<p>But little he cared; for as soon as the ruins of the steeple
+were well between his legs, he poked and peered among the falling
+stones, and shifted his spectacles, and pulled out his
+pocket-magnifier, and cried&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;An entirely new Oniscus, and three obscure
+Podurell&aelig;!&nbsp; Besides a moth which M. le Roi des
+Papillons (though he, like all Frenchmen, is given to hasty
+inductions) says is confined to the limits of the Glacial
+Drift.&nbsp; This is most important!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And down he sat on the nave of the temple (not being a man of
+the world) to examine his Podurell&aelig;.&nbsp; Whereon (as was
+to be expected) the roof caved in bodily, smashing the idols, and
+sending the priests flying out of doors and windows, like rabbits
+out of a burrow when a ferret goes in.</p>
+<p>But he never heeded; for out of the dust flew a bat, and the
+giant had him in a moment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear me!&nbsp; This is even more important!&nbsp; Here
+is a cognate species to that which Macgilliwaukie Brown insists
+is confined to the Buddhist temples of Little Thibet; and now
+when I look at it, it may be only a variety produced by
+difference of climate!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And having bagged his bat, up he got, and on he went; while
+all the people ran, being in none the better humour for having
+their temple smashed for the sake of three obscure species of
+Podurella, and a Buddhist bat.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; thought Tom, &ldquo;this is a very pretty
+quarrel, with a good deal to be said on both sides.&nbsp; But it
+is no business of mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And no more it was, because he was a water-baby, and had the
+original sow by the right ear; which you will never have, unless
+you be a baby, whether of the water, the land, or the air,
+matters not, provided you can only keep on continually being a
+baby.</p>
+<p>So the giant ran round after the people, and the people ran
+round after the giant, and they are running, unto this day for
+aught I know, or do not know; and will run till either he, or
+they, or both, turn into little children.&nbsp; And then, as
+Shakespeare says (and therefore it must be true)&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<i>Jack shall have Gill</i><br />
+<i>Nought shall go ill</i><br />
+<i>The man shall have his mare again</i>, <i>and all go
+well</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Then Tom came to a very famous island, which was called, in
+the days of the great traveller Captain Gulliver, the Isle of
+Laputa.&nbsp; But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has named it over again
+the Isle of Tomtoddies, all heads and no bodies.</p>
+<p>And when Tom came near it, he heard such a grumbling and
+grunting and growling and wailing and weeping and whining that he
+thought people must be ringing little pigs, or cropping
+puppies&rsquo; ears, or drowning kittens: but when he came nearer
+still, he began to hear words among the noise; which was the
+Tomtoddies&rsquo; song which they sing morning and evening, and
+all night too, to their great idol Examination&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<i>I can&rsquo;t learn my lesson</i>:
+<i>the examiner&rsquo;s coming</i>!&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And that was the only song which they knew.</p>
+<p>And when Tom got on shore the first thing he saw was a great
+pillar, on one side of which was inscribed, &ldquo;Playthings not
+allowed here;&rdquo; at which he was so shocked that he would not
+stay to see what was written on the other side.&nbsp; Then he
+looked round for the people of the island: but instead of men,
+women, and children, he found nothing but turnips and radishes,
+beet and mangold wurzel, without a single green leaf among them,
+and half of them burst and decayed, with toad-stools growing out
+of them.&nbsp; Those which were left began crying to Tom, in half
+a dozen different languages at once, and all of them badly
+spoken, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t learn my lesson; do come and help
+me!&rdquo;&nbsp; And one cried, &ldquo;Can you show me how to
+extract this square root?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And another, &ldquo;Can you tell me the distance between
+&alpha; Lyr&aelig; and &beta; Camelopardis?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And another, &ldquo;What is the latitude and longitude of
+Snooksville, in Noman&rsquo;s County, Oregon, U.S.?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And another, &ldquo;What was the name of Mutius
+Sc&aelig;vola&rsquo;s thirteenth cousin&rsquo;s
+grandmother&rsquo;s maid&rsquo;s cat?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And another, &ldquo;How long would it take a school-inspector
+of average activity to tumble head over heels from London to
+York?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And another, &ldquo;Can you tell me the name of a place that
+nobody ever heard of, where nothing ever happened, in a country
+which has not been discovered yet?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And another, &ldquo;Can you show me how to correct this
+hopelessly corrupt passage of Graidiocolosyrtus Tabenniticus, on
+the cause why crocodiles have no tongues?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And so on, and so on, and so on, till one would have thought
+they were all trying for tide-waiters&rsquo; places, or
+cornetcies in the heavy dragoons.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what good on earth will it do you if I did tell
+you?&rdquo; quoth Tom.</p>
+<p>Well, they didn&rsquo;t know that: all they knew was the
+examiner was coming.</p>
+<p>Then Tom stumbled on the hugest and softest nimblecomequick
+turnip you ever saw filling a hole in a crop of swedes, and it
+cried to him, &ldquo;Can you tell me anything at all about
+anything you like?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About what?&rdquo; says Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About anything you like; for as fast as I learn things
+I forget them again.&nbsp; So my mamma says that my intellect is
+not adapted for methodic science, and says that I must go in for
+general information.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom told him that he did not know general information, nor any
+officers in the army; only he had a friend once that went for a
+drummer: but he could tell him a great many strange things which
+he had seen in his travels.</p>
+<p>So he told him prettily enough, while the poor turnip listened
+very carefully; and the more he listened, the more he forgot, and
+the more water ran out of him.</p>
+<p>Tom thought he was crying: but it was only his poor brains
+running away, from being worked so hard; and as Tom talked, the
+unhappy turnip streamed down all over with juice, and split and
+shrank till nothing was left of him but rind and water; whereat
+Tom ran away in a fright, for he thought he might be taken up for
+killing the turnip.</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p302b.jpg">
+<img class='floatright' alt=
+"The turnip"
+title=
+"The turnip"
+ src="images/p302s.jpg" />
+</a>But, on the contrary, the turnip&rsquo;s parents were highly
+delighted, and considered him a saint and a martyr, and put up a
+long inscription over his tomb about his wonderful talents, early
+development, and unparalleled precocity.&nbsp; Were they not a
+foolish couple?&nbsp; But there was a still more foolish couple
+next to them, who were beating a wretched little radish, no
+bigger than my thumb, for sullenness and obstinacy and wilful
+stupidity, and never knew that the reason why it couldn&rsquo;t
+learn or hardly even speak was, that there was a great worm
+inside it eating out all its brains.&nbsp; But even they are no
+foolisher than some hundred score of papas and mammas, who fetch
+the rod when they ought to fetch a new toy, and send to the dark
+cupboard instead of to the doctor.</p>
+<p>Tom was so puzzled and frightened with all he saw, that he was
+longing to ask the meaning of it; and at last he stumbled over a
+respectable old stick lying half covered with earth.&nbsp; But a
+very stout and worthy stick it was, for it belonged to good Roger
+Ascham in old time, and had carved on its head King Edward the
+Sixth, with the Bible in his hand.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; said the stick, &ldquo;there were as
+pretty little children once as you could wish to see, and might
+have been so still if they had been only left to grow up like
+human beings, and then handed over to me; but their foolish
+fathers and mothers, instead of letting them pick flowers, and
+make dirt-pies, and get birds&rsquo; nests, and dance round the
+gooseberry bush, as little children should, kept them always at
+lessons, working, working, working, learning week-day lessons all
+week-days, and Sunday lessons all Sunday, and weekly examinations
+every Saturday, and monthly examinations every month, and yearly
+examinations every year, everything seven times over, as if once
+was not enough, and enough as good as a feast&mdash;till their
+brains grew big, and their bodies grew small, and they were all
+changed into turnips, with little but water inside; and still
+their foolish parents actually pick the leaves off them as fast
+as they grow, lest they should have anything green about
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;if dear Mrs.
+Doasyouwouldbedoneby knew of it she would send them a lot of
+tops, and balls, and marbles, and ninepins, and make them all as
+jolly as sand-boys.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It would be no use,&rdquo; said the stick.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;They can&rsquo;t play now, if they tried.&nbsp;
+Don&rsquo;t you see how their legs have turned to roots and grown
+into the ground, by never taking any exercise, but sapping and
+moping always in the same place?&nbsp; But here comes the
+Examiner-of-all-Examiners.&nbsp; So you had better get away, I
+warn you, or he will examine you and your dog into the bargain,
+and set him to examine all the other dogs, and you to examine all
+the other water-babies.&nbsp; There is no escaping out of his
+hands, for his nose is nine thousand miles long, and can go down
+chimneys, and through keyholes, upstairs, downstairs, in my
+lady&rsquo;s chamber, examining all little boys, and the little
+boys&rsquo; tutors likewise.&nbsp; But when he is
+thrashed&mdash;so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has promised me&mdash;I
+shall have the thrashing of him: and if I don&rsquo;t lay it on
+with a will it&rsquo;s a pity.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom went off: but rather slowly and surlily; for he was
+somewhat minded to face this same Examiner-of-all-Examiners, who
+came striding among the poor turnips, binding heavy burdens and
+grievous to be borne, and laying them on little children&rsquo;s
+shoulders, like the Scribes and Pharisees of old, and not
+touching the same with one of his fingers; for he had plenty of
+money, and a fine house to live in, and so forth; which was more
+than the poor little turnips had.</p>
+<p>But when he got near, he looked so big and burly and
+dictatorial, and shouted so loud to Tom, to come and be examined,
+that Tom ran for his life, and the dog too.&nbsp; And really it
+was time; for the poor turnips, in their hurry and fright,
+crammed themselves so fast to be ready for the Examiner, that
+they burst and popped by dozens all round him, till the place
+sounded like Aldershot on a field-day, and Tom thought he should
+be blown into the air, dog and all.</p>
+<p>As he went down to the shore he passed the poor turnip&rsquo;s
+new tomb.&nbsp; But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid had taken away the
+epitaph about talents and precocity and development, and put up
+one of her own instead which Tom thought much more
+sensible:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<i>Instruction sore long time I
+bore</i>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>And cramming was in vain</i>;<br />
+<i>Till heaven did please my woes to ease</i><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>With water on the brain</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So Tom jumped into the sea, and swam on his way,
+singing:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<i>Farewell</i>, <i>Tomtoddies all</i>;
+<i>I thank my stars</i><br />
+<i>That nought I know save those three royal r&rsquo;s</i>:<br />
+<i>Reading and riting sure</i>, <i>with rithmetick</i>,<br />
+<i>Will help a lad of sense through thin and
+thick</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Whereby you may see that Tom was no poet: but no more was John
+Bunyan, though he was as wise a man as you will meet in a month
+of Sundays.</p>
+<p>And next he came to Oldwivesfabledom, where the folks were all
+heathens, and worshipped a howling ape.&nbsp; And there he found
+a little boy sitting in the middle of the road, and crying
+bitterly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are you crying for?&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I am not as frightened as I could wish to
+be.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not frightened?&nbsp; You are a queer little chap: but,
+if you want to be frightened, here goes&mdash;Boo!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said the little boy, &ldquo;that is very
+kind of you; but I don&rsquo;t feel that it has made any
+impression.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on him, fettle him
+over the head with a brick, or anything else whatsoever which
+would give him the slightest comfort.</p>
+<p>But he only thanked Tom very civilly, in fine long words which
+he had heard other folk use, and which therefore, he thought were
+fit and proper to use himself; and cried on till his papa and
+mamma came, and sent off for the Powwow man immediately.&nbsp;
+And a very good-natured gentleman and lady they were, though they
+were heathens; and talked quite pleasantly to Tom about his
+travels, till the Powwow man arrived, with his thunderbox under
+his arm.</p>
+<p>And a well-fed, ill-favoured gentleman he was, as ever served
+Her Majesty at Portland.&nbsp; Tom was a little frightened at
+first; for he thought it was Grimes.&nbsp; But he soon saw his
+mistake: for Grimes always looked a man in the face; and this
+fellow never did.&nbsp; And when he spoke, it was fire and smoke;
+and when he sneezed, it was squibs and crackers; and when he
+cried (which he did whenever it paid him), it was boiling pitch;
+and some of it was sure to stick.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here we are again!&rdquo; cried he, like the clown in a
+pantomime.&nbsp; &ldquo;So you can&rsquo;t feel frightened, my
+little dear&mdash;eh?&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll do that for you.&nbsp;
+I&rsquo;ll make an impression on you!&nbsp; Yah!&nbsp; Boo!&nbsp;
+Whirroo!&nbsp; Hullabaloo!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And he rattled, thumped, brandished his thunderbox, yelled,
+shouted, raved, roared, stamped, and danced corrobory like any
+black fellow; and then he touched a spring in the thunderbox, and
+out popped turnip-ghosts and magic-lanthorns and pasteboard
+bogies and spring-heeled Jacks, and sallaballas, with such a
+horrid din, clatter, clank, roll, rattle, and roar, that the
+little boy turned up the whites of his eyes, and fainted right
+away.</p>
+<p>And at that his poor heathen papa and mamma were as much
+delighted as if they had found a gold mine; and fell down upon
+their knees before the Powwow man, and gave him a palanquin with
+a pole of solid silver and curtains of cloth of gold; and carried
+him about in it on their own backs: but as soon as they had taken
+him up, the pole stuck to their shoulders, and they could not set
+him down any more, but carried him on willynilly, as Sinbad
+carried the old man of the sea: which was a pitiable sight to
+see; for the father was a very brave officer, and wore two swords
+and a blue button; and the mother was as pretty a lady as ever
+had pinched feet like a Chinese.&nbsp; But you see, they had
+chosen to do a foolish thing just once too often; so, by the laws
+of Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, they had to go on doing it whether they
+chose or not, till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.</p>
+<p>Ah! don&rsquo;t you wish that some one would go and convert
+those poor heathens, and teach them not to frighten their little
+children into fits?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now, then,&rdquo; said the Powwow man to Tom,
+&ldquo;wouldn&rsquo;t you like to be frightened, my little
+dear?&nbsp; For I can see plainly that you are a very wicked,
+naughty, graceless, reprobate boy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re another,&rdquo; quoth Tom, very
+sturdily.&nbsp; And when the man ran at him, and cried
+&ldquo;Boo!&rdquo;&nbsp; Tom ran at him in return, and cried
+&ldquo;Boo!&rdquo; likewise, right in his face, and set the
+little dog upon him; and at his legs the dog went.</p>
+<p>At which, if you will believe it, the fellow turned tail,
+thunderbox and all, with a &ldquo;Woof!&rdquo; like an old sow on
+the common; and ran for his life, screaming, &ldquo;Help!
+thieves! murder! fire!&nbsp; He is going to kill me!&nbsp; I am a
+ruined man!&nbsp; He will murder me; and break, burn, and destroy
+my precious and invaluable thunderbox; and then you will have no
+more thunder-showers in the land.&nbsp; Help! help!
+help!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At which the papa and mamma and all the people of
+Oldwivesfabledom flew at Tom, shouting, &ldquo;Oh, the wicked,
+impudent, hard-hearted, graceless boy!&nbsp; Beat him, kick him,
+shoot him, drown him, hang him, burn him!&rdquo; and so forth:
+but luckily they had nothing to shoot, hang, or burn him with,
+for the fairies had hid all the killing-tackle out of the way a
+little while before; so they could only pelt him with stones; and
+some of the stones went clean through him, and came out the other
+side.&nbsp; But he did not mind that a bit; for the holes closed
+up again as fast as they were made, because he was a
+water-baby.&nbsp; However, he was very glad when he was safe out
+of the country, for the noise there made him all but deaf.</p>
+<p>Then he came to a very quiet place, called
+Leaveheavenalone.&nbsp; And there the sun was drawing water out
+of the sea to make steam-threads, and the wind was twisting them
+up to make cloud-patterns, till they had worked between them the
+loveliest wedding veil of Chantilly lace, and hung it up in their
+own Crystal Palace for any one to buy who could afford it; while
+the good old sea never grudged, for she knew they would pay her
+back honestly.&nbsp; So the sun span, and the wind wove, and all
+went well with the great steam-loom; as is likely,
+considering&mdash;and considering&mdash;and
+considering&mdash;</p>
+<p>And at last, after innumerable adventures, each more wonderful
+than the last, he saw before him a huge building, much bigger,
+and&mdash;what is most surprising&mdash;a little uglier than a
+certain new lunatic asylum, but not built quite of the same
+materials.&nbsp; None of it, at least&mdash;or, indeed, for aught
+that I ever saw, any part of any other building
+whatsoever&mdash;is cased with nine-inch brick inside and out,
+and filled up with rubble between the walls, in order that any
+gentleman who has been confined during Her Majesty&rsquo;s
+pleasure may be unconfined during his own pleasure, and take a
+walk in the neighbouring park to improve his spirits, after an
+hour&rsquo;s light and wholesome labour with his dinner-fork or
+one of the legs of his iron bedstead.&nbsp; No.&nbsp; The walls
+of this building were built on an entirely different principle,
+which need not be described, as it has not yet been
+discovered.</p>
+<p>
+<a href="images/p310b.jpg">
+<img class='floatleft' alt=
+"Truncheon"
+title=
+"Truncheon"
+ src="images/p310s.jpg" />
+</a>Tom walked towards this great building, wondering what it
+was, and having a strange fancy that he might find Mr. Grimes
+inside it, till he saw running toward him, and shouting
+&ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; three or four people, who, when they came
+nearer, were nothing else than policemen&rsquo;s truncheons,
+running along without legs or arms.</p>
+<p>Tom was not astonished.&nbsp; He was long past that.&nbsp;
+Besides, he had seen the navicul&aelig; in the water move nobody
+knows how, a hundred times, without arms, or legs, or anything to
+stand in their stead.&nbsp; Neither was he frightened for he had
+been doing no harm.</p>
+<p>So he stopped; and, when the foremost truncheon came up and
+asked his business, he showed Mother Carey&rsquo;s pass; and the
+truncheon looked at it in the oddest fashion; for he had one eye
+in the middle of his upper end, so that when he looked at
+anything, being quite stiff, he had to slope himself, and poke
+himself, till it was a wonder why he did not tumble over; but,
+being quite full of the spirit of justice (as all policemen, and
+their truncheons, ought to be), he was always in a position of
+stable equilibrium, whichever way he put himself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All right&mdash;pass on,&rdquo; said he at last.&nbsp;
+And then he added: &ldquo;I had better go with you, young
+man.&rdquo;&nbsp; And Tom had no objection, for such company was
+both respectable and safe; so the truncheon coiled its thong
+neatly round its handle, to prevent tripping itself up&mdash;for
+the thong had got loose in running&mdash;and marched on by
+Tom&rsquo;s side.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why have you no policeman to carry you?&rdquo; asked
+Tom, after a while.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because we are not like those clumsy-made truncheons in
+the land-world, which cannot go without having a whole man to
+carry them about.&nbsp; We do our own work for ourselves; and do
+it very well, though I say it who should not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then why have you a thong to your handle?&rdquo; asked
+Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are off
+duty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom had got his answer, and had no more to say, till they came
+up to the great iron door of the prison.&nbsp; And there the
+truncheon knocked twice, with its own head.</p>
+<p>A wicket in the door opened, and out looked a tremendous old
+brass blunderbuss charged up to the muzzle with slugs, who was
+the porter; and Tom started back a little at the sight of
+him.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p312b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The blunderbuss"
+title=
+"The blunderbuss"
+ src="images/p312s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;What case is this?&rdquo; he asked in a deep voice, out
+of his broad bell mouth.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you please, sir, it is no case; only a young
+gentleman from her ladyship, who wants to see Grimes, the
+master-sweep.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Grimes?&rdquo; said the blunderbuss.&nbsp; And he
+pulled in his muzzle, perhaps to look over his prison-lists.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Grimes is up chimney No. 345,&rdquo; he said from
+inside.&nbsp; &ldquo;So the young gentleman had better go on to
+the roof.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom looked up at the enormous wall, which seemed at least
+ninety miles high, and wondered how he should ever get up: but,
+when he hinted that to the truncheon, it settled the matter in a
+moment.&nbsp; For it whisked round, and gave him such a shove
+behind as sent him up to the roof in no time, with his little dog
+under his arm.</p>
+<p>And there he walked along the leads, till he met another
+truncheon, and told him his errand.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; it said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Come along: but
+it will be of no use.&nbsp; He is the most unremorseful,
+hard-hearted, foul-mouthed fellow I have in charge; and thinks
+about nothing but beer and pipes, which are not allowed here, of
+course.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So they walked along over the leads, and very sooty they were,
+and Tom thought the chimneys must want sweeping very much.&nbsp;
+But he was surprised to see that the soot did not stick to his
+feet, or dirty them in the least.&nbsp; Neither did the live
+coals, which were lying about in plenty, burn him; for, being a
+water-baby, his radical humours were of a moist and cold nature,
+as you may read at large in Lemnius, Cardan, Van Helmont, and
+other gentlemen, who knew as much as they could, and no man can
+know more.</p>
+<p>And at last they came to chimney No. 345.&nbsp; Out of the top
+of it, his head and shoulders just showing, stuck poor Mr.
+Grimes, so sooty, and bleared, and ugly, that Tom could hardly
+bear to look at him.&nbsp; And in his mouth was a pipe; but it
+was not a-light; though he was pulling at it with all his
+might.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p314b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Tom and Grimes"
+title=
+"Tom and Grimes"
+ src="images/p314s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Attention, Mr. Grimes,&rdquo; said the truncheon;
+&ldquo;here is a gentleman come to see you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But Mr. Grimes only said bad words; and kept grumbling,
+&ldquo;My pipe won&rsquo;t draw.&nbsp; My pipe won&rsquo;t
+draw.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Keep a civil tongue, and attend!&rdquo; said the
+truncheon; and popped up just like Punch, hitting Grimes such a
+crack over the head with itself, that his brains rattled inside
+like a dried walnut in its shell.&nbsp; He tried to get his hands
+out, and rub the place: but he could not, for they were stuck
+fast in the chimney.&nbsp; Now he was forced to attend.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hey!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;why, it&rsquo;s Tom!&nbsp;
+I suppose you have come here to laugh at me, you spiteful little
+atomy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom assured him he had not, but only wanted to help him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want anything except beer, and that I
+can&rsquo;t get; and a light to this bothering pipe, and that I
+can&rsquo;t get either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll get you one,&rdquo; said Tom; and he took up
+a live coal (there were plenty lying about) and put it to
+Grimes&rsquo; pipe: but it went out instantly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s no use,&rdquo; said the truncheon, leaning
+itself up against the chimney and looking on.&nbsp; &ldquo;I tell
+you, it is no use.&nbsp; His heart is so cold that it freezes
+everything that comes near him.&nbsp; You will see that
+presently, plain enough.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, of course, it&rsquo;s my fault.&nbsp;
+Everything&rsquo;s always my fault,&rdquo; said Grimes.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Now don&rsquo;t go to hit me again&rdquo; (for the
+truncheon started upright, and looked very wicked); &ldquo;you
+know, if my arms were only free, you daren&rsquo;t hit me
+then.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The truncheon leant back against the chimney, and took no
+notice of the personal insult, like a well-trained policeman as
+it was, though he was ready enough to avenge any transgression
+against morality or order.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But can&rsquo;t I help you in any other way?&nbsp;
+Can&rsquo;t I help you to get out of this chimney?&rdquo; said
+Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; interposed the truncheon; &ldquo;he has come
+to the place where everybody must help themselves; and he will
+find it out, I hope, before he has done with me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; said Grimes, &ldquo;of course
+it&rsquo;s me.&nbsp; Did I ask to be brought here into the
+prison?&nbsp; Did I ask to be set to sweep your foul
+chimneys?&nbsp; Did I ask to have lighted straw put under me to
+make me go up?&nbsp; Did I ask to stick fast in the very first
+chimney of all, because it was so shamefully clogged up with
+soot?&nbsp; Did I ask to stay here&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know how
+long&mdash;a hundred years, I do believe, and never get my pipe,
+nor my beer, nor nothing fit for a beast, let alone a
+man?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; answered a solemn voice behind.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;No more did Tom, when you behaved to him in the very same
+way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.&nbsp; And, when the truncheon
+saw her, it started bolt upright&mdash;Attention!&mdash;and made
+such a low bow, that if it had not been full of the spirit of
+justice, it must have tumbled on its end, and probably hurt its
+one eye.&nbsp; And Tom made his bow too.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t
+think about me; that&rsquo;s all past and gone, and good times
+and bad times and all times pass over.&nbsp; But may not I help
+poor Mr. Grimes?&nbsp; Mayn&rsquo;t I try and get some of these
+bricks away, that he may move his arms?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You may try, of course,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>So Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks: but he could not move
+one.&nbsp; And then he tried to wipe Mr. Grimes&rsquo; face: but
+the soot would not come off.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear!&rdquo; he said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have come all
+this way, through all these terrible places, to help you, and now
+I am of no use at all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You had best leave me alone,&rdquo; said Grimes;
+&ldquo;you are a good-natured forgiving little chap, and
+that&rsquo;s truth; but you&rsquo;d best be off.&nbsp; The
+hail&rsquo;s coming on soon, and it will beat the eyes out of
+your little head.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What hail?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, hail that falls every evening here; and, till it
+comes close to me, it&rsquo;s like so much warm rain: but then it
+turns to hail over my head, and knocks me about like small
+shot.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That hail will never come any more,&rdquo; said the
+strange lady.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have told you before what it
+was.&nbsp; It was your mother&rsquo;s tears, those which she shed
+when she prayed for you by her bedside; but your cold heart froze
+it into hail.&nbsp; But she is gone to heaven now, and will weep
+no more for her graceless son.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then Grimes was silent awhile; and then he looked very
+sad.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So my old mother&rsquo;s gone, and I never there to
+speak to her!&nbsp; Ah! a good woman she was, and might have been
+a happy one, in her little school there in Vendale, if it
+hadn&rsquo;t been for me and my bad ways.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Did she keep the school in Vendale?&rdquo; asked
+Tom.&nbsp; And then he told Grimes all the story of his going to
+her house, and how she could not abide the sight of a
+chimney-sweep, and then how kind she was, and how he turned into
+a water-baby.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Grimes, &ldquo;good reason she had to
+hate the sight of a chimney-sweep.&nbsp; I ran away from her and
+took up with the sweeps, and never let her know where I was, nor
+sent her a penny to help her, and now it&rsquo;s too
+late&mdash;too late!&rdquo; said Mr. Grimes.</p>
+<p>And he began crying and blubbering like a great baby, till his
+pipe dropped out of his mouth, and broke all to bits.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear, if I was but a little chap in Vendale again,
+to see the clear beck, and the apple-orchard, and the yew-hedge,
+how different I would go on!&nbsp; But it&rsquo;s too late
+now.&nbsp; So you go along, you kind little chap, and don&rsquo;t
+stand to look at a man crying, that&rsquo;s old enough to be your
+father, and never feared the face of man, nor of worse
+neither.&nbsp; But I&rsquo;m beat now, and beat I must be.&nbsp;
+I&rsquo;ve made my bed, and I must lie on it.&nbsp; Foul I would
+be, and foul I am, as an Irishwoman said to me once; and little I
+heeded it.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s all my own fault: but it&rsquo;s too
+late.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he cried so bitterly that Tom began crying
+too.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Never too late,&rdquo; said the fairy, in such a
+strange soft new voice that Tom looked up at her; and she was so
+beautiful for the moment, that Tom half fancied she was her
+sister.</p>
+<p>No more was it too late.&nbsp; For, as poor Grimes cried and
+blubbered on, his own tears did what his mother&rsquo;s could not
+do, and Tom&rsquo;s could not do, and nobody&rsquo;s on earth
+could do for him; for they washed the soot off his face and off
+his clothes; and then they washed the mortar away from between
+the bricks; and the chimney crumbled down; and Grimes began to
+get out of it.</p>
+<p>Up jumped the truncheon, and was going to hit him on the crown
+a tremendous thump, and drive him down again like a cork into a
+bottle.&nbsp; But the strange lady put it aside.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Will you obey me if I give you a chance?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As you please, ma&rsquo;am.&nbsp; You&rsquo;re stronger
+than me&mdash;that I know too well, and wiser than me, I know too
+well also.&nbsp; And, as for being my own master, I&rsquo;ve
+fared ill enough with that as yet.&nbsp; So whatever your
+ladyship pleases to order me; for I&rsquo;m beat, and
+that&rsquo;s the truth.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Be it so then&mdash;you may come out.&nbsp; But
+remember, disobey me again, and into a worse place still you
+go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I beg pardon ma&rsquo;am, but I never disobeyed you
+that I know of.&nbsp; I never had the honour of setting eyes upon
+you till I came to these ugly quarters.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Never saw me?&nbsp; Who said to you, Those that will be
+foul, foul they will be?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Grimes looked up; and Tom looked up too; for the voice was
+that of the Irishwoman who met them the day that they went out
+together to Harthover.&nbsp; &ldquo;I gave you your warning then:
+but you gave it yourself a thousand times before and since.&nbsp;
+Every bad word that you said&mdash;every cruel and mean thing
+that you did&mdash;every time that you got tipsy&mdash;every day
+that you went dirty&mdash;you were disobeying me, whether you
+knew it or not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I&rsquo;d only known, ma&rsquo;am&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You knew well enough that you were disobeying
+something, though you did not know it was me.&nbsp; But come out
+and take your chance.&nbsp; Perhaps it may be your
+last.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, if it had
+not been for the scars on his face, he looked as clean and
+respectable as a master-sweep need look.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Take him away,&rdquo; said she to the truncheon,
+&ldquo;and give him his ticket-of-leave.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what is he to do, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will find
+some very steady men working out their time there, who will teach
+him his business: but mind, if that crater gets choked again, and
+there is an earthquake in consequence, bring them all to me, and
+I shall investigate the case very severely.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking as meek as a
+drowned worm.</p>
+<p>And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweeping the
+crater of Etna to this very day.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said the fairy to Tom, &ldquo;your work
+here is done.&nbsp; You may as well go back again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should be glad enough to go,&rdquo; said Tom,
+&ldquo;but how am I to get up that great hole again, now the
+steam has stopped blowing?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will take you up the backstairs: but I must bandage
+your eyes first; for I never allow anybody to see those
+backstairs of mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them,
+ma&rsquo;am, if you bid me not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Aha!&nbsp; So you think, my little man.&nbsp; But you
+would soon forget your promise if you got back into the
+land-world.&nbsp; For, if people only once found out that you had
+been up my backstairs, you would have all the fine ladies
+kneeling to you, and the rich men emptying their purses before
+you, and statesmen offering you place and power; and young and
+old, rich and poor, crying to you, &lsquo;Only tell us the great
+backstairs secret, and we will be your slaves; we will make you
+lord, king, emperor, bishop, archbishop, pope, if you
+like&mdash;only tell us the secret of the backstairs.&nbsp; For
+thousands of years we have been paying, and petting, and obeying,
+and worshipping quacks who told us they had the key of the
+backstairs, and could smuggle us up them; and in spite of all our
+disappointments, we will honour, and glorify, and adore, and
+beatify, and translate, and apotheotise you likewise, on the
+chance of your knowing something about the backstairs, that we
+may all go on pilgrimage to it; and, even if we cannot get up it,
+lie at the foot of it, and cry&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&lsquo;<i>Oh</i>, <i>backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>precious backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>invaluable backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>requisite backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>necessary backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>good-natured backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>cosmopolitan backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>comprehensive backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>accommodating backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>well-bred backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>commercial backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>economical backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>practical backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>logical backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>deductive backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>comfortable backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>humane backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>reasonable backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>long-sought backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>coveted backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>aristocratic backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>respectable backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>gentlenmanlike backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>ladylike backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>orthodox backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>probable backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>credible backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>demonstrable backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>irrefragable backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>potent backstairs</i>,<br />
+<i>all-but-omnipotent backstairs</i>,<br />
+&amp;c.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Save us from the consequences of our own actions, and from the
+cruel fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid!&rsquo;&nbsp; Do not you think
+that you would be a little tempted then to tell what you know,
+laddie?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom thought so certainly.&nbsp; &ldquo;But why do they want so
+to know about the backstairs?&rdquo; asked he, being a little
+frightened at the long words, and not understanding them the
+least; as, indeed, he was not meant to do, or you either.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That I shall not tell you.&nbsp; I never put things
+into little folks&rsquo; heads which are but too likely to come
+there of themselves.&nbsp; So come&mdash;now I must bandage your
+eyes.&rdquo;&nbsp; So she tied the bandage on his eyes with one
+hand, and with the other she took it off.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you are safe up the
+stairs.&rdquo;&nbsp; Tom opened his eyes very wide, and his mouth
+too; for he had not, as he thought, moved a single step.&nbsp;
+But, when he looked round him, there could be no doubt that he
+was safe up the backstairs, whatsoever they may be, which no man
+is going to tell you, for the plain reason that no man knows.</p>
+<p>The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, high and
+sharp against the rosy dawn; and St. Brandan&rsquo;s Isle
+reflected double in the still broad silver sea.&nbsp; The wind
+sang softly in the cedars, and the water sang among the eaves:
+the sea-birds sang as they streamed out into the ocean, and the
+land-birds as they built among the boughs; and the air was so
+full of song that it stirred St. Brandan and his hermits, as they
+slumbered in the shade; and they moved their good old lips, and
+sang their morning hymn amid their dreams.&nbsp; But among all
+the songs one came across the water more sweet and clear than
+all; for it was the song of a young girl&rsquo;s voice.</p>
+<p>And what was the song which she sang?&nbsp; Ah, my little man,
+I am too old to sing that song, and you too young to understand
+it.&nbsp; But have patience, and keep your eye single, and your
+hands clean, and you will learn some day to sing it yourself,
+without needing any man to teach you.</p>
+<p>And as Tom neared the island, there sat upon a rock the most
+graceful creature that ever was seen, looking down, with her chin
+upon her hand, and paddling with her feet in the water.&nbsp; And
+when they came to her she looked up, and behold it was Ellie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Miss Ellie,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;how you are
+grown!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Tom,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;how you are grown
+too!&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p324b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Ellie"
+title=
+"Ellie"
+ src="images/p324s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>And no wonder; they were both quite grown up&mdash;he into a
+tall man, and she into a beautiful woman.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps I may be grown,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+have had time enough; for I have been sitting here waiting for
+you many a hundred years, till I thought you were never
+coming.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Many a hundred years?&rdquo; thought Tom; but he had
+seen so much in his travels that he had quite given up being
+astonished; and, indeed, he could think of nothing but
+Ellie.&nbsp; So he stood and looked at Ellie, and Ellie looked at
+him; and they liked the employment so much that they stood and
+looked for seven years more, and neither spoke nor stirred.</p>
+<p>At last they heard the fairy say: &ldquo;Attention,
+children.&nbsp; Are you never going to look at me
+again?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We have been looking at you all this while,&rdquo; they
+said.&nbsp; And so they thought they had been.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then look at me once more,&rdquo; said she.</p>
+<p>They looked&mdash;and both of them cried out at once,
+&ldquo;Oh, who are you, after all?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid; but you are
+grown quite beautiful now!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To you,&rdquo; said the fairy.&nbsp; &ldquo;But look
+again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are Mother Carey,&rdquo; said Tom, in a very low,
+solemn voice; for he had found out something which made him very
+happy, and yet frightened him more than all that he had ever
+seen.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you are grown quite young again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To you,&rdquo; said the fairy.&nbsp; &ldquo;Look
+again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to
+Harthover!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And when they looked she was neither of them, and yet all of
+them at once.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see
+it there.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, and they
+changed again and again into every hue, as the light changes in a
+diamond.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now read my name,&rdquo; said she, at last.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not yet, young things, not yet,&rdquo; said she,
+smiling; and then she turned to Ellie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You may take him home with you now on Sundays,
+Ellie.&nbsp; He has won his spurs in the great battle, and become
+fit to go with you and be a man; because he has done the thing he
+did not like.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and sometimes on
+week-days, too; and he is now a great man of science, and can
+plan railroads, and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and
+rifled guns, and so forth; and knows everything about everything,
+except why a hen&rsquo;s egg don&rsquo;t turn into a crocodile,
+and two or three other little things which no one will know till
+the coming of the Cocqcigrues.&nbsp; And all this from what he
+learnt when he was a water-baby, underneath the sea.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And of course Tom married Ellie?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My dear child, what a silly notion!&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you know
+that no one ever marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a
+prince or a princess?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And Tom&rsquo;s dog?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Oh, you may see him any clear night in July; for the old
+dog-star was so worn out by the last three hot summers that there
+have been no dog-days since; so that they had to take him down
+and put Tom&rsquo;s dog up in his place.&nbsp; Therefore, as new
+brooms sweep clean, we may hope for some warm weather this
+year.&nbsp; And that is the end of my story.</p>
+<h2>MORAL.</h2>
+<p><i>And now</i>, <i>my dear little man</i>, <i>what should we
+learn from this parable</i>?</p>
+<p><i>We should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things</i>,
+<i>I am not exactly sure which</i>: <i>but one thing</i>, <i>at
+least</i>, <i>we may learn</i>, <i>and that is this&mdash;when we
+see efts in the pond</i>, <i>never to throw stones at them</i>,
+<i>or catch them with crooked pins</i>, <i>or put them into
+vivariums with sticklebacks</i>, <i>that the sticklebacks may
+prick them in their poor little stomachs</i>, <i>and make them
+jump out of the glass into somebody&rsquo;s work-box</i>, <i>and
+so come to a bad end</i>.&nbsp; <i>For these efts are nothing
+else but the water-babies who are stupid and dirty</i>, <i>and
+will not learn their lessons and keep themselves clean</i>;
+<i>and</i>, <i>therefore</i> (<i>as comparative anatomists will
+tell you fifty years hence</i>, <i>though they are not learned
+enough to tell you now</i>), <i>their skulls grow flat</i>,
+<i>their jaws grow out</i>, <i>and their brains grow small</i>,
+<i>and their tails grow long</i>, <i>and they lose all their
+ribs</i> (<i>which I am sure you would not like to do</i>),
+<i>and their skins grow dirty and spotted</i>, <i>and they never
+get into the clear rivers</i>, <i>much less into the great wide
+sea</i>, <i>but hang about in dirty ponds</i>, <i>and live in the
+mud</i>, <i>and eat worms</i>, <i>as they deserve to do</i>.</p>
+<p><i>But that is no reason why you should ill-use them</i>:
+<i>but only why you should pity them</i>, <i>and be kind to
+them</i>, <i>and hope that some day they will wake up</i>, <i>and
+be ashamed of their nasty</i>, <i>dirty</i>, <i>lazy</i>,
+<i>stupid life</i>, <i>and try to amend</i>, <i>and become
+something better once more</i>.&nbsp; <i>For</i>, <i>perhaps</i>,
+<i>if they do so</i>, <i>then after</i> 379,423 <i>years</i>,
+<i>nine months</i>, <i>thirteen days</i>, <i>two hours</i>,
+<i>and twenty-one minutes</i> (<i>for aught that appears to the
+contrary</i>), <i>if they work very hard and wash very hard all
+that time</i>, <i>their brains may grow bigger</i>, <i>and their
+jaws grow smaller</i>, <i>and their ribs come back</i>, <i>and
+their tails wither off</i>, <i>and they will turn into
+water-babies again</i>, <i>and perhaps after that into
+land-babies</i>; <i>and after that perhaps into grown
+men</i>.</p>
+<p><i>You know they won&rsquo;t</i>?&nbsp; <i>Very well</i>, <i>I
+daresay you know best</i>.&nbsp; <i>But you see</i>, <i>some
+folks have a great liking for those poor little efts</i>.&nbsp;
+<i>They never did anybody any harm</i>, <i>or could if they
+tried</i>; <i>and their only fault is</i>, <i>that they do no
+good&mdash;any more than some thousands of their
+betters</i>.&nbsp; <i>But what with ducks</i>, <i>and what with
+pike</i>, <i>and what with sticklebacks</i>, <i>and what with
+water-beetles</i>, <i>and what with naughty boys</i>, <i>they
+are</i> &ldquo;<i>sae sair hadden doun</i>,&rdquo; <i>as the
+Scotsmen say</i>, <i>that it is a wonder how they live</i>;
+<i>and some folks can&rsquo;t help hoping</i>, <i>with good
+Bishop Butler</i>, <i>that they may have another chance</i>,
+<i>to make things fair and even</i>, <i>somewhere</i>,
+<i>somewhen</i>, <i>somehow</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Meanwhile</i>, <i>do you learn your lessons</i>, <i>and
+thank God that you have plenty of cold water to wash in</i>;
+<i>and wash in it too</i>, <i>like a true Englishman</i>.&nbsp;
+<i>And then</i>, <i>if my story is not true</i>, <i>something
+better is</i>; <i>and if I am not quite right</i>, <i>still you
+will be</i>, <i>as long as you stick to hard work and cold
+water</i>.</p>
+<p><i>But remember always</i>, <i>as I told you at first</i>,
+<i>that this is all a fairy tale</i>, <i>and only fun and
+pretence</i>: <i>and</i>, <i>therefore</i>, <i>you are not to
+believe a word of it</i>, <i>even if it is true</i>.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p330b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Water baby riding fish"
+title=
+"Water baby riding fish"
+ src="images/p330s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1018 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+this book outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+book #1018 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1018)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Water-Babies, by Charles Kingsley
+(#3 in our series by Charles Kingsley)
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Water-Babies
+
+Author: Charles Kingsley
+
+Release Date: August, 1997  [EBook #1018]
+[This file was first posted on August 8, 1997]
+[Most recently updated: May 23, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE WATER-BABIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+THE WATER BABIES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+
+"I heard a thousand blended notes,
+While in a grove I sate reclined;
+In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
+Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
+
+"To her fair works did Nature link
+The human soul that through me ran;
+And much it grieved my heart to think,
+What man has made of man."
+
+WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, and his name was
+Tom.  That is a short name, and you have heard it before, so you
+will not have much trouble in remembering it.  He lived in a great
+town in the North country, where there were plenty of chimneys to
+sweep, and plenty of money for Tom to earn and his master to spend.
+He could not read nor write, and did not care to do either; and he
+never washed himself, for there was no water up the court where he
+lived.  He had never been taught to say his prayers.  He never had
+heard of God, or of Christ, except in words which you never have
+heard, and which it would have been well if he had never heard.  He
+cried half his time, and laughed the other half.  He cried when he
+had to climb the dark flues, rubbing his poor knees and elbows raw;
+and when the soot got into his eyes, which it did every day in the
+week; and when his master beat him, which he did every day in the
+week; and when he had not enough to eat, which happened every day
+in the week likewise.  And he laughed the other half of the day,
+when he was tossing halfpennies with the other boys, or playing
+leap-frog over the posts, or bowling stones at the horses' legs as
+they trotted by, which last was excellent fun, when there was a
+wall at hand behind which to hide.  As for chimney-sweeping, and
+being hungry, and being beaten, he took all that for the way of the
+world, like the rain and snow and thunder, and stood manfully with
+his back to it till it was over, as his old donkey did to a hail-
+storm; and then shook his ears and was as jolly as ever; and
+thought of the fine times coming, when he would be a man, and a
+master sweep, and sit in the public-house with a quart of beer and
+a long pipe, and play cards for silver money, and wear velveteens
+and ankle-jacks, and keep a white bull-dog with one gray ear, and
+carry her puppies in his pocket, just like a man.  And he would
+have apprentices, one, two, three, if he could.  How he would bully
+them, and knock them about, just as his master did to him; and make
+them carry home the soot sacks, while he rode before them on his
+donkey, with a pipe in his mouth and a flower in his button-hole,
+like a king at the head of his army.  Yes, there were good times
+coming; and, when his master let him have a pull at the leavings of
+his beer, Tom was the jolliest boy in the whole town.
+
+One day a smart little groom rode into the court where Tom lived.
+Tom was just hiding behind a wall, to heave half a brick at his
+horse's legs, as is the custom of that country when they welcome
+strangers; but the groom saw him, and halloed to him to know where
+Mr. Grimes, the chimney-sweep, lived.  Now, Mr. Grimes was Tom's
+own master, and Tom was a good man of business, and always civil to
+customers, so he put the half-brick down quietly behind the wall,
+and proceeded to take orders.
+
+Mr. Grimes was to come up next morning to Sir John Harthover's, at
+the Place, for his old chimney-sweep was gone to prison, and the
+chimneys wanted sweeping.  And so he rode away, not giving Tom time
+to ask what the sweep had gone to prison for, which was a matter of
+interest to Tom, as he had been in prison once or twice himself.
+Moreover, the groom looked so very neat and clean, with his drab
+gaiters, drab breeches, drab jacket, snow-white tie with a smart
+pin in it, and clean round ruddy face, that Tom was offended and
+disgusted at his appearance, and considered him a stuck-up fellow,
+who gave himself airs because he wore smart clothes, and other
+people paid for them; and went behind the wall to fetch the half-
+brick after all; but did not, remembering that he had come in the
+way of business, and was, as it were, under a flag of truce.
+
+His master was so delighted at his new customer that he knocked Tom
+down out of hand, and drank more beer that night than he usually
+did in two, in order to be sure of getting up in time next morning;
+for the more a man's head aches when he wakes, the more glad he is
+to turn out, and have a breath of fresh air.  And, when he did get
+up at four the next morning, he knocked Tom down again, in order to
+teach him (as young gentlemen used to be taught at public schools)
+that he must be an extra good boy that day, as they were going to a
+very great house, and might make a very good thing of it, if they
+could but give satisfaction.
+
+And Tom thought so likewise, and, indeed, would have done and
+behaved his best, even without being knocked down.  For, of all
+places upon earth, Harthover Place (which he had never seen) was
+the most wonderful, and, of all men on earth, Sir John (whom he had
+seen, having been sent to gaol by him twice) was the most awful.
+
+Harthover Place was really a grand place, even for the rich North
+country; with a house so large that in the frame-breaking riots,
+which Tom could just remember, the Duke of Wellington, and ten
+thousand soldiers to match, were easily housed therein; at least,
+so Tom believed; with a park full of deer, which Tom believed to be
+monsters who were in the habit of eating children; with miles of
+game-preserves, in which Mr. Grimes and the collier lads poached at
+times, on which occasions Tom saw pheasants, and wondered what they
+tasted like; with a noble salmon-river, in which Mr. Grimes and his
+friends would have liked to poach; but then they must have got into
+cold water, and that they did not like at all.  In short, Harthover
+was a grand place, and Sir John a grand old man, whom even Mr.
+Grimes respected; for not only could he send Mr. Grimes to prison
+when he deserved it, as he did once or twice a week; not only did
+he own all the land about for miles; not only was he a jolly,
+honest, sensible squire, as ever kept a pack of hounds, who would
+do what he thought right by his neighbours, as well as get what he
+thought right for himself; but, what was more, he weighed full
+fifteen stone, was nobody knew how many inches round the chest, and
+could have thrashed Mr. Grimes himself in fair fight, which very
+few folk round there could do, and which, my dear little boy, would
+not have been right for him to do, as a great many things are not
+which one both can do, and would like very much to do.  So Mr.
+Grimes touched his hat to him when he rode through the town, and
+called him a "buirdly awd chap," and his young ladies "gradely
+lasses," which are two high compliments in the North country; and
+thought that that made up for his poaching Sir John's pheasants;
+whereby you may perceive that Mr. Grimes had not been to a
+properly-inspected Government National School.
+
+Now, I dare say, you never got up at three o'clock on a midsummer
+morning.  Some people get up then because they want to catch
+salmon; and some because they want to climb Alps; and a great many
+more because they must, like Tom.  But, I assure you, that three
+o'clock on a midsummer morning is the pleasantest time of all the
+twenty-four hours, and all the three hundred and sixty-five days;
+and why every one does not get up then, I never could tell, save
+that they are all determined to spoil their nerves and their
+complexions by doing all night what they might just as well do all
+day.  But Tom, instead of going out to dinner at half-past eight at
+night, and to a ball at ten, and finishing off somewhere between
+twelve and four, went to bed at seven, when his master went to the
+public-house, and slept like a dead pig; for which reason he was as
+piert as a game-cock (who always gets up early to wake the maids),
+and just ready to get up when the fine gentlemen and ladies were
+just ready to go to bed.
+
+So he and his master set out; Grimes rode the donkey in front, and
+Tom and the brushes walked behind; out of the court, and up the
+street, past the closed window-shutters, and the winking weary
+policemen, and the roofs all shining gray in the gray dawn.
+
+They passed through the pitmen's village, all shut up and silent
+now, and through the turnpike; and then the were out in the real
+country, and plodding along the black dusty road, between black
+slag walls, with no sound but the groaning and thumping of the pit-
+engine in the next field.  But soon the road grew white, and the
+walls likewise; and at the wall's foot grew long grass and gay
+flowers, all drenched with dew; and instead of the groaning of the
+pit-engine, they heard the skylark saying his matins high up in the
+air, and the pit-bird warbling in the sedges, as he had warbled all
+night long.
+
+All else was silent.  For old Mrs. Earth was still fast asleep;
+and, like many pretty people, she looked still prettier asleep than
+awake.  The great elm-trees in the gold-green meadows were fast
+asleep above, and the cows fast asleep beneath them; nay, the few
+clouds which were about were fast asleep likewise, and so tired
+that they had lain down on the earth to rest, in long white flakes
+and bars, among the stems of the elm-trees, and along the tops of
+the alders by the stream, waiting for the sun to bid them rise and
+go about their day's business in the clear blue overhead.
+
+On they went; and Tom looked, and looked, for he never had been so
+far into the country before; and longed to get over a gate, and
+pick buttercups, and look for birds' nests in the hedge; but Mr.
+Grimes was a man of business, and would not have heard of that.
+
+Soon they came up with a poor Irishwoman, trudging along with a
+bundle at her back.  She had a gray shawl over her head, and a
+crimson madder petticoat; so you may be sure she came from Galway.
+She had neither shoes nor stockings, and limped along as if she
+were tired and footsore; but she was a very tall handsome woman,
+with bright gray eyes, and heavy black hair hanging about her
+cheeks.  And she took Mr. Grimes' fancy so much, that when he came
+alongside he called out to her:
+
+"This is a hard road for a gradely foot like that.  Will ye up,
+lass, and ride behind me?"
+
+But, perhaps, she did not admire Mr. Grimes' look and voice; for
+she answered quietly:
+
+"No, thank you:  I'd sooner walk with your little lad here."
+
+"You may please yourself," growled Grimes, and went on smoking.
+
+So she walked beside Tom, and talked to him, and asked him where he
+lived, and what he knew, and all about himself, till Tom thought he
+had never met such a pleasant-spoken woman.  And she asked him, at
+last, whether he said his prayers! and seemed sad when he told her
+that he knew no prayers to say.
+
+Then he asked her where she lived, and she said far away by the
+sea.  And Tom asked her about the sea; and she told him how it
+rolled and roared over the rocks in winter nights, and lay still in
+the bright summer days, for the children to bathe and play in it;
+and many a story more, till Tom longed to go and see the sea, and
+bathe in it likewise.
+
+At last, at the bottom of a hill, they came to a spring; not such a
+spring as you see here, which soaks up out of a white gravel in the
+bog, among red fly-catchers, and pink bottle-heath, and sweet white
+orchis; nor such a one as you may see, too, here, which bubbles up
+under the warm sandbank in the hollow lane by the great tuft of
+lady ferns, and makes the sand dance reels at the bottom, day and
+night, all the year round; not such a spring as either of those;
+but a real North country limestone fountain, like one of those in
+Sicily or Greece, where the old heathen fancied the nymphs sat
+cooling themselves the hot summer's day, while the shepherds peeped
+at them from behind the bushes.  Out of a low cave of rock, at the
+foot of a limestone crag, the great fountain rose, quelling, and
+bubbling, and gurgling, so clear that you could not tell where the
+water ended and the air began; and ran away under the road, a
+stream large enough to turn a mill; among blue geranium, and golden
+globe-flower, and wild raspberry, and the bird-cherry with its
+tassels of snow.
+
+And there Grimes stopped, and looked; and Tom looked too.  Tom was
+wondering whether anything lived in that dark cave, and came out at
+night to fly in the meadows.  But Grimes was not wondering at all.
+Without a word, he got off his donkey, and clambered over the low
+road wall, and knelt down, and began dipping his ugly head into the
+spring--and very dirty he made it.
+
+Tom was picking the flowers as fast as he could.  The Irishwoman
+helped him, and showed him how to tie them up; and a very pretty
+nosegay they had made between them.  But when he saw Grimes
+actually wash, he stopped, quite astonished; and when Grimes had
+finished, and began shaking his ears to dry them, he said:
+
+"Why, master, I never saw you do that before."
+
+"Nor will again, most likely.  'Twasn't for cleanliness I did it,
+but for coolness.  I'd be ashamed to want washing every week or so,
+like any smutty collier lad."
+
+"I wish I might go and dip my head in," said poor little Tom.  "It
+must be as good as putting it under the town-pump; and there is no
+beadle here to drive a chap away."
+
+"Thou come along," said Grimes; "what dost want with washing
+thyself?  Thou did not drink half a gallon of beer last night, like
+me."
+
+"I don't care for you," said naughty Tom, and ran down to the
+stream, and began washing his face.
+
+Grimes was very sulky, because the woman preferred Tom's company to
+his; so he dashed at him with horrid words, and tore him up from
+his knees, and began beating him.  But Tom was accustomed to that,
+and got his head safe between Mr. Grimes' legs, and kicked his
+shins with all his might.
+
+"Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes?" cried the
+Irishwoman over the wall.
+
+Grimes looked up, startled at her knowing his name; but all he
+answered was, "No, nor never was yet;" and went on beating Tom.
+
+"True for you.  If you ever had been ashamed of yourself, you would
+have gone over into Vendale long ago."
+
+"What do you know about Vendale?" shouted Grimes; but he left off
+beating Tom.
+
+"I know about Vendale, and about you, too.  I know, for instance,
+what happened in Aldermire Copse, by night, two years ago come
+Martinmas."
+
+"You do?" shouted Grimes; and leaving Tom, he climbed up over the
+wall, and faced the woman.  Tom thought he was going to strike her;
+but she looked him too full and fierce in the face for that.
+
+"Yes; I was there," said the Irishwoman quietly.
+
+"You are no Irishwoman, by your speech," said Grimes, after many
+bad words.
+
+"Never mind who I am.  I saw what I saw; and if you strike that boy
+again, I can tell what I know."
+
+Grimes seemed quite cowed, and got on his donkey without another
+word.
+
+"Stop!" said the Irishwoman.  "I have one more word for you both;
+for you will both see me again before all is over.  Those that wish
+to be clean, clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul,
+foul they will be.  Remember."
+
+And she turned away, and through a gate into the meadow.  Grimes
+stood still a moment, like a man who had been stunned.  Then he
+rushed after her, shouting, "You come back."  But when he got into
+the meadow, the woman was not there.
+
+Had she hidden away?  There was no place to hide in.  But Grimes
+looked about, and Tom also, for he was as puzzled as Grimes himself
+at her disappearing so suddenly; but look where they would, she was
+not there.
+
+Grimes came back again, as silent as a post, for he was a little
+frightened; and, getting on his donkey, filled a fresh pipe, and
+smoked away, leaving Tom in peace.
+
+And now they had gone three miles and more, and came to Sir John's
+lodge-gates.
+
+Very grand lodges they were, with very grand iron gates and stone
+gate-posts, and on the top of each a most dreadful bogy, all teeth,
+horns, and tail, which was the crest which Sir John's ancestors
+wore in the Wars of the Roses; and very prudent men they were to
+wear it, for all their enemies must have run for their lives at the
+very first sight of them.
+
+Grimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper on the spot, and
+opened.
+
+"I was told to expect thee," he said.  "Now thou'lt be so good as
+to keep to the main avenue, and not let me find a hare or a rabbit
+on thee when thou comest back.  I shall look sharp for one, I tell
+thee."
+
+"Not if it's in the bottom of the soot-bag," quoth Grimes, and at
+that he laughed; and the keeper laughed and said:
+
+"If that's thy sort, I may as well walk up with thee to the hall."
+
+"I think thou best had.  It's thy business to see after thy game,
+man, and not mine."
+
+So the keeper went with them; and, to Tom's surprise, he and Grimes
+chatted together all the way quite pleasantly.  He did not know
+that a keeper is only a poacher turned outside in, and a poacher a
+keeper turned inside out.
+
+They walked up a great lime avenue, a full mile long, and between
+their stems Tom peeped trembling at the horns of the sleeping deer,
+which stood up among the ferns.  Tom had never seen such enormous
+trees, and as he looked up he fancied that the blue sky rested on
+their heads.  But he was puzzled very much by a strange murmuring
+noise, which followed them all the way.  So much puzzled, that at
+last he took courage to ask the keeper what it was.
+
+He spoke very civilly, and called him Sir, for he was horribly
+afraid of him, which pleased the keeper, and he told him that they
+were the bees about the lime flowers.
+
+"What are bees?" asked Tom.
+
+"What make honey."
+
+"What is honey?" asked Tom.
+
+"Thou hold thy noise," said Grimes.
+
+"Let the boy be," said the keeper.  "He's a civil young chap now,
+and that's more than he'll be long if he bides with thee."
+
+Grimes laughed, for he took that for a compliment.
+
+"I wish I were a keeper," said Tom, "to live in such a beautiful
+place, and wear green velveteens, and have a real dog-whistle at my
+button, like you."
+
+The keeper laughed; he was a kind-hearted fellow enough.
+
+"Let well alone, lad, and ill too at times.  Thy life's safer than
+mine at all events, eh, Mr. Grimes?"
+
+And Grimes laughed again, and then the two men began talking, quite
+low.  Tom could hear, though, that it was about some poaching
+fight; and at last Grimes said surlily, "Hast thou anything against
+me?"
+
+"Not now."
+
+"Then don't ask me any questions till thou hast, for I am a man of
+honour."
+
+And at that they both laughed again, and thought it a very good
+joke.
+
+And by this time they were come up to the great iron gates in front
+of the house; and Tom stared through them at the rhododendrons and
+azaleas, which were all in flower; and then at the house itself,
+and wondered how many chimneys there were in it, and how long ago
+it was built, and what was the man's name that built it, and
+whether he got much money for his job?
+
+These last were very difficult questions to answer.  For Harthover
+had been built at ninety different times, and in nineteen different
+styles, and looked as if somebody had built a whole street of
+houses of every imaginable shape, and then stirred them together
+with a spoon.
+
+
+For the attics were Anglo-Saxon.
+The third door Norman.
+The second Cinque-cento.
+The first-floor Elizabethan.
+The right wing Pure Doric.
+The centre Early English, with a huge portico copied from the
+Parthenon.
+The left wing pure Boeotian, which the country folk admired most of
+all, became it was just like the new barracks in the town, only
+three times as big.
+The grand staircase was copied from the Catacombs at Rome.
+The back staircase from the Tajmahal at Agra.  This was built by
+Sir John's great-great-great-uncle, who won, in Lord Clive's Indian
+Wars, plenty of money, plenty of wounds, and no more taste than his
+betters.
+The cellars were copied from the caves of Elephanta.
+The offices from the Pavilion at Brighton.
+
+
+And the rest from nothing in heaven, or earth, or under the earth.
+
+So that Harthover House was a great puzzle to antiquarians, and a
+thorough Naboth's vineyard to critics, and architects, and all
+persons who like meddling with other men's business, and spending
+other men's money.  So they were all setting upon poor Sir John,
+year after year, and trying to talk him into spending a hundred
+thousand pounds or so, in building, to please them and not himself.
+But he always put them off, like a canny North-countryman as he
+was.  One wanted him to build a Gothic house, but he said he was no
+Goth; and another to build an Elizabethan, but he said he lived
+under good Queen Victoria, and not good Queen Bess; and another was
+bold enough to tell him that his house was ugly, but he said he
+lived inside it, and not outside; and another, that there was no
+unity in it, but he said that that was just why he liked the old
+place.  For he liked to see how each Sir John, and Sir Hugh, and
+Sir Ralph, and Sir Randal, had left his mark upon the place, each
+after his own taste; and he had no more notion of disturbing his
+ancestors' work than of disturbing their graves.  For now the house
+looked like a real live house, that had a history, and had grown
+and grown as the world grew; and that it was only an upstart fellow
+who did not know who his own grandfather was, who would change it
+for some spick and span new Gothic or Elizabethan thing, which
+looked as if it bad been all spawned in a night, as mushrooms are.
+From which you may collect (if you have wit enough) that Sir John
+was a very sound-headed, sound-hearted squire, and just the man to
+keep the country side in order, and show good sport with his
+hounds.
+
+But Tom and his master did not go in through the great iron gates,
+as if they had been Dukes or Bishops, but round the back way, and a
+very long way round it was; and into a little back-door, where the
+ash-boy let them in, yawning horribly; and then in a passage the
+housekeeper met them, in such a flowered chintz dressing-gown, that
+Tom mistook her for My Lady herself, and she gave Grimes solemn
+orders about "You will take care of this, and take care of that,"
+as if he was going up the chimneys, and not Tom.  And Grimes
+listened, and said every now and then, under his voice, "You'll
+mind that, you little beggar?" and Tom did mind, all at least that
+he could.  And then the housekeeper turned them into a grand room,
+all covered up in sheets of brown paper, and bade them begin, in a
+lofty and tremendous voice; and so after a whimper or two, and a
+kick from his master, into the grate Tom went, and up the chimney,
+while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the furniture; to
+whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous compliments, but
+met with very slight encouragement in return.
+
+How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say; but he swept so many that
+he got quite tired, and puzzled too, for they were not like the
+town flues to which he was accustomed, but such as you would find--
+if you would only get up them and look, which perhaps you would not
+like to do--in old country-houses, large and crooked chimneys,
+which had been altered again and again, till they ran one into
+another, anastomosing (as Professor Owen would say) considerably.
+So Tom fairly lost his way in them; not that he cared much for
+that, though he was in pitchy darkness, for he was as much at home
+in a chimney as a mole is underground; but at last, coming down as
+he thought the right chimney, he came down the wrong one, and found
+himself standing on the hearthrug in a room the like of which he
+had never seen before.
+
+Tom had never seen the like.  He had never been in gentlefolks'
+rooms but when the carpets were all up, and the curtains down, and
+the furniture huddled together under a cloth, and the pictures
+covered with aprons and dusters; and he had often enough wondered
+what the rooms were like when they were all ready for the quality
+to sit in.  And now he saw, and he thought the sight very pretty.
+
+The room was all dressed in white,--white window-curtains, white
+bed-curtains, white furniture, and white walls, with just a few
+lines of pink here and there.  The carpet was all over gay little
+flowers; and the walls were hung with pictures in gilt frames,
+which amused Tom very much.  There were pictures of ladies and
+gentlemen, and pictures of horses and dogs.  The horses he liked;
+but the dogs he did not care for much, for there were no bull-dogs
+among them, not even a terrier.  But the two pictures which took
+his fancy most were, one a man in long garments, with little
+children and their mothers round him, who was laying his hand upon
+the children's heads.  That was a very pretty picture, Tom thought,
+to hang in a lady's room.  For he could see that it was a lady's
+room by the dresses which lay about.
+
+The other picture was that of a man nailed to a cross, which
+surprised Tom much.  He fancied that he had seen something like it
+in a shop-window.  But why was it there?  "Poor man," thought Tom,
+"and he looks so kind and quiet.  But why should the lady have such
+a sad picture as that in her room?  Perhaps it was some kinsman of
+hers, who had been murdered by the savages in foreign parts, and
+she kept it there for a remembrance."  And Tom felt sad, and awed,
+and turned to look at something else.
+
+The next thing he saw, and that too puzzled him, was a washing-
+stand, with ewers and basins, and soap and brushes, and towels, and
+a large bath full of clean water--what a heap of things all for
+washing!  "She must be a very dirty lady," thought Tom, "by my
+master's rule, to want as much scrubbing as all that.  But she must
+be very cunning to put the dirt out of the way so well afterwards,
+for I don't see a speck about the room, not even on the very
+towels."
+
+And then, looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty lady, and held
+his breath with astonishment.
+
+Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white pillow, lay the
+most beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen.  Her cheeks were
+almost as white as the pillow, and her hair was like threads of
+gold spread all about over the bed.  She might have been as old as
+Tom, or maybe a year or two older; but Tom did not think of that.
+He thought only of her delicate skin and golden hair, and wondered
+whether she was a real live person, or one of the wax dolls he had
+seen in the shops.  But when he saw her breathe, he made up his
+mind that she was alive, and stood staring at her, as if she had
+been an angel out of heaven.
+
+No.  She cannot be dirty.  She never could have been dirty, thought
+Tom to himself.  And then he thought, "And are all people like that
+when they are washed?"  And he looked at his own wrist, and tried
+to rub the soot off, and wondered whether it ever would come off.
+"Certainly I should look much prettier then, if I grew at all like
+her."
+
+And looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close to him, a little
+ugly, black, ragged figure, with bleared eyes and grinning white
+teeth.  He turned on it angrily.  What did such a little black ape
+want in that sweet young lady's room?  And behold, it was himself,
+reflected in a great mirror, the like of which Tom had never seen
+before.
+
+And Tom, for the first time in his life, found out that he was
+dirty; and burst into tears with shame and anger; and turned to
+sneak up the chimney again and hide; and upset the fender and threw
+the fire-irons down, with a noise as of ten thousand tin kettles
+tied to ten thousand mad dogs' tails.
+
+Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, seeing Tom,
+screamed as shrill as any peacock.  In rushed a stout old nurse
+from the next room, and seeing Tom likewise, made up her mind that
+he had come to rob, plunder, destroy, and burn; and dashed at him,
+as he lay over the fender, so fast that she caught him by the
+jacket.
+
+But she did not hold him.  Tom had been in a policeman's hands many
+a time, and out of them too, what is more; and he would have been
+ashamed to face his friends for ever if he had been stupid enough
+to be caught by an old woman; so he doubled under the good lady's
+arm, across the room, and out of the window in a moment.
+
+He did not need to drop out, though he would have done so bravely
+enough.  Nor even to let himself down a spout, which would have
+been an old game to him; for once he got up by a spout to the
+church roof, he said to take jackdaws' eggs, but the policeman said
+to steal lead; and, when he was seen on high, sat there till the
+sun got too hot, and came down by another spout, leaving the
+policemen to go back to the stationhouse and eat their dinners.
+
+But all under the window spread a tree, with great leaves and sweet
+white flowers, almost as big as his head.  It was magnolia, I
+suppose; but Tom knew nothing about that, and cared less; for down
+the tree he went, like a cat, and across the garden lawn, and over
+the iron railings and up the park towards the wood, leaving the old
+nurse to scream murder and fire at the window.
+
+The under gardener, mowing, saw Tom, and threw down his scythe;
+caught his leg in it, and cut his shin open, whereby he kept his
+bed for a week; but in his hurry he never knew it, and gave chase
+to poor Tom.  The dairymaid heard the noise, got the churn between
+her knees, and tumbled over it, spilling all the cream; and yet she
+jumped up, and gave chase to Tom.  A groom cleaning Sir John's hack
+at the stables let him go loose, whereby he kicked himself lame in
+five minutes; but he ran out and gave chase to Tom.  Grimes upset
+the soot-sack in the new-gravelled yard, and spoilt it all utterly;
+but he ran out and gave chase to Tom.  The old steward opened the
+park-gate in such a hurry, that he hung up his pony's chin upon the
+spikes, and, for aught I know, it hangs there still; but he jumped
+off, and gave chase to Tom.  The ploughman left his horses at the
+headland, and one jumped over the fence, and pulled the other into
+the ditch, plough and all; but he ran on, and gave chase to Tom.
+The keeper, who was taking a stoat out of a trap, let the stoat go,
+and caught his own finger; but he jumped up, and ran after Tom; and
+considering what he said, and how he looked, I should have been
+sorry for Tom if he had caught him.  Sir John looked out of his
+study window (for he was an early old gentleman) and up at the
+nurse, and a marten dropped mud in his eye, so that he had at last
+to send for the doctor; and yet he ran out, and gave chase to Tom.
+The Irishwoman, too, was walking up to the house to beg,--she must
+have got round by some byway--but she threw away her bundle, and
+gave chase to Tom likewise.  Only my Lady did not give chase; for
+when she had put her head out of the window, her night-wig fell
+into the garden, and she had to ring up her lady's-maid, and send
+her down for it privately, which quite put her out of the running,
+so that she came in nowhere, and is consequently not placed.
+
+In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place--not even when the
+fox was killed in the conservatory, among acres of broken glass,
+and tons of smashed flower-pots--such a noise, row, hubbub, babel,
+shindy, hullabaloo, stramash, charivari, and total contempt of
+dignity, repose, and order, as that day, when Grimes, gardener, the
+groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the steward, the ploughman, the
+keeper, and the Irishwoman, all ran up the park, shouting, "Stop
+thief," in the belief that Tom had at least a thousand pounds'
+worth of jewels in his empty pockets; and the very magpies and jays
+followed Tom up, screaking and screaming, as if he were a hunted
+fox, beginning to droop his brush.
+
+And all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with his little bare
+feet, like a small black gorilla fleeing to the forest.  Alas for
+him! there was no big father gorilla therein to take his part--to
+scratch out the gardener's inside with one paw, toss the dairymaid
+into a tree with another, and wrench off Sir John's head with a
+third, while he cracked the keeper's skull with his teeth as easily
+as if it had been a cocoa-nut or a paving-stone.
+
+However, Tom did not remember ever having had a father; so he did
+not look for one, and expected to have to take care of himself;
+while as for running, he could keep up for a couple of miles with
+any stage-coach, if there was the chance of a copper or a cigar-
+end, and turn coach-wheels on his hands and feet ten times
+following, which is more than you can do.  Wherefore his pursuers
+found it very difficult to catch him; and we will hope that they
+did not catch him at all.
+
+Tom, of course, made for the woods.  He had never been in a wood in
+his life; but he was sharp enough to know that he might hide in a
+bush, or swarm up a tree, and, altogether, had more chance there
+than in the open.  If he had not known that, he would have been
+foolisher than a mouse or a minnow.
+
+But when he got into the wood, he found it a very different sort of
+place from what he had fancied.  He pushed into a thick cover of
+rhododendrons, and found himself at once caught in a trap.  The
+boughs laid hold of his legs and arms, poked him in his face and
+his stomach, made him shut his eyes tight (though that was no great
+loss, for he could not see at best a yard before his nose); and
+when he got through the rhododendrons, the hassock-grass and sedges
+tumbled him over, and cut his poor little fingers afterwards most
+spitefully; the birches birched him as soundly as if he had been a
+nobleman at Eton, and over the face too (which is not fair swishing
+as all brave boys will agree); and the lawyers tripped him up, and
+tore his shins as if they had sharks' teeth--which lawyers are
+likely enough to have.
+
+"I must get out of this," thought Tom, "or I shall stay here till
+somebody comes to help me--which is just what I don't want."
+
+But how to get out was the difficult matter.  And indeed I don't
+think he would ever have got out at all, but have stayed there till
+the cock-robins covered him with leaves, if he had not suddenly run
+his head against a wall.
+
+Now running your head against a wall is not pleasant, especially if
+it is a loose wall, with the stones all set on edge, and a sharp
+cornered one hits you between the eyes and makes you see all manner
+of beautiful stars.  The stars are very beautiful, certainly; but
+unfortunately they go in the twenty-thousandth part of a split
+second, and the pain which comes after them does not.  And so Tom
+hurt his head; but he was a brave boy, and did not mind that a
+penny.  He guessed that over the wall the cover would end; and up
+it he went, and over like a squirrel.
+
+And there he was, out on the great grouse-moors, which the country
+folk called Harthover Fell--heather and bog and rock, stretching
+away and up, up to the very sky.
+
+Now, Tom was a cunning little fellow--as cunning as an old Exmoor
+stag.  Why not?  Though he was but ten years old, he had lived
+longer than most stags, and had more wits to start with into the
+bargain.
+
+He knew as well as a stag, that if he backed he might throw the
+hounds out.  So the first thing he did when he was over the wall
+was to make the neatest double sharp to his right, and run along
+under the wall for nearly half a mile.
+
+Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the steward, and the
+gardener, and the ploughman, and the dairymaid, and all the hue-
+and-cry together, went on ahead half a mile in the very opposite
+direction, and inside the wall, leaving him a mile off on the
+outside; while Tom heard their shouts die away in the woods and
+chuckled to himself merrily.
+
+At last he came to a dip in the land, and went to the bottom of it,
+and then he turned bravely away from the wall and up the moor; for
+he knew that he had put a hill between him and his enemies, and
+could go on without their seeing him.
+
+But the Irishwoman, alone of them all, had seen which way Tom went.
+She had kept ahead of every one the whole time; and yet she neither
+walked nor ran.  She went along quite smoothly and gracefully,
+while her feet twinkled past each other so fast that you could not
+see which was foremost; till every one asked the other who the
+strange woman was; and all agreed, for want of anything better to
+say, that she must be in league with Tom.
+
+But when she came to the plantation, they lost sight of her; and
+they could do no less.  For she went quietly over the wall after
+Tom, and followed him wherever he went.  Sir John and the rest saw
+no more of her; and out of sight was out of mind.
+
+And now Tom was right away into the heather, over just such a moor
+as those in which you have been bred, except that there were rocks
+and stones lying about everywhere, and that, instead of the moor
+growing flat as he went upwards, it grew more and more broken and
+hilly, but not so rough but that little Tom could jog along well
+enough, and find time, too, to stare about at the strange place,
+which was like a new world to him.
+
+He saw great spiders there, with crowns and crosses marked on their
+backs, who sat in the middle of their webs, and when they saw Tom
+coming, shook them so fast that they became invisible.  Then he saw
+lizards, brown and gray and green, and thought they were snakes,
+and would sting him; but they were as much frightened as he, and
+shot away into the heath.  And then, under a rock, he saw a pretty
+sight--a great brown, sharp-nosed creature, with a white tag to her
+brush, and round her four or five smutty little cubs, the funniest
+fellows Tom ever saw.  She lay on her back, rolling about, and
+stretching out her legs and head and tail in the bright sunshine;
+and the cubs jumped over her, and ran round her, and nibbled her
+paws, and lugged her about by the tail; and she seemed to enjoy it
+mightily.  But one selfish little fellow stole away from the rest
+to a dead crow close by, and dragged it off to hide it, though it
+was nearly as big as he was.  Whereat all his little brothers set
+off after him in full cry, and saw Tom; and then all ran back, and
+up jumped Mrs. Vixen, and caught one up in her mouth, and the rest
+toddled after her, and into a dark crack in the rocks; and there
+was an end of the show.
+
+And next he had a fright; for, as he scrambled up a sandy brow--
+whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock-kick--something went off in his face,
+with a most horrid noise.  He thought the ground had blown up, and
+the end of the world come.
+
+And when he opened his eyes (for he shut them very tight) it was
+only an old cock-grouse, who had been washing himself in sand, like
+an Arab, for want of water; and who, when Tom had all but trodden
+on him, jumped up with a noise like the express train, leaving his
+wife and children to shift for themselves, like an old coward, and
+went off, screaming "Cur-ru-u-uck, cur-ru-u-uck--murder, thieves,
+fire--cur-u-uck-cock-kick--the end of the world is come--kick-kick-
+cock-kick."  He was always fancying that the end of the world was
+come, when anything happened which was farther off than the end of
+his own nose.  But the end of the world was not come, any more than
+the twelfth of August was; though the old grouse-cock was quite
+certain of it.
+
+So the old grouse came back to his wife and family an hour
+afterwards, and said solemnly, "Cock-cock-kick; my dears, the end
+of the world is not quite come; but I assure you it is coming the
+day after to-morrow--cock."  But his wife had heard that so often
+that she knew all about it, and a little more.  And, besides, she
+was the mother of a family, and had seven little poults to wash and
+feed every day; and that made her very practical, and a little
+sharp-tempered; so all she answered was:  "Kick-kick-kick--go and
+catch spiders, go and catch spiders--kick."
+
+So Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why; but he liked the great
+wide strange place, and the cool fresh bracing air.  But he went
+more and more slowly as he got higher up the hill; for now the
+ground grew very bad indeed.  Instead of soft turf and springy
+heather, he met great patches of flat limestone rock, just like
+ill-made pavements, with deep cracks between the stones and ledges,
+filled with ferns; so he had to hop from stone to stone, and now
+and then he slipped in between, and hurt his little bare toes,
+though they were tolerably tough ones; but still he would go on and
+up, he could not tell why.
+
+What would Tom have said if he had seen, walking over the moor
+behind him, the very same Irishwoman who had taken his part upon
+the road?  But whether it was that he looked too little behind him,
+or whether it was that she kept out of sight behind the rocks and
+knolls, he never saw her, though she saw him.
+
+And now he began to get a little hungry, and very thirsty; for he
+had run a long way, and the sun had risen high in heaven, and the
+rock was as hot as an oven, and the air danced reels over it, as it
+does over a limekiln, till everything round seemed quivering and
+melting in the glare.
+
+But he could see nothing to eat anywhere, and still less to drink.
+
+The heath was full of bilberries and whimberries; but they were
+only in flower yet, for it was June.  And as for water; who can
+find that on the top of a limestone rock?  Now and then he passed
+by a deep dark swallow-hole, going down into the earth, as if it
+was the chimney of some dwarfs house underground; and more than
+once, as he passed, he could hear water falling, trickling,
+tinkling, many many feet below.  How he longed to get down to it,
+and cool his poor baked lips!  But, brave little chimney-sweep as
+he was, he dared not climb down such chimneys as those.
+
+So he went on and on, till his head spun round with the heat, and
+he thought he heard church-bells ringing a long way off.
+
+"Ah!" he thought, "where there is a church there will be houses and
+people; and, perhaps, some one will give me a bit and a sup."  So
+he set off again, to look for the church; for he was sure that he
+heard the bells quite plain.
+
+And in a minute more, when he looked round, he stopped again, and
+said, "Why, what a big place the world is!"
+
+And so it was; for, from the top of the mountain he could see--what
+could he not see?
+
+Behind him, far below, was Harthover, and the dark woods, and the
+shining salmon river; and on his left, far below, was the town, and
+the smoking chimneys of the collieries; and far, far away, the
+river widened to the shining sea; and little white specks, which
+were ships, lay on its bosom.  Before him lay, spread out like a
+map, great plains, and farms, and villages, amid dark knots of
+trees.  They all seemed at his very feet; but he had sense to see
+that they were long miles away.
+
+And to his right rose moor after moor, hill after hill, till they
+faded away, blue into blue sky.  But between him and those moors,
+and really at his very feet, lay something, to which, as soon as
+Tom saw it, he determined to go, for that was the place for him.
+
+A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow, and filled with
+wood; but through the wood, hundreds of feet below him, he could
+see a clear stream glance.  Oh, if he could but get down to that
+stream!  Then, by the stream, he saw the roof of a little cottage,
+and a little garden set out in squares and beds.  And there was a
+tiny little red thing moving in the garden, no bigger than a fly.
+As Tom looked down, he saw that it was a woman in a red petticoat.
+Ah! perhaps she would give him something to eat.  And there were
+the church-bells ringing again.  Surely there must be a village
+down there.  Well, nobody would know him, or what had happened at
+the Place.  The news could not have got there yet, even if Sir John
+had set all the policemen in the county after him; and he could get
+down there in five minutes.
+
+Tom was quite right about the hue-and-cry not having got thither;
+for he had come without knowing it, the best part of ten miles from
+Harthover; but he was wrong about getting down in five minutes, for
+the cottage was more than a mile off, and a good thousand feet
+below.
+
+However, down he went; like a brave little man as he was, though he
+was very footsore, and tired, and hungry, and thirsty; while the
+church-bells rang so loud, he began to think that they must be
+inside his own head, and the river chimed and tinkled far below;
+and this was the song which it sang:-
+
+
+Clear and cool, clear and cool,
+By laughing shallow, and dreaming pool;
+Cool and clear, cool and clear,
+By shining shingle, and foaming wear;
+Under the crag where the ouzel sings,
+And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings,
+Undefiled, for the undefiled;
+Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child.
+
+Dank and foul, dank and foul,
+By the smoky town in its murky cowl;
+Foul and dank, foul and dank,
+By wharf and sewer and slimy bank;
+Darker and darker the farther I go,
+Baser and baser the richer I grow;
+Who dares sport with the sin-defiled?
+Shrink from me, turn from me, mother and child.
+
+Strong and free, strong and free,
+The floodgates are open, away to the sea,
+Free and strong, free and strong,
+Cleansing my streams as I hurry along,
+To the golden sands, and the leaping bar,
+And the taintless tide that awaits me afar.
+As I lose myself in the infinite main,
+Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again.
+Undefiled, for the undefiled;
+Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child.
+
+
+So Tom went down; and all the while he never saw the Irishwoman
+going down behind him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+
+"And is there care in heaven? and is there love
+In heavenly spirits to these creatures base
+That may compassion of their evils move?
+There is:- else much more wretched were the case
+Of men than beasts:  But oh! the exceeding grace
+Of Highest God that loves His creatures so,
+And all His works with mercy doth embrace,
+That blessed Angels He sends to and fro,
+To serve to wicked man, to serve His wicked foe!"
+
+SPENSER.
+
+
+A mile off, and a thousand feet down.
+
+So Tom found it; though it seemed as if he could have chucked a
+pebble on to the back of the woman in the red petticoat who was
+weeding in the garden, or even across the dale to the rocks beyond.
+For the bottom of the valley was just one field broad, and on the
+other side ran the stream; and above it, gray crag, gray down, gray
+stair, gray moor walled up to heaven.
+
+A quiet, silent, rich, happy place; a narrow crack cut deep into
+the earth; so deep, and so out of the way, that the bad bogies can
+hardly find it out.  The name of the place is Vendale; and if you
+want to see it for yourself, you must go up into the High Craven,
+and search from Bolland Forest north by Ingleborough, to the Nine
+Standards and Cross Fell; and if you have not found it, you must
+turn south, and search the Lake Mountains, down to Scaw Fell and
+the sea; and then, if you have not found it, you must go northward
+again by merry Carlisle, and search the Cheviots all across, from
+Annan Water to Berwick Law; and then, whether you have found
+Vendale or not, you will have found such a country, and such a
+people, as ought to make you proud of being a British boy.
+
+So Tom went to go down; and first he went down three hundred feet
+of steep heather, mixed up with loose brown grindstone, as rough as
+a file; which was not pleasant to his poor little heels, as he came
+bump, stump, jump, down the steep.  And still he thought he could
+throw a stone into the garden.
+
+Then he went down three hundred feet of lime-stone terraces, one
+below the other, as straight as if a carpenter had ruled them with
+his ruler and then cut them out with his chisel.  There was no
+heath there, but -
+
+First, a little grass slope, covered with the prettiest flowers,
+rockrose and saxifrage, and thyme and basil, and all sorts of sweet
+herbs.
+
+Then bump down a two-foot step of limestone.
+
+Then another bit of grass and flowers.
+
+Then bump down a one-foot step.
+
+Then another bit of grass and flowers for fifty yards, as steep as
+the house-roof, where he had to slide down on his dear little tail.
+
+Then another step of stone, ten feet high; and there he had to stop
+himself, and crawl along the edge to find a crack; for if he had
+rolled over, he would have rolled right into the old woman's
+garden, and frightened her out of her wits.
+
+Then, when he had found a dark narrow crack, full of green-stalked
+fern, such as hangs in the basket in the drawing-room, and had
+crawled down through it, with knees and elbows, as he would down a
+chimney, there was another grass slope, and another step, and so
+on, till--oh, dear me!  I wish it was all over; and so did he.  And
+yet he thought he could throw a stone into the old woman's garden.
+
+At last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs; white-beam with its
+great silver-backed leaves, and mountain-ash, and oak; and below
+them cliff and crag, cliff and crag, with great beds of crown-ferns
+and wood-sedge; while through the shrubs he could see the stream
+sparkling, and hear it murmur on the white pebbles.  He did not
+know that it was three hundred feet below.
+
+You would have been giddy, perhaps, at looking down:  but Tom was
+not.  He was a brave little chimney-sweep; and when he found
+himself on the top of a high cliff, instead of sitting down and
+crying for his baba (though he never had had any baba to cry for),
+he said, "Ah, this will just suit me!" though he was very tired;
+and down he went, by stock and stone, sedge and ledge, bush and
+rush, as if he had been born a jolly little black ape, with four
+hands instead of two.
+
+And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman coming down behind
+him.
+
+But he was getting terribly tired now.  The burning sun on the
+fells had sucked him up; but the damp heat of the woody crag sucked
+him up still more; and the perspiration ran out of the ends of his
+fingers and toes, and washed him cleaner than he had been for a
+whole year.  But, of course, he dirtied everything, terribly as he
+went.  There has been a great black smudge all down the crag ever
+since.  And there have been more black beetles in Vendale since
+than ever were known before; all, of course, owing to Tom's having
+blacked the original papa of them all, just as he was setting off
+to be married, with a sky-blue coat and scarlet leggins, as smart
+as a gardener's dog with a polyanthus in his mouth.
+
+At last he got to the bottom.  But, behold, it was not the bottom--
+as people usually find when they are coming down a mountain.  For
+at the foot of the crag were heaps and heaps of fallen limestone of
+every size from that of your head to that of a stage-waggon, with
+holes between them full of sweet heath-fern; and before Tom got
+through them, he was out in the bright sunshine again; and then he
+felt, once for all and suddenly, as people generally do, that he
+was b-e-a-t, beat.
+
+You must expect to be beat a few times in your life, little man, if
+you live such a life as a man ought to live, let you be as strong
+and healthy as you may:  and when you are, you will find it a very
+ugly feeling.  I hope that that day you may have a stout staunch
+friend by you who is not beat; for, if you have not, you had best
+lie where you are, and wait for better times, as poor Tom did.
+
+He could not get on.  The sun was burning, and yet he felt chill
+all over.  He was quite empty, and yet he felt quite sick.  There
+was but two hundred yards of smooth pasture between him and the
+cottage, and yet he could not walk down it.  He could hear the
+stream murmuring only one field beyond it, and yet it seemed to him
+as if it was a hundred miles off.
+
+He lay down on the grass till the beetles ran over him, and the
+flies settled on his nose.  I don't know when he would have got up
+again, if the gnats and the midges had not taken compassion on him.
+But the gnats blew their trumpets so loud in his ear, and the
+midges nibbled so at his hands and face wherever they could find a
+place free from soot, that at last he woke up, and stumbled away,
+down over a low wall, and into a narrow road, and up to the
+cottage-door.
+
+And a neat pretty cottage it was, with clipped yew hedges all round
+the garden, and yews inside too, cut into peacocks and trumpets and
+teapots and all kinds of queer shapes.  And out of the open door
+came a noise like that of the frogs on the Great-A, when they know
+that it is going to be scorching hot to-morrow--and how they know
+that I don't know, and you don't know, and nobody knows.
+
+He came slowly up to the open door, which was all hung round with
+clematis and roses; and then peeped in, half afraid.
+
+And there sat by the empty fireplace, which was filled with a pot
+of sweet herbs, the nicest old woman that ever was seen, in her red
+petticoat, and short dimity bedgown, and clean white cap, with a
+black silk handkerchief over it, tied under her chin.  At her feet
+sat the grandfather of all the cats; and opposite her sat, on two
+benches, twelve or fourteen neat, rosy, chubby little children,
+learning their Chris-cross-row; and gabble enough they made about
+it.
+
+Such a pleasant cottage it was, with a shiny clean stone floor, and
+curious old prints on the walls, and an old black oak sideboard
+full of bright pewter and brass dishes, and a cuckoo clock in the
+corner, which began shouting as soon as Tom appeared:  not that it
+was frightened at Tom, but that it was just eleven o'clock.
+
+All the children started at Tom's dirty black figure,--the girls
+began to cry, and the boys began to laugh, and all pointed at him
+rudely enough; but Tom was too tired to care for that.
+
+"What art thou, and what dost want?" cried the old dame.  "A
+chimney-sweep!  Away with thee!  I'll have no sweeps here."
+
+"Water," said poor little Tom, quite faint.
+
+"Water?  There's plenty i' the beck," she said, quite sharply.
+
+"But I can't get there; I'm most clemmed with hunger and drought."
+And Tom sank down upon the door-step, and laid his head against the
+post.
+
+And the old dame looked at him through her spectacles one minute,
+and two, and three; and then she said, "He's sick; and a bairn's a
+bairn, sweep or none."
+
+"Water," said Tom.
+
+"God forgive me!" and she put by her spectacles, and rose, and came
+to Tom.  "Water's bad for thee; I'll give thee milk."  And she
+toddled off into the next room, and brought a cup of milk and a bit
+of bread.
+
+Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then looked up, revived.
+
+"Where didst come from?" said the dame.
+
+"Over Fell, there," said Tom, and pointed up into the sky.
+
+"Over Harthover? and down Lewthwaite Crag?  Art sure thou art not
+lying?"
+
+"Why should I?" said Tom, and leant his head against the post.
+
+"And how got ye up there?"
+
+"I came over from the Place;" and Tom was so tired and desperate he
+had no heart or time to think of a story, so he told all the truth
+in a few words.
+
+"Bless thy little heart!  And thou hast not been stealing, then?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Bless thy little heart! and I'll warrant not.  Why, God's guided
+the bairn, because he was innocent!  Away from the Place, and over
+Harthover Fell, and down Lewthwaite Crag!  Who ever heard the like,
+if God hadn't led him?  Why dost not eat thy bread?"
+
+"I can't."
+
+"It's good enough, for I made it myself."
+
+"I can't," said Tom, and he laid his head on his knees, and then
+asked -
+
+"Is it Sunday?"
+
+"No, then; why should it be?"
+
+"Because I hear the church-bells ringing so."
+
+"Bless thy pretty heart!  The bairn's sick.  Come wi' me, and I'll
+hap thee up somewhere.  If thou wert a bit cleaner I'd put thee in
+my own bed, for the Lord's sake.  But come along here."
+
+But when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired and giddy that she
+had to help him and lead him.
+
+She put him in an outhouse upon soft sweet hay and an old rug, and
+bade him sleep off his walk, and she would come to him when school
+was over, in an hour's time.
+
+And so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall fast asleep at
+once.
+
+But Tom did not fall asleep.
+
+Instead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about in the
+strangest way, and felt so hot all over that he longed to get into
+the river and cool himself; and then he fell half asleep, and
+dreamt that he heard the little white lady crying to him, "Oh,
+you're so dirty; go and be washed;" and then that he heard the
+Irishwoman saying, "Those that wish to be clean, clean they will
+be."  And then he heard the church-bells ring so loud, close to him
+too, that he was sure it must be Sunday, in spite of what the old
+dame had said; and he would go to church, and see what a church was
+like inside, for he had never been in one, poor little fellow, in
+all his life.  But the people would never let him come in, all over
+soot and dirt like that.  He must go to the river and wash first.
+And he said out loud again and again, though being half asleep he
+did not know it, "I must be clean, I must be clean."
+
+And all of a sudden he found himself, not in the outhouse on the
+hay, but in the middle of a meadow, over the road, with the stream
+just before him, saying continually, "I must be clean, I must be
+clean."  He had got there on his own legs, between sleep and awake,
+as children will often get out of bed, and go about the room, when
+they are not quite well.  But he was not a bit surprised, and went
+on to the bank of the brook, and lay down on the grass, and looked
+into the clear, clear limestone water, with every pebble at the
+bottom bright and clean, while the little silver trout dashed about
+in fright at the sight of his black face; and he dipped his hand in
+and found it so cool, cool, cool; and he said, "I will be a fish; I
+will swim in the water; I must be clean, I must be clean."
+
+So he pulled off all his clothes in such haste that he tore some of
+them, which was easy enough with such ragged old things.  And he
+put his poor hot sore feet into the water; and then his legs; and
+the farther he went in, the more the church-bells rang in his head.
+
+"Ah," said Tom, "I must be quick and wash myself; the bells are
+ringing quite loud now; and they will stop soon, and then the door
+will be shut, and I shall never be able to get in at all."
+
+Tom was mistaken:  for in England the church doors are left open
+all service time, for everybody who likes to come in, Churchman or
+Dissenter; ay, even if he were a Turk or a Heathen; and if any man
+dared to turn him out, as long as he behaved quietly, the good old
+English law would punish that man, as he deserved, for ordering any
+peaceable person out of God's house, which belongs to all alike.
+But Tom did not know that, any more than he knew a great deal more
+which people ought to know.
+
+And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman, not behind him this
+time, but before.
+
+For just before he came to the river side, she had stept down into
+the cool clear water; and her shawl and her petticoat floated off
+her, and the green water-weeds floated round her sides, and the
+white water-lilies floated round her head, and the fairies of the
+stream came up from the bottom and bore her away and down upon
+their arms; for she was the Queen of them all; and perhaps of more
+besides.
+
+"Where have you been?" they asked her.
+
+"I have been smoothing sick folks' pillows, and whispering sweet
+dreams into their ears; opening cottage casements, to let out the
+stifling air; coaxing little children away from gutters, and foul
+pools where fever breeds; turning women from the gin-shop door, and
+staying men's hands as they were going to strike their wives; doing
+all I can to help those who will not help themselves:  and little
+enough that is, and weary work for me.  But I have brought you a
+new little brother, and watched him safe all the way here."
+
+Then all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought that they had a
+little brother coming.
+
+"But mind, maidens, he must not see you, or know that you are here.
+He is but a savage now, and like the beasts which perish; and from
+the beasts which perish he must learn.  So you must not play with
+him, or speak to him, or let him see you:  but only keep him from
+being harmed."
+
+Then the fairies were sad, because they could not play with their
+new brother, but they always did what they were told.
+
+And their Queen floated away down the river; and whither she went,
+thither she came.  But all this Tom, of course, never saw or heard:
+and perhaps if he had it would have made little difference in the
+story; for was so hot and thirsty, and longed so to be clean for
+once, that he tumbled himself as quick as he could into the clear
+cool stream.
+
+And he had not been in it two minutes before he fell fast asleep,
+into the quietest, sunniest, cosiest sleep that ever he had in his
+life; and he dreamt about the green meadows by which he had walked
+that morning, and the tall elm-trees, and the sleeping cows; and
+after that he dreamt of nothing at all.
+
+The reason of his falling into such a delightful sleep is very
+simple; and yet hardly any one has found it out.  It was merely
+that the fairies took him.
+
+Some people think that there are no fairies.  Cousin Cramchild
+tells little folks so in his Conversations.  Well, perhaps there
+are none--in Boston, U.S., where he was raised.  There are only a
+clumsy lot of spirits there, who can't make people hear without
+thumping on the table:  but they get their living thereby, and I
+suppose that is all they want.  And Aunt Agitate, in her Arguments
+on political economy, says there are none.  Well, perhaps there are
+none--in her political economy.  But it is a wide world, my little
+man--and thank Heaven for it, for else, between crinolines and
+theories, some of us would get squashed--and plenty of room in it
+for fairies, without people seeing them; unless, of course, they
+look in the right place.  The most wonderful and the strongest
+things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can
+see.  There is life in you; and it is the life in you which makes
+you grow, and move, and think:  and yet you can't see it.  And
+there is steam in a steam-engine; and that is what makes it move:
+and yet you can't see it; and so there may be fairies in the world,
+and they may be just what makes the world go round to the old tune
+of
+
+
+"C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour
+Qui fait la monde a la ronde:"
+
+
+and yet no one may be able to see them except those whose hearts
+are going round to that same tune.  At all events, we will make
+believe that there are fairies in the world.  It will not be the
+last time by many a one that we shall have to make believe.  And
+yet, after all, there is no need for that.  There must be fairies;
+for this is a fairy tale:  and how can one have a fairy tale if
+there are no fairies?
+
+You don't see the logic of that?  Perhaps not.  Then please not to
+see the logic of a great many arguments exactly like it, which you
+will hear before your beard is gray.
+
+The kind old dame came back at twelve, when school was over, to
+look at Tom:  but there was no Tom there.  She looked about for his
+footprints; but the ground was so hard that there was no slot, as
+they say in dear old North Devon.  And if you grow up to be a brave
+healthy man, you may know some day what no slot means, and know
+too, I hope, what a slot does mean--a broad slot, with blunt claws,
+which makes a man put out his cigar, and set his teeth, and tighten
+his girths, when he sees it; and what his rights mean, if he has
+them, brow, bay, tray, and points; and see something worth seeing
+between Haddon Wood and Countisbury Cliff, with good Mr. Palk
+Collyns to show you the way, and mend your bones as fast as you
+smash them.  Only when that jolly day comes, please don't break
+your neck; stogged in a mire you never will be, I trust; for you
+are a heath-cropper bred and born.
+
+So the old dame went in again quite sulky, thinking that little Tom
+had tricked her with a false story, and shammed ill, and then run
+away again.
+
+But she altered her mind the next day.  For, when Sir John and the
+rest of them had run themselves out of breath, and lost Tom, they
+went back again, looking very foolish.
+
+And they looked more foolish still when Sir John heard more of the
+story from the nurse; and more foolish still, again, when they
+heard the whole story from Miss Ellie, the little lady in white.
+All she had seen was a poor little black chimney-sweep, crying and
+sobbing, and going to get up the chimney again.  Of course, she was
+very much frightened:  and no wonder.  But that was all.  The boy
+had taken nothing in the room; by the mark of his little sooty
+feet, they could see that he had never been off the hearthrug till
+the nurse caught hold of him.  It was all a mistake.
+
+So Sir John told Grimes to go home, and promised him five shillings
+if he would bring the boy quietly up to him, without beating him,
+that he might be sure of the truth.  For he took for granted, and
+Grimes too, that Tom had made his way home.
+
+But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that evening; and he went to the
+police-office, to tell them to look out for the boy.  But no Tom
+was heard of.  As for his having gone over those great fells to
+Vendale, they no more dreamed of that than of his having gone to
+the moon.
+
+So Mr. Grimes came up to Harthover next day with a very sour face;
+but when he got there, Sir John was over the hills and far away;
+and Mr. Grimes had to sit in the outer servants' hall all day, and
+drink strong ale to wash away his sorrows; and they were washed
+away long before Sir John came back.
+
+For good Sir John had slept very badly that night; and he said to
+his lady, "My dear, the boy must have got over into the 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 into
+his shooting-jacket and gaiters, and into the stableyard, like a
+fine old English gentleman, with a face as red as a rose, and a
+hand as hard as a table, and a back as broad as a bullock's; and
+bade them bring his shooting pony, and the keeper to come on his
+pony, and the huntsman, and the first whip, and the second whip,
+and the under-keeper with the bloodhound in a leash--a great dog as
+tall as a calf, of the colour of a gravel-walk, with mahogany ears
+and nose, and a throat like a church-bell.  They took him up to the
+place where Tom had gone into the wood; and there the hound lifted
+up his mighty voice, and told them all he knew.
+
+Then he took them to the place where Tom had climbed the wall; and
+they shoved it down, and all got through.
+
+And then the wise dog took them over the moor, and over the fells,
+step by step, very slowly; for the scent was a day old, you know,
+and very light from the heat and drought.  But that was why cunning
+old Sir John started at five in the morning.
+
+And at last he came to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and there he
+bayed, and looked up in their faces, as much as to say, "I tell you
+he is gone down here!"
+
+They could hardly believe that Tom would have gone so far; and when
+they looked at that awful cliff, they could never believe that he
+would have dared to face it.  But if the dog said so, it must be
+true.
+
+"Heaven forgive us!" said Sir John.  "If we find him at all, we
+shall find him lying at the bottom."  And he slapped his great hand
+upon his great thigh, and said -
+
+"Who will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, and see if that boy is
+alive?  Oh that I were twenty years younger, and I would go down
+myself!"  And so he would have done, as well as any sweep in the
+county.  Then he said -
+
+"Twenty pounds to the man who brings me that boy alive!" and as was
+his way, what he said he meant.
+
+Now among the lot was a little groom-boy, a very little groom
+indeed; and he was the same who had ridden up the court, and told
+Tom to come to the Hall; and he said -
+
+"Twenty pounds or none, I will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, if
+it's only for the poor boy's sake.  For he was as civil a spoken
+little chap as ever climbed a flue."
+
+So down over Lewthwaite Crag he went:  a very smart groom he was at
+the top, and a very shabby one at the bottom; for he tore his
+gaiters, and he tore his breeches, and he tore his jacket, and he
+burst his braces, and he burst his boots, and he lost his hat, and
+what was worst of all, he lost his shirt pin, which he prized very
+much, for it was gold, and he had won it in a raffle at Malton, and
+there was a figure at the top of it, of t'ould mare, noble old
+Beeswing herself, as natural as life; so it was a really severe
+loss:  but he never saw anything of Tom.
+
+And all the while Sir John and the rest were riding round, full
+three miles to the right, and back again, to get into Vendale, and
+to the foot of the crag.
+
+When they came to the old dame's school, all the children came out
+to see.  And the old dame came out too; and when she saw Sir John,
+she curtsied very low, for she was a tenant of his.
+
+"Well, dame, and how are you?" said Sir John.
+
+"Blessings on you as broad as your back, Harthover," says she--she
+didn't call him Sir John, but only Harthover, for that is the
+fashion in the North country--"and welcome into Vendale:  but
+you're no hunting the fox this time of the year?"
+
+"I am hunting, and strange game too," said he.
+
+"Blessings on your heart, and what makes you look so sad the morn?"
+
+"I'm looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep, that is run away."
+
+"Oh, Harthover, Harthover," says she, "ye were always a just man
+and a merciful; and ye'll no harm the poor little lad if I give you
+tidings of him?"
+
+"Not I, not I, dame.  I'm afraid we hunted him out of the house all
+on a miserable mistake, and the hound has brought him to the top of
+Lewthwaite Crag, and--"
+
+Whereat the old dame broke out crying, without letting him finish
+his story.
+
+"So he told me the truth after all, poor little dear!  Ah, first
+thoughts are best, and a body's heart'll guide them right, if they
+will but hearken to it."  And then she told Sir John all.
+
+"Bring the dog here, and lay him on," said Sir John, without
+another word, and he set his teeth very hard.
+
+And the dog opened at once; and went away at the back of the
+cottage, over the road, and over the meadow, and through a bit of
+alder copse; and there, upon an alder stump, they saw Tom's clothes
+lying.  And then they knew as much about it all as there was any
+need to know.
+
+And Tom?
+
+Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this wonderful story.
+Tom, when he woke, for of course he woke--children always wake
+after they have slept exactly as long as is good for them--found
+himself swimming about in the stream, being about four inches, or--
+that I may be accurate--3.87902 inches long and having round the
+parotid region of his fauces a set of external gills (I hope you
+understand all the big words) just like those of a sucking eft,
+which he mistook for a lace frill, till he pulled at them, found he
+hurt himself, and made up his mind that they were part of himself,
+and best left alone.
+
+In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.
+
+A water-baby?  You never heard of a water-baby.  Perhaps not.  That
+is the very reason why this story was written.  There are a great
+many things in the world which you never heard of; and a great many
+more which nobody ever heard of; and a great many things, too,
+which nobody will ever hear of, at least until the coming of the
+Cocqcigrues, when man shall be the measure of all things.
+
+"But there are no such things as water-babies."
+
+How do you know that?  Have you been there to see?  And if you had
+been there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that
+there were none.  If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley
+Wood--as folks sometimes fear he never will--that does not prove
+that there are no such things as foxes.  And as is Eversley Wood to
+all the woods in England, so are the waters we know to all the
+waters in the world.  And no one has a right to say that no water-
+babies exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; which
+is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and
+a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do.
+
+"But surely if there were water-babies, somebody would have caught
+one at least?"
+
+Well.  How do you know that somebody has not?
+
+"But they would have put it into spirits, or into the Illustrated
+News, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing,
+and sent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see
+what they would each say about it."
+
+Ah, my dear little man! that does not follow at all, as you will
+see before the end of the story.
+
+"But a water-baby is contrary to nature."
+
+Well, but, my dear little man, you must learn to talk about such
+things, when you grow older, in a very different way from that.
+You must not talk about "ain't" and "can't" when you speak of this
+great wonderful world round you, of which the wisest man knows only
+the very smallest corner, and is, as the great Sir Isaac Newton
+said, only a child picking up pebbles on the shore of a boundless
+ocean.
+
+You must not say that this cannot be, or that that is contrary to
+nature.  You do not know what Nature is, or what she can do; and
+nobody knows; not even Sir Roderick Murchison, or Professor Owen,
+or Professor Sedgwick, or Professor Huxley, or Mr. Darwin, or
+Professor Faraday, or Mr. Grove, or any other of the great men whom
+good boys are taught to respect.  They are very wise men; and you
+must listen respectfully to all they say:  but even if they should
+say, which I am sure they never would, "That cannot exist.  That is
+contrary to nature," you must wait a little, and see; for perhaps
+even they may be wrong.  It is only children who read Aunt
+Agitate's Arguments, or Cousin Cramchild's Conversations; or lads
+who go to popular lectures, and see a man pointing at a few big
+ugly pictures on the wall, or making nasty smells with bottles and
+squirts, for an hour or two, and calling that anatomy or chemistry-
+-who talk about "cannot exist," and "contrary to nature."  Wise men
+are afraid to say that there is anything contrary to nature, except
+what is contrary to mathematical truth; for two and two cannot make
+five, and two straight lines cannot join twice, and a part cannot
+be as great as the whole, and so on (at least, so it seems at
+present):  but the wiser men are, the less they talk about
+"cannot."  That is a very rash, dangerous word, that "cannot"; and
+if people use it too often, the Queen of all the Fairies, who makes
+the clouds thunder and the fleas bite, and takes just as much
+trouble about one as about the other, is apt to astonish them
+suddenly by showing them, that though they say she cannot, yet she
+can, and what is more, will, whether they approve or not.
+
+And therefore it is, that there are dozens and hundreds of things
+in the world which we should certainly have said were contrary to
+nature, if we did not see them going on under our eyes all day
+long.  If people had never seen little seeds grow into great plants
+and trees, of quite different shape from themselves, and these
+trees again produce fresh seeds, to grow into fresh trees, they
+would have said, "The thing cannot be; it is contrary to nature."
+And they would have been quite as right in saying so, as in saying
+that most other things cannot be.
+
+Or suppose again, that you had come, like M. Du Chaillu, a
+traveller from unknown parts; and that no human being had ever seen
+or heard of an elephant.  And suppose that you described him to
+people, and said, "This is the shape, and plan, and anatomy of the
+beast, and of his feet, and of his trunk, and of his grinders, and
+of his tusks, though they are not tusks at all, but two fore teeth
+run mad; and this is the section of his skull, more like a mushroom
+than a reasonable skull of a reasonable or unreasonable beast; and
+so forth, and so forth; and though the beast (which I assure you I
+have seen and shot) is first cousin to the little hairy coney of
+Scripture, second cousin to a pig, and (I suspect) thirteenth or
+fourteenth cousin to a rabbit, yet he is the wisest of all beasts,
+and can do everything save read, write, and cast accounts."  People
+would surely have said, "Nonsense; your elephant is contrary to
+nature;" and have thought you were telling stories--as the French
+thought of Le Vaillant when he came back to Paris and said that he
+had shot a giraffe; and as the king of the Cannibal Islands thought
+of the English sailor, when he said that in his country water
+turned to marble, and rain fell as feathers.  They would tell you,
+the more they knew of science, "Your elephant is an impossible
+monster, contrary to the laws of comparative anatomy, as far as yet
+known."  To which you would answer the less, the more you thought.
+
+Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last twenty-five
+years, that a flying dragon was an impossible monster?  And do we
+not now know that there are hundreds of them found fossil up and
+down the world?  People call them Pterodactyles:  but that is only
+because they are ashamed to call them flying dragons, after denying
+so long that flying dragons could exist.
+
+The truth is, that folks' fancy that such and such things cannot
+be, simply because they have not seen them, is worth no more than a
+savage's fancy that there cannot be such a thing as a locomotive,
+because he never saw one running wild in the forest.  Wise men know
+that their business is to examine what is, and not to settle what
+is not.  They know that there are elephants; they know that there
+have been flying dragons; and the wiser they are, the less inclined
+they will be to say positively that there are no water-babies.
+
+No water-babies, indeed?  Why, wise men of old said that everything
+on earth had its double in the water; and you may see that that is,
+if not quite true, still quite as true as most other theories which
+you are likely to hear for many a day.  There are land-babies--then
+why not water-babies?  Are there not water-rats, water-flies,
+water-crickets, water-crabs, water-tortoises, water-scorpions,
+water-tigers and water-hogs, water-cats and water-dogs, sea-lions
+and sea-bears, sea-horses and sea-elephants, sea-mice and sea-
+urchins, sea-razors and sea-pens, sea-combs and sea-fans; and of
+plants, are there not water-grass, and water-crowfoot, water-
+milfoil, and so on, without end?
+
+"But all these things are only nicknames; the water things are not
+really akin to the land things."
+
+That's not always true.  They are, in millions of cases, not only
+of the same family, but actually the same individual creatures.  Do
+not even you know that a green drake, and an alder-fly, and a
+dragon-fly, live under water till they change their skins, just as
+Tom changed his?  And if a water animal can continually change into
+a land animal, why should not a land animal sometimes change into a
+water animal?  Don't be put down by any of Cousin Cramchild's
+arguments, but stand up to him like a man, and answer him (quite
+respectfully, of course) thus:-
+
+If Cousin Cramchild says, that if there are water-babies, they must
+grow into water-men, ask him how he knows that they do not? and
+then, how he knows that they must, any more than the Proteus of the
+Adelsberg caverns grows into a perfect newt.
+
+If he says that it is too strange a transformation for a land-baby
+to turn into a water-baby, ask him if he ever heard of the
+transformation of Syllis, or the Distomas, or the common jelly-
+fish, of which M. Quatrefages says excellently well--"Who would not
+exclaim that a miracle had come to pass, if he saw a reptile come
+out of the egg dropped by the hen in his poultry-yard, and the
+reptile give birth at once to an indefinite number of fishes and
+birds?  Yet the history of the jelly-fish is quite as wonderful as
+that would be."  Ask him if he knows about all this; and if he does
+not, tell him to go and look for himself; and advise him (very
+respectfully, of course) to settle no more what strange things
+cannot happen, till he has seen what strange things do happen every
+day.
+
+If he says that things cannot degrade, that is, change downwards
+into lower forms, ask him, who told him that water-babies were
+lower than land-babies?  But even if they were, does he know about
+the strange degradation of the common goose-barnacles, which one
+finds sticking on ships' bottoms; or the still stranger degradation
+of some cousins of theirs, of which one hardly likes to talk, so
+shocking and ugly it is?
+
+And, lastly, if he says (as he most certainly will) that these
+transformations only take place in the lower animals, and not in
+the higher, say that that seems to little boys, and to some grown
+people, a very strange fancy.  For if the changes of the lower
+animals are so wonderful, and so difficult to discover, why should
+not there be changes in the higher animals far more wonderful, and
+far more difficult to discover?  And may not man, the crown and
+flower of all things, undergo some change as much more wonderful
+than all the rest, as the Great Exhibition is more wonderful than a
+rabbit-burrow?  Let him answer that.  And if he says (as he will)
+that not having seen such a change in his experience, he is not
+bound to believe it, ask him respectfully, where his microscope has
+been?  Does not each of us, in coming into this world, go through a
+transformation just as wonderful as that of a sea-egg, or a
+butterfly? and do not reason and analogy, as well as Scripture,
+tell us that that transformation is not the last? and that, though
+what we shall be, we know not, yet we are here but as the crawling
+caterpillar, and shall be hereafter as the perfect fly.  The old
+Greeks, heathens as they were, saw as much as that two thousand
+years ago; and I care very little for Cousin Cramchild, if he sees
+even less than they.  And so forth, and so forth, till he is quite
+cross.  And then tell him that if there are no water-babies, at
+least there ought to be; and that, at least, he cannot answer.
+
+And meanwhile, my dear little man, till you know a great deal more
+about nature than Professor Owen and Professor Huxley put together,
+don't tell me about what cannot be, or fancy that anything is too
+wonderful to be true.  "We are fearfully and wonderfully made,"
+said old David; and so we are; and so is everything around us, down
+to the very deal table.  Yes; much more fearfully and wonderfully
+made, already, is the table, as it stands now, nothing but a piece
+of dead deal wood, than if, as foxes say, and geese believe,
+spirits could make it dance, or talk to you by rapping on it.
+
+Am I in earnest?  Oh dear no!  Don't you know that this is a fairy
+tale, and all fun and pretence; and that you are not to believe one
+word of it, even if it is true?
+
+But at all events, so it happened to Tom.  And, therefore, the
+keeper, and the groom, and Sir John made a great mistake, and were
+very unhappy (Sir John at least) without any reason, when they
+found a black thing in the water, and said it was Tom's body, and
+that he had been drowned.  They were utterly mistaken.  Tom was
+quite alive; and cleaner, and merrier, than he ever had been.  The
+fairies had washed him, you see, in the swift river, so thoroughly,
+that not only his dirt, but his whole husk and shell had been
+washed quite off him, and the pretty little real Tom was washed out
+of the inside of it, and swam away, as a caddis does when its case
+of stones and silk is bored through, and away it goes on its back,
+paddling to the shore, there to split its skin, and fly away as a
+caperer, on four fawn-coloured wings, with long legs and horns.
+They are foolish fellows, the caperers, and fly into the candle at
+night, if you leave the door open.  We will hope Tom will be wiser,
+now he has got safe out of his sooty old shell.
+
+But good Sir John did not understand all this, not being a fellow
+of the Linnaean Society; and he took it into his head that Tom was
+drowned.  When they looked into the empty pockets of his shell, and
+found no jewels there, nor money--nothing but three marbles, and a
+brass button with a string to it--then Sir John did something as
+like crying as ever he did in his life, and blamed himself more
+bitterly than he need have done.  So he cried, and the groom-boy
+cried, and the huntsman cried, and the dame cried, and the little
+girl cried, and the dairymaid cried, and the old nurse cried (for
+it was somewhat her fault), and my lady cried, for though people
+have wigs, that is no reason why they should not have hearts; but
+the keeper did not cry, though he had been so good-natured to Tom
+the morning before; for he was so dried up with running after
+poachers, that you could no more get tears out of him than milk out
+of leather:  and Grimes did not cry, for Sir John gave him ten
+pounds, and he drank it all in a week.  Sir John sent, far and
+wide, to find Tom's father and mother:  but he might have looked
+till Doomsday for them, for one was dead, and the other was in
+Botany Bay.  And the little girl would not play with her dolls for
+a whole week, and never forgot poor little Tom.  And soon my lady
+put a pretty little tombstone over Tom's shell in the little
+churchyard in Vendale, where the old dalesmen all sleep side by
+side between the lime-stone crags.  And the dame decked it with
+garlands every Sunday, till she grew so old that she could not stir
+abroad; then the little children decked it, for her.  And always
+she sang an old old song, as she sat spinning what she called her
+wedding-dress.  The children could not understand it, but they
+liked it none the less for that; for it was very sweet, and very
+sad; and that was enough for them.  And these are the words of it:-
+
+
+When all the world is young, lad,
+And all the trees are green;
+And every goose a swan, lad,
+And every lass a queen;
+Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
+And round the world away;
+Young blood must have its course, lad,
+And every dog his day.
+
+When all the world is old, lad,
+And all the trees are brown;
+And all the sport is stale, lad,
+And all the wheels run down;
+Creep home, and take your place there,
+The spent and maimed among:
+God grant you find one face there,
+You loved when all was young.
+
+
+Those are the words:  but they are only the body of it:  the soul
+of the song was the dear old woman's sweet face, and sweet voice,
+and the sweet old air to which she sang; and that, alas! one cannot
+put on paper.  And at last she grew so stiff and lame, that the
+angels were forced to carry her; and they helped her on with her
+wedding-dress, and carried her up over Harthover Fells, and a long
+way beyond that too; and there was a new schoolmistress in Vendale,
+and we will hope that she was not certificated.
+
+And all the while Tom was swimming about in the river, with a
+pretty little lace-collar of gills about his neck, as lively as a
+grig, and as clean as a fresh-run salmon.
+
+Now if you don't like my story, then go to the schoolroom and learn
+your multiplication-table, and see if you like that better.  Some
+people, no doubt, would do so.  So much the better for us, if not
+for them.  It takes all sorts, they say, to make a world.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+
+"He prayeth well who loveth well
+Both men and bird and beast;
+He prayeth best who loveth best
+All things both great and small:
+For the dear God who loveth us,
+He made and loveth all."
+
+COLERIDGE.
+
+
+Tom was now quite amphibious.  You do not know what that means?
+You had better, then, ask the nearest Government pupil-teacher, who
+may possibly answer you smartly enough, thus -
+
+"Amphibious.  Adjective, derived from two Greek words, amphi, a
+fish, and bios, a beast.  An animal supposed by our ignorant
+ancestors to be compounded of a fish and a beast; which therefore,
+like the hippopotamus, can't live on the land, and dies in the
+water."
+
+However that may be, Tom was amphibious:  and what is better still,
+he was clean.  For the first time in his life, he felt how
+comfortable it was to have nothing on him but himself.  But he only
+enjoyed it:  he did not know it, or think about it; just as you
+enjoy life and health, and yet never think about being alive and
+healthy; and may it be long before you have to think about it!
+
+He did not remember having ever been dirty.  Indeed, he did not
+remember any of his old troubles, being tired, or hungry, or
+beaten, or sent up dark chimneys.  Since that sweet sleep, he had
+forgotten all about his master, and Harthover Place, and the little
+white girl, and in a word, all that had happened to him when he
+lived before; and what was best of all, he had forgotten all the
+bad words which he had learned from Grimes, and the rude boys with
+whom he used to play.
+
+That is not strange:  for you know, when you came into this world,
+and became a land-baby, you remembered nothing.  So why should he,
+when he became a water-baby?
+
+Then have you lived before?
+
+My dear child, who can tell?  One can only tell that, by
+remembering something which happened where we lived before; and as
+we remember nothing, we know nothing about it; and no book, and no
+man, can ever tell us certainly.
+
+There was a wise man once, a very wise man, and a very good man,
+who wrote a poem about the feelings which some children have about
+having lived before; and this is what he said -
+
+
+"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
+The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
+Hath elsewhere had its setting,
+And cometh from afar:
+Not in entire forgetfulness,
+And not in utter nakedness,
+But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
+From God, who is our home."
+
+
+There, you can know no more than that.  But if I was you, I would
+believe that.  For then the great fairy Science, who is likely to
+be queen of all the fairies for many a year to come, can only do
+you good, and never do you harm; and instead of fancying with some
+people, that your body makes your soul, as if a steam-engine could
+make its own coke; or, with some people, that your soul has nothing
+to do with your body, but is only stuck into it like a pin into a
+pincushion, to fall out with the first shake;--you will believe the
+one true,
+
+orthodox,      inductive,
+rational,      deductive,
+philosophical, seductive,
+logical,       productive,
+irrefragable,  salutary,
+nominalistic,  comfortable,
+realistic,
+and on-all-accounts-to-be-received
+
+doctrine of this wonderful fairy tale; which is, that your soul
+makes your body, just as a snail makes his shell.  For the rest, it
+is enough for us to be sure that whether or not we lived before, we
+shall live again; though not, I hope, as poor little heathen Tom
+did.  For he went downward into the water:  but we, I hope, shall
+go upward to a very different place.
+
+But Tom was very happy in the water.  He had been sadly overworked
+in the land-world; and so now, to make up for that, he had nothing
+but holidays in the water-world for a long, long time to come.  He
+had nothing to do now but enjoy himself, and look at all the pretty
+things which are to be seen in the cool clear water-world, where
+the sun is never too hot, and the frost is never too cold.
+
+And what did he live on?  Water-cresses, perhaps; or perhaps water-
+gruel, and water-milk; too many land-babies do so likewise.  But we
+do not know what one-tenth of the water-things eat; so we are not
+answerable for the water-babies.
+
+Sometimes he went along the smooth gravel water-ways, looking at
+the crickets which ran in and out among the stones, as rabbits do
+on land; or he climbed over the ledges of rock, and saw the sand-
+pipes hanging in thousands, with every one of them a pretty little
+head and legs peeping out; or he went into a still corner, and
+watched the caddises eating dead sticks as greedily as you would
+eat plum-pudding, and building their houses with silk and glue.
+Very fanciful ladies they were; none of them would keep to the same
+materials for a day.  One would begin with some pebbles; then she
+would stick on a piece of green wood; then she found a shell, and
+stuck it on too; and the poor shell was alive, and did not like at
+all being taken to build houses with:  but the caddis did not let
+him have any voice in the matter, being rude and selfish, as vain
+people are apt to be; then she stuck on a piece of rotten wood,
+then a very smart pink stone, and so on, till she was patched all
+over like an Irishman's coat.  Then she found a long straw, five
+times as long as herself, and said, "Hurrah! my sister has a tail,
+and I'll have one too;" and she stuck it on her back, and marched
+about with it quite proud, though it was very inconvenient indeed.
+And, at that, tails became all the fashion among the caddis-baits
+in that pool, as they were at the end of the Long Pond last May,
+and they all toddled about with long straws sticking out behind,
+getting between each other's legs, and tumbling over each other,
+and looking so ridiculous, that Tom laughed at them till he cried,
+as we did.  But they were quite right, you know; for people must
+always follow the fashion, even if it be spoon-bonnets.
+
+Then sometimes he came to a deep still reach; and there he saw the
+water-forests.  They would have looked to you only little weeds:
+but Tom, you must remember, was so little that everything looked a
+hundred times as big to him as it does to you, just as things do to
+a minnow, who sees and catches the little water-creatures which you
+can only see in a microscope.
+
+And in the water-forest he saw the water-monkeys and water-
+squirrels (they had all six legs, though; everything almost has six
+legs in the water, except efts and water-babies); and nimbly enough
+they ran among the branches.  There were water-flowers there too,
+in thousands; and Tom tried to pick them:  but as soon as he
+touched them, they drew themselves in and turned into knots of
+jelly; and then Tom saw that they were all alive--bells, and stars,
+and wheels, and flowers, of all beautiful shapes and colours; and
+all alive and busy, just as Tom was.  So now he found that there
+was a great deal more in the world than he had fancied at first
+sight.
+
+There was one wonderful little fellow, too, who peeped out of the
+top of a house built of round bricks.  He had two big wheels, and
+one little one, all over teeth, spinning round and round like the
+wheels in a thrashing-machine; and Tom stood and stared at him, to
+see what he was going to make with his machinery.  And what do you
+think he was doing?  Brick-making.  With his two big wheels he
+swept together all the mud which floated in the water:  all that
+was nice in it he put into his stomach and ate; and all the mud he
+put into the little wheel on his breast, which really was a round
+hole set with teeth; and there he spun it into a neat hard round
+brick; and then he took it and stuck it on the top of his house-
+wall, and set to work to make another. Now was not he a clever
+little fellow?
+
+Tom thought so:  but when he wanted to talk to him the brick-maker
+was much too busy and proud of his work to take notice of him.
+
+Now you must know that all the things under the water talk; only
+not such a language as ours; but such as horses, and dogs, and
+cows, and birds talk to each other; and Tom soon learned to
+understand them and talk to them; so that he might have had very
+pleasant company if he had only been a good boy.  But I am sorry to
+say, he was too like some other little boys, very fond of hunting
+and tormenting creatures for mere sport.  Some people say that boys
+cannot help it; that it is nature, and only a proof that we are all
+originally descended from beasts of prey.  But whether it is nature
+or not, little boys can help it, and must help it.  For if they
+have naughty, low, mischievous tricks in their nature, as monkeys
+have, that is no reason why they should give way to those tricks
+like monkeys, who know no better.  And therefore they must not
+torment dumb creatures; for if they do, a certain old lady who is
+coming will surely give them exactly what they deserve.
+
+But Tom did not know that; and he pecked and howked the poor water-
+things about sadly, till they were all afraid of him, and got out
+of his way, or crept into their shells; so he had no one to speak
+to or play with.
+
+The water-fairies, of course, were very sorry to see him so
+unhappy, and longed to take him, and tell him how naughty he was,
+and teach him to be good, and to play and romp with him too:  but
+they had been forbidden to do that.  Tom had to learn his lesson
+for himself by sound and sharp experience, as many another foolish
+person has to do, though there may be many a kind heart yearning
+over them all the while, and longing to teach them what they can
+only teach themselves.
+
+At last one day he found a caddis, and wanted it to peep out of its
+house:  but its house-door was shut.  He had never seen a caddis
+with a house-door before:  so what must he do, the meddlesome
+little fellow, but pull it open, to see what the poor lady was
+doing inside.  What a shame!  How should you like to have any one
+breaking your bedroom-door in, to see how you looked when you where
+in bed?  So Tom broke to pieces the door, which was the prettiest
+little grating of silk, stuck all over with shining bits of
+crystal; and when he looked in, the caddis poked out her head, and
+it had turned into just the shape of a bird's.  But when Tom spoke
+to her she could not answer; for her mouth and face were tight tied
+up in a new night-cap of neat pink skin.  However, if she didn't
+answer, all the other caddises did; for they held up their hands
+and shrieked like the cats in Struwelpeter:  "Oh, you nasty horrid
+boy; there you are at it again!  And she had just laid herself up
+for a fortnight's sleep, and then she would have come out with such
+beautiful wings, and flown about, and laid such lots of eggs:  and
+now you have broken her door, and she can't mend it because her
+mouth is tied up for a fortnight, and she will die.  Who sent you
+here to worry us out of our lives?"
+
+So Tom swam away.  He was very much ashamed of himself, and felt
+all the naughtier; as little boys do when they have done wrong and
+won't say so.
+
+Then he came to a pool full of little trout, and began tormenting
+them, and trying to catch them:  but they slipped through his
+fingers, and jumped clean out of water in their fright.  But as Tom
+chased them, he came close to a great dark hover under an alder
+root, and out floushed a huge old brown trout ten times as big as
+he was, and ran right against him, and knocked all the breath out
+of his body; and I don't know which was the more frightened of the
+two.
+
+Then he went on sulky and lonely, as he deserved to be; and under a
+bank he saw a very ugly dirty creature sitting, about half as big
+as himself; which had six legs, and a big stomach, and a most
+ridiculous head with two great eyes and a face just like a
+donkey's.
+
+"Oh," said Tom, "you are an ugly fellow to be sure!" and he began
+making faces at him; and put his nose close to him, and halloed at
+him, like a very rude boy.
+
+When, hey presto; all the thing's donkey-face came off in a moment,
+and out popped a long arm with a pair of pincers at the end of it,
+and caught Tom by the nose.  It did not hurt him much; but it held
+him quite tight.
+
+"Yah, ah!  Oh, let me go!" cried Tom.
+
+"Then let me go," said the creature.  "I want to be quiet.  I want
+to split."
+
+Tom promised to let him alone, and he let go.
+
+"Why do you want to split?" said Tom.
+
+"Because my brothers and sisters have all split, and turned into
+beautiful creatures with wings; and I want to split too.  Don't
+speak to me.  I am sure I shall split.  I will split!"
+
+Tom stood still, and watched him.  And he swelled himself, and
+puffed, and stretched himself out stiff, and at last--crack, puff,
+bang--he opened all down his back, and then up to the top of his
+head.
+
+And out of his inside came the most slender, elegant, soft
+creature, as soft and smooth as Tom:  but very pale and weak, like
+a little child who has been ill a long time in a dark room.  It
+moved its legs very feebly; and looked about it half ashamed, like
+a girl when she goes for the first time into a ballroom; and then
+it began walking slowly up a grass stem to the top of the water.
+
+Tom was so astonished that he never said a word but he stared with
+all his eyes.  And he went up to the top of the water too, and
+peeped out to see what would happen.
+
+And as the creature sat in the warm bright sun, a wonderful change
+came over it.  It grew strong and firm; the most lovely colours
+began to show on its body, blue and yellow and black, spots and
+bars and rings; out of its back rose four great wings of bright
+brown gauze; and its eyes grew so large that they filled all its
+head, and shone like ten thousand diamonds.
+
+"Oh, you beautiful creature!" said Tom; and he put out his hand to
+catch it.
+
+But the thing whirred up into the air, and hung poised on its wings
+a moment, and then settled down again by Tom quite fearless.
+
+"No!" it said, "you cannot catch me.  I am a dragon-fly now, the
+king of all the flies; and I shall dance in the sunshine, and hawk
+over the river, and catch gnats, and have a beautiful wife like
+myself.  I know what I shall do.  Hurrah!"  And he flew away into
+the air, and began catching gnats.
+
+"Oh! come back, come back," cried Tom, "you beautiful creature.  I
+have no one to play with, and I am so lonely here.  If you will but
+come back I will never try to catch you."
+
+"I don't care whether you do or not," said the dragon-fly; "for you
+can't.  But when I have had my dinner, and looked a little about
+this pretty place, I will come back, and have a little chat about
+all I have seen in my travels.  Why, what a huge tree this is! and
+what huge leaves on it!"
+
+It was only a big dock:  but you know the dragon-fly had never seen
+any but little water-trees; starwort, and milfoil, and water-
+crowfoot, and such like; so it did look very big to him.  Besides,
+he was very short-sighted, as all dragon-flies are; and never could
+see a yard before his nose; any more than a great many other folks,
+who are not half as handsome as he.
+
+The dragon-fly did come back, and chatted away with Tom.  He was a
+little conceited about his fine colours and his large wings; but
+you know, he had been a poor dirty ugly creature all his life
+before; so there were great excuses for him.  He was very fond of
+talking about all the wonderful things he saw in the trees and the
+meadows; and Tom liked to listen to him, for he had forgotten all
+about them.  So in a little while they became great friends.
+
+And I am very glad to say, that Tom learned such a lesson that day,
+that he did not torment creatures for a long time after.  And then
+the caddises grew quite tame, and used to tell him strange stories
+about the way they built their houses, and changed their skins, and
+turned at last into winged flies; till Tom began to long to change
+his skin, and have wings like them some day.
+
+And the trout and he made it up (for trout very soon forget if they
+have been frightened and hurt).  So Tom used to play with them at
+hare and hounds, and great fun they had; and he used to try to leap
+out of the water, head over heels, as they did before a shower came
+on; but somehow he never could manage it.  He liked most, though,
+to see them rising at the flies, as they sailed round and round
+under the shadow of the great oak, where the beetles fell flop into
+the water, and the green caterpillars let themselves down from the
+boughs by silk ropes for no reason at all; and then changed their
+foolish minds for no reason at all either; and hauled themselves up
+again into the tree, rolling up the rope in a ball between their
+paws; which is a very clever rope-dancer's trick, and neither
+Blondin nor Leotard could do it:  but why they should take so much
+trouble about it no one can tell; for they cannot get their living,
+as Blondin and Leotard do, by trying to break their necks on a
+string.
+
+And very often Tom caught them just as they touched the water; and
+caught the alder-flies, and the caperers, and the cock-tailed duns
+and spinners, yellow, and brown, and claret, and gray, and gave
+them to his friends the trout.  Perhaps he was not quite kind to
+the flies; but one must do a good turn to one's friends when one
+can.
+
+And at last he gave up catching even the flies; for he made
+acquaintance with one by accident and found him a very merry little
+fellow.  And this was the way it happened; and it is all quite
+true.
+
+He was basking at the top of the water one hot day in July,
+catching duns and feeding the trout, when he saw a new sort, a dark
+gray little fellow with a brown head.  He was a very little fellow
+indeed:  but he made the most of himself, as people ought to do.
+He cocked up his head, and he cocked up his wings, and he cocked up
+his tail, and he cocked up the two whisks at his tail-end, and, in
+short, he looked the cockiest little man of all little men.  And so
+he proved to be; for instead of getting away, he hopped upon Tom's
+finger, and sat there as bold as nine tailors; and he cried out in
+the tiniest, shrillest, squeakiest little voice you ever heard,
+
+"Much obliged to you, indeed; but I don't want it yet."
+
+"Want what?" said Tom, quite taken aback by his impudence.
+
+"Your leg, which you are kind enough to hold out for me to sit on.
+I must just go and see after my wife for a few minutes.  Dear me!
+what a troublesome business a family is!" (though the idle little
+rogue did nothing at all, but left his poor wife to lay all the
+eggs by herself).  "When I come back, I shall be glad of it, if
+you'll be so good as to keep it sticking out just so;" and off he
+flew.
+
+Tom thought him a very cool sort of personage; and still more so,
+when, in five minutes he came back, and said--"Ah, you were tired
+waiting?  Well, your other leg will do as well."
+
+And he popped himself down on Tom's knee, and began chatting away
+in his squeaking voice.
+
+"So you live under the water?  It's a low place.  I lived there for
+some time; and was very shabby and dirty.  But I didn't choose that
+that should last.  So I turned respectable, and came up to the top,
+and put on this gray suit.  It's a very business-like suit, you
+think, don't you?"
+
+"Very neat and quiet indeed," said Tom.
+
+"Yes, one must be quiet and neat and respectable, and all that sort
+of thing for a little, when one becomes a family man.  But I'm
+tired of it, that's the truth.  I've done quite enough business, I
+consider, in the last week, to last me my life.  So I shall put on
+a ball dress, and go out and be a smart man, and see the gay world,
+and have a dance or two.  Why shouldn't one be jolly if one can?"
+
+"And what will become of your wife?"
+
+"Oh! she is a very plain stupid creature, and that's the truth; and
+thinks about nothing but eggs.  If she chooses to come, why she
+may; and if not, why I go without her;--and here I go."
+
+And, as he spoke, he turned quite pale, and then quite white.
+
+"Why, you're ill!" said Tom.  But he did not answer.
+
+"You're dead," said Tom, looking at him as he stood on his knee as
+white as a ghost.
+
+"No, I ain't!" answered a little squeaking voice over his head.
+"This is me up here, in my ball-dress; and that's my skin.  Ha, ha!
+you could not do such a trick as that!"
+
+And no more Tom could, nor Houdin, nor Robin, nor Frikell, nor all
+the conjurors in the world.  For the little rogue had jumped clean
+out of his own skin, and left it standing on Tom's knee, eyes,
+wings, legs, tail, exactly as if it had been alive.
+
+"Ha, ha!" he said, and he jerked and skipped up and down, never
+stopping an instant, just as if he had St. Vitus's dance.  "Ain't I
+a pretty fellow now?"
+
+And so he was; for his body was white, and his tail orange, and his
+eyes all the colours of a peacock's tail.  And what was the oddest
+of all, the whisks at the end of his tail had grown five times as
+long as they were before.
+
+"Ah!" said he, "now I will see the gay world.  My living, won't
+cost me much, for I have no mouth, you see, and no inside; so I can
+never be hungry nor have the stomach-ache neither."
+
+No more he had.  He had grown as dry and hard and empty as a quill,
+as such silly shallow-hearted fellows deserve to grow.
+
+But, instead of being ashamed of his emptiness, he was quite proud
+of it, as a good many fine gentlemen are, and began flirting and
+flipping up and down, and singing -
+
+
+"My wife shall dance, and I shall sing,
+So merrily pass the day;
+For I hold it for quite the wisest thing,
+To drive dull care away."
+
+
+And he danced up and down for three days and three nights, till he
+grew so tired, that he tumbled into the water, and floated down.
+But what became of him Tom never knew, and he himself never minded;
+for Tom heard him singing to the last, as he floated down -
+
+
+"To drive dull care away-ay-ay!"
+
+
+And if he did not care, why nobody else cared either.
+
+But one day Tom had a new adventure.  He was sitting on a water-
+lily leaf, he and his friend the dragon-fly, watching the gnats
+dance.  The dragon-fly had eaten as many as he wanted, and was
+sitting quite still and sleepy, for it was very hot and bright.
+The gnats (who did not care the least for their poor brothers'
+death) danced a foot over his head quite happily, and a large black
+fly settled within an inch of his nose, and began washing his own
+face and combing his hair with his paws:  but the dragon-fly never
+stirred, and kept on chatting to Tom about the times when he lived
+under the water.
+
+Suddenly, Tom heard the strangest noise up the stream; cooing, and
+grunting, and whining, and squeaking, as if you had put into a bag
+two stock-doves, nine mice, three guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy,
+and left them there to settle themselves and make music.
+
+He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as the
+noise; a great ball rolling over and over down the stream, seeming
+one moment of soft brown fur, and the next of shining glass:  and
+yet it was not a ball; for sometimes it broke up and streamed away
+in pieces, and then it joined again; and all the while the noise
+came out of it louder and louder.
+
+Tom asked the dragon-fly what it could be:  but, of course, with
+his short sight, he could not even see it, though it was not ten
+yards away.  So he took the neatest little header into the water,
+and started off to see for himself; and, when he came near, the
+ball turned out to be four or five beautiful creatures, many times
+larger than Tom, who were swimming about, and rolling, and diving,
+and twisting, and wrestling, and cuddling, and kissing and biting,
+and scratching, in the most charming fashion that ever was seen.
+And if you don't believe me, you may go to the Zoological Gardens
+(for I am afraid that you won't see it nearer, unless, perhaps, you
+get up at five in the morning, and go down to Cordery's Moor, and
+watch by the great withy pollard which hangs over the backwater,
+where the otters breed sometimes), and then say, if otters at play
+in the water are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creatures
+you ever saw.
+
+But, when the biggest of them saw Tom, she darted out from the
+rest, and cried in the water-language sharply enough, "Quick,
+children, here is something to eat, indeed!" and came at poor Tom,
+showing such a wicked pair of eyes, and such a set of sharp teeth
+in a grinning mouth, that Tom, who had thought her very handsome,
+said to himself, Handsome is that handsome does, and slipped in
+between the water-lily roots as fast as he could, and then turned
+round and made faces at her.
+
+"Come out," said the wicked old otter, "or it will be worse for
+you."
+
+But Tom looked at her from between two thick roots, and shook them
+with all his might, making horrible faces all the while, just as he
+used to grin through the railings at the old women, when he lived
+before.  It was not quite well bred, no doubt; but you know, Tom
+had not finished his education yet.
+
+"Come, away, children," said the otter in disgust, "it is not worth
+eating, after all.  It is only a nasty eft, which nothing eats, not
+even those vulgar pike in the pond."
+
+"I am not an eft!" said Tom; "efts have tails."
+
+"You are an eft," said the otter, very positively; "I see your two
+hands quite plain, and I know you have a tail."
+
+"I tell you I have not," said Tom.  "Look here!" and he turned his
+pretty little self quite round; and, sure enough, he had no more
+tail than you.
+
+The otter might have got out of it by saying that Tom was a frog:
+but, like a great many other people, when she had once said a
+thing, she stood to it, right or wrong; so she answered:
+
+"I say you are an eft, and therefore you are, and not fit food for
+gentlefolk like me and my children.  You may stay there till the
+salmon eat you (she knew the salmon would not, but she wanted to
+frighten poor Tom).  Ha! ha! they will eat you, and we will eat
+them;" and the otter laughed such a wicked cruel laugh--as you may
+hear them do sometimes; and the first time that you hear it you
+will probably think it is bogies.
+
+"What are salmon?" asked Tom.
+
+"Fish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat.  They are the lords
+of the fish, and we are lords of the salmon;" and she laughed
+again.  "We hunt them up and down the pools, and drive them up into
+a corner, the silly things; they are so proud, and bully the little
+trout, and the minnows, till they see us coming, and then they are
+so meek all at once, and we catch them, but we disdain to eat them
+all; we just bite out their soft throats and suck their sweet
+juice--Oh, so good!"--(and she licked her wicked lips)--"and then
+throw them away, and go and catch another.  They are coming soon,
+children, coming soon; I can smell the rain coming up off the sea,
+and then hurrah for a fresh, and salmon, and plenty of eating all
+day long."
+
+And the otter grew so proud that she turned head over heels twice,
+and then stood upright half out of the water, grinning like a
+Cheshire cat.
+
+"And where do they come from?" asked Tom, who kept himself very
+close, for he was considerably frightened.
+
+"Out of the sea, eft, the great wide sea, where they might stay and
+be safe if they liked.  But out of the sea the silly things come,
+into the great river down below, and we come up to watch for them;
+and when they go down again we go down and follow them.  And there
+we fish for the bass and the pollock, and have jolly days along the
+shore, and toss and roll in the breakers, and sleep snug in the
+warm dry crags.  Ah, that is a merry life too, children, if it were
+not for those horrid men."
+
+"What are men?" asked Tom; but somehow he seemed to know before he
+asked.
+
+"Two-legged things, eft:  and, now I come to look at you, they are
+actually something like you, if you had not a tail" (she was
+determined that Tom should have a tail), "only a great deal bigger,
+worse luck for us; and they catch the fish with hooks and lines,
+which get into our feet sometimes, and set pots along the rocks to
+catch lobsters.  They speared my poor dear husband as he went out
+to find something for me to eat.  I was laid up among the crags
+then, and we were very low in the world, for the sea was so rough
+that no fish would come in shore.  But they speared him, poor
+fellow, and I saw them carrying him away upon a pole.  All, he lost
+his life for your sakes, my children, poor dear obedient creature
+that he was."
+
+And the otter grew so sentimental (for otters can be very
+sentimental when they choose, like a good many people who are both
+cruel and greedy, and no good to anybody at all) that she sailed
+solemnly away down the burn, and Tom saw her no more for that time.
+And lucky it was for her that she did so; for no sooner was she
+gone, than down the bank came seven little rough terrier doors,
+snuffing and yapping, and grubbing and splashing, in full cry after
+the otter.  Tom hid among the water-lilies till they were gone; for
+he could not guess that they were the water-fairies come to help
+him.
+
+But he could not help thinking of what the otter had said about the
+great river and the broad sea.  And, as he thought, he longed to go
+and see them.  He could not tell why; but the more he thought, the
+more he grew discontented with the narrow little stream in which he
+lived, and all his companions there; and wanted to get out into the
+wide wide world, and enjoy all the wonderful sights of which he was
+sure it was full.
+
+And once he set off to go down the stream.  But the stream was very
+low; and when he came to the shallows he could not keep under
+water, for there was no water left to keep under.  So the sun
+burned his back and made him sick; and he went back again and lay
+quiet in the pool for a whole week more.
+
+And then, on the evening of a very hot day, he saw a sight.
+
+He had been very stupid all day, and so had the trout; for they
+would not move an inch to take a fly, though there were thousands
+on the water, but lay dozing at the bottom under the shade of the
+stones; and Tom lay dozing too, and was glad to cuddle their smooth
+cool sides, for the water was quite warm and unpleasant.
+
+But toward evening it grew suddenly dark, and Tom looked up and saw
+a blanket of black clouds lying right across the valley above his
+head, resting on the crags right and left.  He felt not quite
+frightened, but very still; for everything was still.  There was
+not a whisper of wind, nor a chirp of a bird to be heard; and next
+a few great drops of rain fell plop into the water, and one hit Tom
+on the nose, and made him pop his head down quickly enough.
+
+And then the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed, and leapt
+across Vendale and back again, from cloud to cloud, and cliff to
+cliff, till the very rocks in the stream seemed to shake:  and Tom
+looked up at it through the water, and thought it the finest thing
+he ever saw in his life.
+
+But out of the water he dared not put his head; for the rain came
+down by bucketsful, and the hail hammered like shot on the stream,
+and churned it into foam; and soon the stream rose, and rushed
+down, higher and higher, and fouler and fouler, full of beetles,
+and sticks; and straws, and worms, and addle-eggs, and wood-lice,
+and leeches, and odds and ends, and omnium-gatherums, and this,
+that, and the other, enough to fill nine museums.
+
+Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and hid behind a rock.
+But the trout did not; for out they rushed from among the stones,
+and began gobbling the beetles and leeches in the most greedy and
+quarrelsome way, and swimming about with great worms hanging out of
+their mouths, tugging and kicking to get them away from each other.
+
+And now, by the flashes of the lightning, Tom saw a new sight--all
+the bottom of the stream alive with great eels, turning and
+twisting along, all down stream and away.  They had been hiding for
+weeks past in the cracks of the rocks, and in burrows in the mud;
+and Tom had hardly ever seen them, except now and then at night:
+but now they were all out, and went hurrying past him so fiercely
+and wildly that he was quite frightened.  And as they hurried past
+he could hear them say to each other, "We must run, we must run.
+What a jolly thunderstorm!  Down to the sea, down to the sea!"
+
+And then the otter came by with all her brood, twining and sweeping
+along as fast as the eels themselves; and she spied Tom as she came
+by, and said "Now is your time, eft, if you want to see the world.
+Come along, children, never mind those nasty eels:  we shall
+breakfast on salmon to-morrow.  Down to the sea, down to the sea!"
+
+Then came a flash brighter than all the rest, and by the light of
+it--in the thousandth part of a second they were gone again--but he
+had seen them, he was certain of it--Three beautiful little white
+girls, with their arms twined round each other's necks, floating
+down the torrent, as they sang, "Down to the sea, down to the sea!"
+
+"Oh stay!  Wait for me!" cried Tom; but they were gone:  yet he
+could hear their voices clear and sweet through the roar of thunder
+and water and wind, singing as they died away, "Down to the sea!"
+
+"Down to the sea?" said Tom; "everything is going to the sea, and I
+will go too.  Good-bye, trout."  But the trout were so busy
+gobbling worms that they never turned to answer him; so that Tom
+was spared the pain of bidding them farewell.
+
+And now, down the rushing stream, guided by the bright flashes of
+the storm; past tall birch-fringed rocks, which shone out one
+moment as clear as day, and the next were dark as night; past dark
+hovers under swirling banks, from which great trout rushed out on
+Tom, thinking him to be good to eat, and turned back sulkily, for
+the fairies sent them home again with a tremendous scolding, for
+daring to meddle with a water-baby; on through narrow strids and
+roaring cataracts, where Tom was deafened and blinded for a moment
+by the rushing waters; along deep reaches, where the white water-
+lilies tossed and flapped beneath the wind and hail; past sleeping
+villages; under dark bridge-arches, and away and away to the sea.
+And Tom could not stop, and did not care to stop; he would see the
+great world below, and the salmon, and the breakers, and the wide
+wide sea.
+
+And when the daylight came, Tom found himself out in the salmon
+river.
+
+And what sort of a river was it?  Was it like an Irish stream,
+winding through the brown bogs, where the wild ducks squatter up
+from among the white water-lilies, and the curlews flit to and fro,
+crying "Tullie-wheep, mind your sheep;" and Dennis tells you
+strange stories of the Peishtamore, the great bogy-snake which lies
+in the black peat pools, among the old pine-stems, and puts his
+head out at night to snap at the cattle as they come down to
+drink?--But you must not believe all that Dennis tells you, mind;
+for if you ask him:
+
+"Is there a salmon here, do you think, Dennis?"
+
+"Is it salmon, thin, your honour manes?  Salmon?  Cartloads it is
+of thim, thin, an' ridgmens, shouldthering ache out of water, av'
+ye'd but the luck to see thim."
+
+Then you fish the pool all over, and never get a rise.
+
+"But there can't be a salmon here, Dennis! and, if you'll but
+think, if one had come up last tide, he'd be gone to the higher
+pools by now."
+
+"Shure thin, and your honour's the thrue fisherman, and understands
+it all like a book.  Why, ye spake as if ye'd known the wather a
+thousand years!  As I said, how could there be a fish here at all,
+just now?"
+
+"But you said just now they were shouldering each other out of
+water?"
+
+And then Dennis will look up at you with his handsome, sly, soft,
+sleepy, good-natured, untrustable, Irish gray eye, and answer with
+the prettiest smile:
+
+"Shure, and didn't I think your honour would like a pleasant
+answer?"
+
+So you must not trust Dennis, because he is in the habit of giving
+pleasant answers:  but, instead of being angry with him, you must
+remember that he is a poor Paddy, and knows no better; so you must
+just burst out laughing; and then he will burst out laughing too,
+and slave for you, and trot about after you, and show you good
+sport if he can--for he is an affectionate fellow, and as fond of
+sport as you are--and if he can't, tell you fibs instead, a hundred
+an hour; and wonder all the while why poor ould Ireland does not
+prosper like England and Scotland, and some other places, where
+folk have taken up a ridiculous fancy that honesty is the best
+policy.
+
+Or was it like a Welsh salmon river, which is remarkable chiefly
+(at least, till this last year) for containing no salmon, as they
+have been all poached out by the enlightened peasantry, to prevent
+the Cythrawl Sassenach (which means you, my little dear, your kith
+and kin, and signifies much the same as the Chinese Fan Quei) from
+coming bothering into Wales, with good tackle, and ready money, and
+civilisation, and common honesty, and other like things of which
+the Cymry stand in no need whatsoever?
+
+Or was it such a salmon stream as I trust you will see among the
+Hampshire water-meadows before your hairs are gray, under the wise
+new fishing-laws?--when Winchester apprentices shall covenant, as
+they did three hundred years ago, not to be made to eat salmon more
+than three days a week; and fresh-run fish shall be as plentiful
+under Salisbury spire as they are in Holly-hole at Christchurch; in
+the good time coming, when folks shall see that, of all Heaven's
+gifts of food, the one to be protected most carefully is that
+worthy gentleman salmon, who is generous enough to go down to the
+sea weighing five ounces, and to come back next year weighing five
+pounds, without having cost the soil or the state one farthing?
+
+Or was it like a Scotch stream, such as Arthur Clough drew in his
+"Bothie":-
+
+
+"Where over a ledge of granite
+Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended. . . . .
+Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under;
+Beautiful most of all, where beads of foam uprising
+Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the
+stillness. . . .
+Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendant birch
+boughs." . . .
+
+
+Ah, my little man, when you are a big man, and fish such a stream
+as that, you will hardly care, I think, whether she be roaring down
+in full spate, like coffee covered with scald cream, while the fish
+are swirling at your fly as an oar-blade swirls in a boat-race, or
+flashing up the cataract like silver arrows, out of the fiercest of
+the foam; or whether the fall be dwindled to a single thread, and
+the shingle below be as white and dusty as a turnpike road, while
+the salmon huddle together in one dark cloud in the clear amber
+pool, sleeping away their time till the rain creeps back again off
+the sea.  You will not care much, if you have eyes and brains; for
+you will lay down your rod contentedly, and drink in at your eyes
+the beauty of that glorious place; and listen to the water-ouzel
+piping on the stones, and watch the yellow roes come down to drink
+and look up at you with their great soft trustful eyes, as much as
+to say, "You could not have the heart to shoot at us?"  And then,
+if you have sense, you will turn and talk to the great giant of a
+gilly who lies basking on the stone beside you.  He will tell you
+no fibs, my little man; for he is a Scotchman, and fears God, and
+not the priest; and, as you talk with him, you will be surprised
+more and more at his knowledge, his sense, his humour, his
+courtesy; and you will find out--unless you have found it out
+before--that a man may learn from his Bible to be a more thorough
+gentleman than if he had been brought up in all the drawing-rooms
+in London.
+
+No.  It was none of these, the salmon stream at Harthover.  It was
+such a stream as you see in dear old Bewick; Bewick, who was born
+and bred upon them.  A full hundred yards broad it was, sliding on
+from broad pool to broad shallow, and broad shallow to broad pool,
+over great fields of shingle, under oak and ash coverts, past low
+cliffs of sandstone, past green meadows, and fair parks, and a
+great house of gray stone, and brown moors above, and here and
+there against the sky the smoking chimney of a colliery.  You must
+look at Bewick to see just what it was like, for he has drawn it a
+hundred times with the care and the love of a true north
+countryman; and, even if you do not care about the salmon river,
+you ought, like all good boys, to know your Bewick.
+
+At least, so old Sir John used to say, and very sensibly he put it
+too, as he was wont to do:
+
+"If they want to describe a finished young gentleman in France, I
+hear, they say of him, 'Il sait son Rabelais.'  But if I want to
+describe one in England, I say, 'He knows his Bewick.'  And I think
+that is the higher compliment."
+
+But Tom thought nothing about what the river was like.  All his
+fancy was, to get down to the wide wide sea.
+
+And after a while he came to a place where the river spread out
+into broad still shallow reaches, so wide that little Tom, as he
+put his head out of the water, could hardly see across.
+
+And there he stopped.  He got a little frightened.  "This must be
+the sea," he thought.  "What a wide place it is!  If I go on into
+it I shall surely lose my way, or some strange thing will bite me.
+I will stop here and look out for the otter, or the eels, or some
+one to tell me where I shall go."
+
+So he went back a little way, and crept into a crack of the rock,
+just where the river opened out into the wide shallows, and watched
+for some one to tell him his way:  but the otter and the eels were
+gone on miles and miles down the stream.
+
+There he waited, and slept too, for he was quite tired with his
+night's journey; and, when he woke, the stream was clearing to a
+beautiful amber hue, though it was still very high.  And after a
+while he saw a sight which made him jump up; for he knew in a
+moment it was one of the things which he had come to look for.
+
+Such a fish! ten times as big as the biggest trout, and a hundred
+times as big as Tom, sculling up the stream past him, as easily as
+Tom had sculled down.
+
+Such a fish! shining silver from head to tail, and here and there a
+crimson dot; with a grand hooked nose and grand curling lip, and a
+grand bright eye, looking round him as proudly as a king, and
+surveying the water right and left as if all belonged to him.
+Surely he must be the salmon, the king of all the fish.
+
+Tom was so frightened that he longed to creep into a hole; but he
+need not have been; for salmon are all true gentlemen, and, like
+true gentlemen, they look noble and proud enough, and yet, like
+true gentlemen, they never harm or quarrel with any one, but go
+about their own business, and leave rude fellows to themselves.
+
+The salmon looked at him full in the face, and then went on without
+minding him, with a swish or two of his tail which made the stream
+boil again. And in a few minutes came another, and then four or
+five, and so on; and all passed Tom, rushing and plunging up the
+cataract with strong strokes of their silver tails, now and then
+leaping clean out of water and up over a rock, shining gloriously
+for a moment in the bright sun; while Tom was so delighted that he
+could have watched them all day long.
+
+And at last one came up bigger than all the rest; but he came
+slowly, and stopped, and looked back, and seemed very anxious and
+busy.  And Tom saw that he was helping another salmon, an
+especially handsome one, who had not a single spot upon it, but was
+clothed in pure silver from nose to tail.
+
+"My dear," said the great fish to his companion, "you really look
+dreadfully tired, and you must not over-exert yourself at first.
+Do rest yourself behind this rock;" and he shoved her gently with
+his nose, to the rock where Tom sat.
+
+You must know that this was the salmon's wife.  For salmon, like
+other true gentlemen, always choose their lady, and love her, and
+are true to her, and take care of her and work for her, and fight
+for her, as every true gentleman ought; and are not like vulgar
+chub and roach and pike, who have no high feelings, and take no
+care of their wives.
+
+Then he saw Tom, and looked at him very fiercely one moment, as if
+he was going to bite him.
+
+"What do you want here?" he said, very fiercely.
+
+"Oh, don't hurt me!" cried Tom.  "I only want to look at you; you
+are so handsome."
+
+"Ah?" said the salmon, very stately but very civilly.  "I really
+beg your pardon; I see what you are, my little dear.  I have met
+one or two creatures like you before, and found them very agreeable
+and well-behaved.  Indeed, one of them showed me a great kindness
+lately, which I hope to be able to repay.  I hope we shall not be
+in your way here.  As soon as this lady is rested, we shall proceed
+on our journey."
+
+What a well-bred old salmon he was!
+
+"So you have seen things like me before?" asked Tom.
+
+"Several times, my dear.  Indeed, it was only last night that one
+at the river's mouth came and warned me and my wife of some new
+stake-nets which had got into the stream, I cannot tell how, since
+last winter, and showed us the way round them, in the most
+charmingly obliging way."
+
+"So there are babies in the sea?" cried Tom, and clapped his little
+hands.  "Then I shall have some one to play with there?  How
+delightful!"
+
+"Were there no babies up this stream?" asked the lady salmon.
+
+"No! and I grew so lonely.  I thought I saw three last night; but
+they were gone in an instant, down to the sea.  So I went too; for
+I had nothing to play with but caddises and dragon-flies and
+trout."
+
+"Ugh!" cried the lady, "what low company!"
+
+"My dear, if he has been in low company, he has certainly not
+learnt their low manners," said the salmon.
+
+"No, indeed, poor little dear:  but how sad for him to live among
+such people as caddises, who have actually six legs, the nasty
+things; and dragon-flies, too! why they are not even good to eat;
+for I tried them once, and they are all hard and empty; and, as for
+trout, every one knows what they are."  Whereon she curled up her
+lip, and looked dreadfully scornful, while her husband curled up
+his too, till he looked as proud as Alcibiades.
+
+"Why do you dislike the trout so?" asked Tom.
+
+"My dear, we do not even mention them, if we can help it; for I am
+sorry to say they are relations of ours who do us no credit.  A
+great many years ago they were just like us:  but they were so
+lazy, and cowardly, and greedy, that instead of going down to the
+sea every year to see the world and grow strong and fat, they chose
+to stay and poke about in the little streams and eat worms and
+grubs; and they are very properly punished for it; for they have
+grown ugly and brown and spotted and small; and are actually so
+degraded in their tastes, that they will eat our children."
+
+"And then they pretend to scrape acquaintance with us again," said
+the lady.  "Why, I have actually known one of them propose to a
+lady salmon, the little impudent little creature."
+
+"I should hope," said the gentleman, "that there are very few
+ladies of our race who would degrade themselves by listening to
+such a creature for an instant.  If I saw such a thing happen, I
+should consider it my duty to put them both to death upon the
+spot."  So the old salmon said, like an old blue-blooded hidalgo of
+Spain; and what is more, he would have done it too.  For you must
+know, no enemies are so bitter against each other as those who are
+of the same race; and a salmon looks on a trout, as some great
+folks look on some little folks, as something just too much like
+himself to be tolerated.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+
+"Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
+Our meddling intellect
+Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things
+We murder to dissect.
+
+Enough of science and of art:
+Close up these barren leaves;
+Come forth, and bring with you a heart
+That watches and receives."
+
+WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+So the salmon went up, after Tom had warned them of the wicked old
+otter; and Tom went down, but slowly and cautiously, coasting along
+shore.  He was many days about it, for it was many miles down to
+the sea; and perhaps he would never have found his way, if the
+fairies had not guided him, without his seeing their fair faces, or
+feeling their gentle hands.
+
+And, as he went, he had a very strange adventure.  It was a clear
+still September night, and the moon shone so brightly down through
+the water, that he could not sleep, though he shut his eyes as
+tight as possible.  So at last he came up to the top, and sat upon
+a little point of rock, and looked up at the broad yellow moon, and
+wondered what she was, and thought that she looked at him.  And he
+watched the moonlight on the rippling river, and the black heads of
+the firs, and the silver-frosted lawns, and listened to the owl's
+hoot, and the snipe's bleat, and the fox's bark, and the otter's
+laugh; and smelt the soft perfume of the birches, and the wafts of
+heather honey off the grouse moor far above; and felt very happy,
+though he could not well tell why.  You, of course, would have been
+very cold sitting there on a September night, without the least bit
+of clothes on your wet back; but Tom was a water-baby, and
+therefore felt cold no more than a fish.
+
+Suddenly, he saw a beautiful sight.  A bright red light moved along
+the river-side, and threw down into the water a long tap-root of
+flame.  Tom, curious little rogue that he was, must needs go and
+see what it was; so he swam to the shore, and met the light as it
+stopped over a shallow run at the edge of a low rock.
+
+And there, underneath the light, lay five or six great salmon,
+looking up at the flame with their great goggle eyes, and wagging
+their tails, as if they were very much pleased at it.
+
+Tom came to the top, to look at this wonderful light nearer, and
+made a splash.
+
+And he heard a voice say:
+
+"There was a fish rose."
+
+He did not know what the words meant:  but he seemed to know the
+sound of them, and to know the voice which spoke them; and he saw
+on the bank three great two-legged creatures, one of whom held the
+light, flaring and sputtering, and another a long pole.  And he
+knew that they were men, and was frightened, and crept into a hole
+in the rock, from which he could see what went on.
+
+The man with the torch bent down over the water, and looked
+earnestly in; and then he said:
+
+"Tak' that muckle fellow, lad; he's ower fifteen punds; and haud
+your hand steady."
+
+Tom felt that there was some danger coming, and longed to warn the
+foolish salmon, who kept staring up at the light as if he was
+bewitched.  But before he could make up his mind, down came the
+pole through the water; there was a fearful splash and struggle,
+and Tom saw that the poor salmon was speared right through, and was
+lifted out of the water.
+
+And then, from behind, there sprang on these three men three other
+men; and there were shouts, and blows, and words which Tom
+recollected to have heard before; and he shuddered and turned sick
+at them now, for he felt somehow that they were strange, and ugly,
+and wrong, and horrible.  And it all began to come back to him.
+They were men; and they were fighting; savage, desperate, up-and-
+down fighting, such as Tom had seen too many times before.
+
+And he stopped his little ears, and longed to swim away; and was
+very glad that he was a water-baby, and had nothing to do any more
+with horrid dirty men, with foul clothes on their backs, and foul
+words on their lips; but he dared not stir out of his hole:  while
+the rock shook over his head with the trampling and struggling of
+the keepers and the poachers.
+
+All of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, and a frightful
+flash, and a hissing, and all was still.
+
+For into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the men; he who held
+the light in his hand.  Into the swift river he sank, and rolled
+over and over in the current.  Tom heard the men above run along
+seemingly looking for him; but he drifted down into the deep hole
+below, and there lay quite still, and they could not find him.
+
+Tom waited a long time, till all was quiet; and then he peeped out,
+and saw the man lying.  At last he screwed up his courage and swam
+down to him.  "Perhaps," he thought, "the water has made him fall
+asleep, as it did me."
+
+Then he went nearer.  He grew more and more curious, he could not
+tell why.  He must go and look at him.  He would go very quietly,
+of course; so he swam round and round him, closer and closer; and,
+as he did not stir, at last he came quite close and looked him in
+the face.
+
+The moon shone so bright that Tom could see every feature; and, as
+he saw, he recollected, bit by bit, it was his old master, Grimes.
+
+Tom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he could.
+
+"Oh dear me!" he thought, "now he will turn into a water-baby.
+What a nasty troublesome one he will be!  And perhaps he will find
+me out, and beat me again."
+
+So he went up the river again a little way, and lay there the rest
+of the night under an alder root; but, when morning came, he longed
+to go down again to the big pool, and see whether Mr. Grimes had
+turned into a water-baby yet.
+
+So he went very carefully, peeping round all the rocks, and hiding
+under all the roots.  Mr. Grimes lay there still; he had not turned
+into a water-baby.  In the afternoon Tom went back again.  He could
+not rest till he had found out what had become of Mr. Grimes.  But
+this time Mr. Grimes was gone; and Tom made up his mind that he was
+turned into a water-baby.
+
+He might have made himself easy, poor little man; Mr. Grimes did
+not turn into a water-baby, or anything like one at all.  But he
+did not make himself easy; and a long time he was fearful lest he
+should meet Grimes suddenly in some deep pool.  He could not know
+that the fairies had carried him away, and put him, where they put
+everything which falls into the water, exactly where it ought to
+be.  But, do you know, what had happened to Mr. Grimes had such an
+effect on him that he never poached salmon any more.  And it is
+quite certain that, when a man becomes a confirmed poacher, the
+only way to cure him is to put him under water for twenty-four
+hours, like Grimes.  So when you grow to be a big man, do you
+behave as all honest fellows should; and never touch a fish or a
+head of game which belongs to another man without his express
+leave; and then people will call you a gentleman, and treat you
+like one; and perhaps give you good sport:  instead of hitting you
+into the river, or calling you a poaching snob.
+
+Then Tom went on down, for he was afraid of staying near Grimes:
+and as he went, all the vale looked sad.  The red and yellow leaves
+showered down into the river; the flies and beetles were all dead
+and gone; the chill autumn fog lay low upon the hills, and
+sometimes spread itself so thickly on the river that he could not
+see his way.  But he felt his way instead, following the flow of
+the stream, day after day, past great bridges, past boats and
+barges, past the great town, with its wharfs, and mills, and tall
+smoking chimneys, and ships which rode at anchor in the stream; and
+now and then he ran against their hawsers, and wondered what they
+were, and peeped out, and saw the sailors lounging on board smoking
+their pipes; and ducked under again, for he was terribly afraid of
+being caught by man and turned into a chimney-sweep once more.  He
+did not know that the fairies were close to him always, shutting
+the sailors' eyes lest they should see him, and turning him aside
+from millraces, and sewer-mouths, and all foul and dangerous
+things.  Poor little fellow, it was a dreary journey for him; and
+more than once he longed to be back in Vendale, playing with the
+trout in the bright summer sun.  But it could not be.  What has
+been once can never come over again.  And people can be little
+babies, even water-babies, only once in their lives.
+
+Besides, people who make up their minds to go and see the world, as
+Tom did, must needs find it a weary journey.  Lucky for them if
+they do not lose heart and stop half-way, instead of going on
+bravely to the end as Tom did.  For then they will remain neither
+boys nor men, neither fish, flesh, nor good red-herring:  having
+learnt a great deal too much, and yet not enough; and sown their
+wild oats, without having the advantage of reaping them.
+
+But Tom was always a brave, determined, little English bull-dog,
+who never knew when he was beaten; and on and on he held, till he
+saw a long way off the red buoy through the fog.  And then he found
+to his surprise, the stream turned round, and running up inland.
+
+It was the tide, of course:  but Tom knew nothing of the tide.  He
+only knew that in a minute more the water, which had been fresh,
+turned salt all round him.  And then there came a change over him.
+He felt as strong, and light, and fresh, as if his veins had run
+champagne; and gave, he did not know why, three skips out of the
+water, a yard high, and head over heels, just as the salmon do when
+they first touch the noble rich salt water, which, as some wise men
+tell us, is the mother of all living things.
+
+He did not care now for the tide being against him.  The red buoy
+was in sight, dancing in the open sea; and to the buoy he would go,
+and to it he went.  He passed great shoals of bass and mullet,
+leaping and rushing in after the shrimps, but he never heeded them,
+or they him; and once he passed a great black shining seal, who was
+coming in after the mullet.  The seal put his head and shoulders
+out of water, and stared at him, looking exactly like a fat old
+greasy negro with a gray pate.  And Tom, instead of being
+frightened, said, "How d'ye do, sir; what a beautiful place the sea
+is!"  And the old seal, instead of trying to bite him, looked at
+him with his soft sleepy winking eyes, and said, "Good tide to you,
+my little man; are you looking for your brothers and sisters?  I
+passed them all at play outside."
+
+"Oh, then," said Tom, "I shall have playfellows at last," and he
+swam on to the buoy, and got upon it (for he was quite out of
+breath) and sat there, and looked round for water-babies:  but
+there were none to be seen.
+
+The sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and blew the fog away;
+and the little waves danced for joy around the buoy, and the old
+buoy danced with them.  The shadows of the clouds ran races over
+the bright blue bay, and yet never caught each other up; and the
+breakers plunged merrily upon the wide white sands, and jumped up
+over the rocks, to see what the green fields inside were like, and
+tumbled down and broke themselves all to pieces, and never minded
+it a bit, but mended themselves and jumped up again.  And the terns
+hovered over Tom like huge white dragon-flies with black heads, and
+the gulls laughed like girls at play, and the sea-pies, with their
+red bills and legs, flew to and fro from shore to shore, and
+whistled sweet and wild.  And Tom looked and looked, and listened;
+and he would have been very happy, if he could only have seen the
+water-babies.  Then when the tide turned, he left the buoy, and
+swam round and round in search of them:  but in vain.  Sometimes he
+thought he heard them laughing:  but it was only the laughter of
+the ripples.  And sometimes he thought he saw them at the bottom:
+but it was only white and pink shells.  And once he was sure he had
+found one, for he saw two bright eyes peeping out of the sand.  So
+he dived down, and began scraping the sand away, and cried, "Don't
+hide; I do want some one to play with so much!"  And out jumped a
+great turbot with his ugly eyes and mouth all awry, and flopped
+away along the bottom, knocking poor Tom over.  And he sat down at
+the bottom of the sea, and cried salt tears from sheer
+disappointment.
+
+To have come all this way, and faced so many dangers, and yet to
+find no water-babies!  How hard!  Well, it did seem hard:  but
+people, even little babies, cannot have all they want without
+waiting for it, and working for it too, my little man, as you will
+find out some day.
+
+And Tom sat upon the buoy long days, long weeks, looking out to
+sea, and wondering when the water-babies would come back; and yet
+they never came.
+
+Then he began to ask all the strange things which came in out of
+the sea if they had seen any; and some said "Yes," and some said
+nothing at all.
+
+He asked the bass and the pollock; but they were so greedy after
+the shrimps that they did not care to answer him a word.
+
+Then there came in a whole fleet of purple sea-snails, floating
+along, each on a sponge full of foam, and Tom said, "Where do you
+come from, you pretty creatures? and have you seen the water-
+babies?"
+
+And the sea-snails answered, "Whence we come we know not; and
+whither we are going, who can tell?  We float out our life in the
+mid-ocean, with the warm sunshine above our heads, and the warm
+gulf-stream below; and that is enough for us.  Yes; perhaps we have
+seen the water-babies.  We have seen many strange things as we
+sailed along."  And they floated away, the happy stupid things, and
+all went ashore upon the sands.
+
+Then there came in a great lazy sunfish, as big as a fat pig cut in
+half; and he seemed to have been cut in half too, and squeezed in a
+clothes-press till he was flat; but to all his big body and big
+fins he had only a little rabbit's mouth, no bigger than Tom's;
+and, when Tom questioned him, he answered in a little squeaky
+feeble voice:
+
+"I'm sure I don't know; I've lost my way.  I meant to go to the
+Chesapeake, and I'm afraid I've got wrong somehow.  Dear me! it was
+all by following that pleasant warm water.  I'm sure I've lost my
+way."
+
+And, when Tom asked him again, he could only answer, "I've lost my
+way.  Don't talk to me; I want to think."
+
+But, like a good many other people, the more he tried to think the
+less he could think; and Tom saw him blundering about all day, till
+the coast-guardsmen saw his big fin above the water, and rowed out,
+and struck a boat-hook into him, and took him away.  They took him
+up to the town and showed him for a penny a head, and made a good
+day's work of it.  But of course Tom did not know that.
+
+Then there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling as they went--
+papas, and mammas, and little children--and all quite smooth and
+shiny, because the fairies French-polish them every morning; and
+they sighed so softly as they came by, that Tom took courage to
+speak to them:  but all they answered was, "Hush, hush, hush;" for
+that was all they had learnt to say.
+
+And then there came a shoal of basking sharks' some of them as long
+as a boat, and Tom was frightened at them.  But they were very lazy
+good-natured fellows, not greedy tyrants, like white sharks and
+blue sharks and ground sharks and hammer-heads, who eat men, or
+saw-fish and threshers and ice-sharks, who hunt the poor old
+whales.  They came and rubbed their great sides against the buoy,
+and lay basking in the sun with their backfins out of water; and
+winked at Tom:  but he never could get them to speak.  They had
+eaten so many herrings that they were quite stupid; and Tom was
+glad when a collier brig came by and frightened them all away; for
+they did smell most horribly, certainly, and he had to hold his
+nose tight as long as they were there.
+
+And then there came by a beautiful creature, like a ribbon of pure
+silver with a sharp head and very long teeth; but it seemed very
+sick and sad.  Sometimes it rolled helpless on its side; and then
+it dashed away glittering like white fire; and then it lay sick
+again and motionless.
+
+"Where do you come from?" asked Tom.  "And why are YOU so sick and
+sad?"
+
+"I come from the warm Carolinas, and the sandbanks fringed with
+pines; where the great owl-rays leap and flap, like giant bats,
+upon the tide.  But I wandered north and north, upon the
+treacherous warm gulf-stream, till I met with the cold icebergs,
+afloat in the mid ocean.  So I got tangled among the icebergs, and
+chilled with their frozen breath.  But the water-babies helped me
+from among them, and set me free again.  And now I am mending every
+day; but I am very sick and sad; and perhaps I shall never get home
+again to play with the owl-rays any more."
+
+"Oh!" cried Tom.  "And you have seen water-babies?  Have you seen
+any near here?"
+
+"Yes; they helped me again last night, or I should have been eaten
+by a great black porpoise."
+
+How vexatious!  The water-babies close to him, and yet he could not
+find one.
+
+And then he left the buoy, and used to go along the sands and round
+the rocks, and come out in the night--like the forsaken Merman in
+Mr. Arnold's beautiful, beautiful poem, which you must learn by
+heart some day--and sit upon a point of rock, among the shining
+sea-weeds, in the low October tides, and cry and call for the
+water-babies; but he never heard a voice call in return.  And at
+last, with his fretting and crying, he grew quite lean and thin.
+
+But one day among the rocks he found a playfellow.  It was not a
+water-baby, alas! but it was a lobster; and a very distinguished
+lobster he was; for he had live barnacles on his claws, which is a
+great mark of distinction in lobsterdom, and no more to be bought
+for money than a good conscience or the Victoria Cross.
+
+Tom had never seen a lobster before; and he was mightily taken with
+this one; for he thought him the most curious, odd, ridiculous
+creature he had ever seen; and there he was not far wrong; for all
+the ingenious men, and all the scientific men, and all the fanciful
+men, in the world, with all the old German bogy-painters into the
+bargain, could never invent, if all their wits were boiled into
+one, anything so curious, and so ridiculous, as a lobster.
+
+He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and Tom delighted in
+watching him hold on to the seaweed with his knobbed claw, while he
+cut up salads with his jagged one, and then put them into his
+mouth, after smelling at them, like a monkey.  And always the
+little barnacles threw out their casting-nets and swept the water,
+and came in for their share of whatever there was for dinner.
+
+But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired himself off--snap!
+like the leap-frogs which you make out of a goose's breast-bone.
+Certainly he took the most wonderful shots, and backwards, too.
+For, if he wanted to go into a narrow crack ten yards off, what do
+you think he did?  If he had gone in head foremost, of course he
+could not have turned round.  So he used to turn his tail to it,
+and lay his long horns, which carry his sixth sense in their tips
+(and nobody knows what that sixth sense is), straight down his back
+to guide him, and twist his eyes back till they almost came out of
+their sockets, and then made ready, present, fire, snap!--and away
+he went, pop into the hole; and peeped out and twiddled his
+whiskers, as much as to say, "You couldn't do that."
+
+Tom asked him about water-babies.  "Yes," he said.  He had seen
+them often.  But he did not think much of them.  They were
+meddlesome little creatures, that went about helping fish and
+shells which got into scrapes.  Well, for his part, he should be
+ashamed to be helped by little soft creatures that had not even a
+shell on their backs.  He had lived quite long enough in the world
+to take care of himself.
+
+He was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not very civil to
+Tom; and you will hear how he had to alter his mind before he was
+done, as conceited people generally have.  But he was so funny, and
+Tom so lonely, that he could not quarrel with him; and they used to
+sit in holes in the rocks, and chat for hours.
+
+And about this time there happened to Tom a very strange and
+important adventure--so important, indeed, that he was very near
+never finding the water-babies at all; and I am sure you would have
+been sorry for that.
+
+I hope that you have not forgotten the little white lady all this
+while.  At least, here she comes, looking like a clean white good
+little darling, as she always was, and always will be.  For it
+befell in the pleasant short December days, when the wind always
+blows from the south-west, till Old Father Christmas comes and
+spreads the great white table-cloth, ready for little boys and
+girls to give the birds their Christmas dinner of crumbs--it befell
+(to go on) in the pleasant December days, that Sir John was so busy
+hunting that nobody at home could get a word out of him.  Four days
+a week he hunted, and very good sport he had; and the other two he
+went to the bench and the board of guardians, and very good justice
+he did; and, when he got home in time, he dined at five; for he
+hated this absurd new fashion of dining at eight in the hunting
+season, which forces a man to make interest with the footman for
+cold beef and beer as soon as he comes in, and so spoil his
+appetite, and then sleep in an arm-chair in his bedroom, all stiff
+and tired, for two or three hours before he can get his dinner like
+a gentleman.  And do you be like Sir John, my dear little man, when
+you are your own master; and, if you want either to read hard or
+ride hard, stick to the good old Cambridge hours of breakfast at
+eight and dinner at five; by which you may get two days' work out
+of one.  But, of course, if you find a fox at three in the
+afternoon and run him till dark, and leave off twenty miles from
+home, why you must wait for your dinner till you can get it, as
+better men than you have done.  Only see that, if you go hungry,
+your horse does not; but give him his warm gruel and beer, and take
+him gently home, remembering that good horses don't grow on the
+hedge like blackberries.
+
+It befell (to go on a second time) that Sir John, hunting all day,
+and dining at five, fell asleep every evening, and snored so
+terribly that all the windows in Harthover shook, and the soot fell
+down the chimneys.  Whereon My Lady, being no more able to get
+conversation out of him than a song out of a dead nightingale,
+determined to go off and leave him, and the doctor, and Captain
+Swinger the agent, to snore in concert every evening to their
+hearts' content.  So she started for the seaside with all the
+children, in order to put herself and them into condition by mild
+applications of iodine.  She might as well have stayed at home and
+used Parry's liquid horse-blister, for there was plenty of it in
+the stables; and then she would have saved her money, and saved the
+chance, also, of making all the children ill instead of well (as
+hundreds are made), by taking them to some nasty smelling undrained
+lodging, and then wondering how they caught scarlatina and
+diphtheria:  but people won't be wise enough to understand that
+till they are dead of bad smells, and then it will be too late;
+besides you see, Sir John did certainly snore very loud.
+
+But where she went to nobody must know, for fear young ladies
+should begin to fancy that there are water-babies there! and so
+hunt and howk after them (besides raising the price of lodgings),
+and keep them in aquariums, as the ladies at Pompeii (as you may
+see by the paintings) used to keep Cupids in cages.  But nobody
+ever heard that they starved the Cupids, or let them die of dirt
+and neglect, as English young ladies do by the poor sea-beasts.  So
+nobody must know where My Lady went.  Letting water-babies die is
+as bad as taking singing birds' eggs; for, though there are
+thousands, ay, millions, of both of them in the world, yet there is
+not one too many.
+
+Now it befell that, on the very shore, and over the very rocks,
+where Tom was sitting with his friend the lobster, there walked one
+day the little white lady, Ellie herself, and with her a very wise
+man indeed--Professor Ptthmllnsprts.
+
+His mother was a Dutchwoman, and therefore he was born at Curacao
+(of course you have learnt your geography, and therefore know why);
+and his father a Pole, and therefore he was brought up at
+Petropaulowski (of course you have learnt your modern politics, and
+therefore know why):  but for all that he was as thorough an
+Englishman as ever coveted his neighbour's goods.  And his name, as
+I said, was Professor Ptthmllnsprts, which is a very ancient and
+noble Polish name.
+
+He was, as I said, a very great naturalist, and chief professor of
+Necrobioneopalaeonthydrochthonanthropopithekology in the new
+university which the king of the Cannibal Islands had founded; and,
+being a member of the Acclimatisation Society, he had come here to
+collect all the nasty things which he could find on the coast of
+England, and turn them loose round the Cannibal Islands, because
+they had not nasty things enough there to eat what they left.
+
+But he was a very worthy kind good-natured little old gentleman;
+and very fond of children (for he was not the least a cannibal
+himself); and very good to all the world as long as it was good to
+him.  Only one fault he had, which cock-robins have likewise, as
+you may see if you look out of the nursery window--that, when any
+one else found a curious worm, he would hop round them, and peck
+them, and set up his tail, and bristle up his feathers, just as a
+cock-robin would; and declare that he found the worm first; and
+that it was his worm; and, if not, that then it was not a worm at
+all.
+
+He had met Sir John at Scarborough, or Fleetwood, or somewhere or
+other (if you don't care where, nobody else does), and had made
+acquaintance with him, and become very fond of his children.  Now,
+Sir John knew nothing about sea-cockyolybirds, and cared less,
+provided the fishmonger sent him good fish for dinner; and My Lady
+knew as little:  but she thought it proper that the children should
+know something.  For in the stupid old times, you must understand,
+children were taught to know one thing, and to know it well; but in
+these enlightened new times they are taught to know a little about
+everything, and to know it all ill; which is a great deal
+pleasanter and easier, and therefore quite right.
+
+So Ellie and he were walking on the rocks, and he was showing her
+about one in ten thousand of all the beautiful and curious things
+which are to be seen there.  But little Ellie was not satisfied
+with them at all.  She liked much better to play with live
+children, or even with dolls, which she could pretend were alive;
+and at last she said honestly, "I don't care about all these
+things, because they can't play with me, or talk to me.  If there
+were little children now in the water, as there used to be, and I
+could see them, I should like that."
+
+"Children in the water, you strange little duck?" said the
+professor.
+
+"Yes," said Ellie.  "I know there used to be children in the water,
+and mermaids too, and mermen.  I saw them all in a picture at home,
+of a beautiful lady sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and babies
+flying round her, and one sitting in her lap; and the mermaids
+swimming and playing, and the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells;
+and it is called 'The Triumph of Galatea;' and there is a burning
+mountain in the picture behind.  It hangs on the great staircase,
+and I have looked at it ever since I was a baby, and dreamt about
+it a hundred times; and it is so beautiful, that it must be true."
+
+But the professor had not the least notion of allowing that things
+were true, merely because people thought them beautiful.  For at
+that rate, he said, the Baltas would be quite right in thinking it
+a fine thing to eat their grandpapas, because they thought it an
+ugly thing to put them underground.  The professor, indeed, went
+further, and held that no man was forced to believe anything to be
+true, but what he could see, hear, taste, or handle.
+
+He held very strange theories about a good many things.  He had
+even got up once at the British Association, and declared that apes
+had hippopotamus majors in their brains just as men have.  Which
+was a shocking thing to say; for, if it were so, what would become
+of the faith, hope, and charity of immortal millions?  You may
+think that there are other more important differences between you
+and an ape, such as being able to speak, and make machines, and
+know right from wrong, and say your prayers, and other little
+matters of that kind; but that is a child's fancy, my dear.
+Nothing is to be depended on but the great hippopotamus test.  If
+you have a hippopotamus major in your brain, you are no ape, though
+you had four hands, no feet, and were more apish than the apes of
+all aperies.  But if a hippopotamus major is ever discovered in one
+single ape's brain, nothing will save your great-great-great-great-
+great-great-great-great-great-great-great-greater-greatest-
+grandmother from having been an ape too.  No, my dear little man;
+always remember that the one true, certain, final, and all-
+important difference between you and an ape is, that you have a
+hippopotamus major in your brain, and it has none; and that,
+therefore, to discover one in its brain will be a very wrong and
+dangerous thing, at which every one will be very much shocked, as
+we may suppose they were at the professor.--Though really, after
+all, it don't much matter; because--as Lord Dundreary and others
+would put it--nobody but men have hippopotamuses in their brains;
+so, if a hippopotamus was discovered in an ape's brain, why it
+would not be one, you know, but something else.
+
+But the professor had gone, I am sorry to say, even further than
+that; for he had read at the British Association at Melbourne,
+Australia, in the year 1999, a paper which assured every one who
+found himself the better or wiser for the news, that there were
+not, never had been, and could not be, any rational or half-
+rational beings except men, anywhere, anywhen, or anyhow; that
+nymphs, satyrs, fauns, inui, dwarfs, trolls, elves, gnomes,
+fairies, brownies, nixes, wills, kobolds, leprechaunes,
+cluricaunes, banshees, will-o'-the-wisps, follets, lutins, magots,
+goblins, afrits, marids, jinns, ghouls, peris, deevs, angels,
+archangels, imps, bogies, or worse, were nothing at all, and pure
+bosh and wind.  And he had to get up very early in the morning to
+prove that, and to eat his breakfast overnight; but he did it, at
+least to his own satisfaction.  Whereon a certain great divine, and
+a very clever divine was he, called him a regular Sadducee; and
+probably he was quite right.  Whereon the professor, in return,
+called him a regular Pharisee; and probably he was quite right too.
+But they did not quarrel in the least; for, when men are men of the
+world, hard words run off them like water off a duck's back.  So
+the professor and the divine met at dinner that evening, and sat
+together on the sofa afterwards for an hour, and talked over the
+state of female labour on the antarctic continent (for nobody talks
+shop after his claret), and each vowed that the other was the best
+company he ever met in his life.  What an advantage it is to be men
+of the world!
+
+From all which you may guess that the professor was not the least
+of little Ellie's opinion.  So he gave her a succinct compendium of
+his famous paper at the British Association, in a form suited for
+the youthful mind.  But, as we have gone over his arguments against
+water-babies once already, which is once too often, we will not
+repeat them here.
+
+Now little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; for, instead
+of being convinced by Professor Ptthmllnsprts' arguments, she only
+asked the same question over again.
+
+"But why are there not water-babies?"
+
+I trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at that
+moment on the edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt one of his
+corns sadly, that he answered quite sharply, forgetting that he was
+a scientific man, and therefore ought to have known that he
+couldn't know; and that he was a logician, and therefore ought to
+have known that he could not prove a universal negative--I say, I
+trust and hope it was because the mussel hurt his corn, that the
+professor answered quite sharply:
+
+"Because there ain't."
+
+Which was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as you
+must know from Aunt Agitate's Arguments, the professor ought to
+have said, if he was so angry as to say anything of the kind--
+Because there are not:  or are none:  or are none of them; or (if
+he had been reading Aunt Agitate too) because they do not exist.
+
+And he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, that, as
+it befell, he caught poor little Tom.
+
+He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly, with Tom all
+entangled in the meshes.
+
+"Dear me!" he cried.  "What a large pink Holothurian; with hands,
+too!  It must be connected with Synapta."
+
+And he took him out.
+
+"It has actually eyes!" he cried.  "Why, it must be a Cephalopod!
+This is most extraordinary!"
+
+"No, I ain't!" cried Tom, as loud as he could; for he did not like
+to be called bad names.
+
+"It is a water-baby!" cried Ellie; and of course it was.
+
+"Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!" said the professor; and he turned
+away sharply.
+
+There was no denying it.  It was a water-baby:  and he had said a
+moment ago that there were none.  What was he to do?
+
+He would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom home in a bucket.
+He would not have put him in spirits.  Of course not.  He would
+have kept him alive, and petted him (for he was a very kind old
+gentleman), and written a book about him, and given him two long
+names, of which the first would have said a little about Tom, and
+the second all about himself; for of course he would have called
+him Hydrotecnon Ptthmllnsprtsianum, or some other long name like
+that; for they are forced to call everything by long names now,
+because they have used up all the short ones, ever since they took
+to making nine species out of one.  But--what would all the learned
+men say to him after his speech at the British Association?  And
+what would Ellie say, after what he had just told her?
+
+There was a wise old heathen once, who said, "Maxima debetur pueris
+reverentia"--The greatest reverence is due to children; that is,
+that grown people should never say or do anything wrong before
+children, lest they should set them a bad example.--Cousin
+Cramchild says it means, "The greatest respectfulness is expected
+from little boys."  But he was raised in a country where little
+boys are not expected to be respectful, because all of them are as
+good as the President:- Well, every one knows his own concerns
+best; so perhaps they are.  But poor Cousin Cramchild, to do him
+justice, not being of that opinion, and having a moral mission, and
+being no scholar to speak of, and hard up for an authority--why, it
+was a very great temptation for him.  But some people, and I am
+afraid the professor was one of them, interpret that in a more
+strange, curious, one-sided, left-handed, topsy-turvy, inside-out,
+behind-before fashion than even Cousin Cramchild; for they make it
+mean, that you must show your respect for children, by never
+confessing yourself in the wrong to them, even if you know that you
+are so, lest they should lose confidence in their elders.
+
+Now, if the professor had said to Ellie, "Yes, my darling, it is a
+water-baby, and a very wonderful thing it is; and it shows how
+little I know of the wonders of nature, in spite of forty years'
+honest labour.  I was just telling you that there could be no such
+creatures; and, behold! here is one come to confound my conceit and
+show me that Nature can do, and has done, beyond all that man's
+poor fancy can imagine.  So, let us thank the Maker, and Inspirer,
+and Lord of Nature for all His wonderful and glorious works, and
+try and find out something about this one;"--I think that, if the
+professor had said that, little Ellie would have believed him more
+firmly, and respected him more deeply, and loved him better, than
+ever she had done before.  But he was of a different opinion.  He
+hesitated a moment.  He longed to keep Tom, and yet he half wished
+he never had caught him; and at last he quite longed to get rid of
+him.  So he turned away and poked Tom with his finger, for want of
+anything better to do; and said carelessly, "My dear little maid,
+you must have dreamt of water-babies last night, your head is so
+full of them."
+
+Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable fright all
+the while; and had kept as quiet as he could, though he was called
+a Holothurian and a Cephalopod; for it was fixed in his little head
+that if a man with clothes on caught him, he might put clothes on
+him too, and make a dirty black chimney-sweep of him again.  But,
+when the professor poked him, it was more than he could bear; and,
+between fright and rage, he turned to bay as valiantly as a mouse
+in a corner, and bit the professor's finger till it bled.
+
+"Oh! ah! yah!" cried he; and glad of an excuse to be rid of Tom,
+dropped him on to the seaweed, and thence he dived into the water
+and was gone in a moment.
+
+"But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak!" cried Ellie.  "Ah,
+it is gone!"  And she jumped down off the rock, to try and catch
+Tom before he slipped into the sea.
+
+Too late! and what was worse, as she sprang down, she slipped, and
+fell some six feet, with her head on a sharp rock, and lay quite
+still.
+
+The professor picked her up, and tried to waken her, and called to
+her, and cried over her, for he loved her very much:  but she would
+not waken at all.  So he took her up in his arms and carried her to
+her governess, and they all went home; and little Ellie was put to
+bed, and lay there quite still; only now and then she woke up and
+called out about the water-baby:  but no one knew what she meant,
+and the professor did not tell, for he was ashamed to tell.
+
+And, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies came flying in
+at the window and brought her such a pretty pair of wings that she
+could not help putting them on; and she flew with them out of the
+window, and over the land, and over the sea, and up through the
+clouds, and nobody heard or saw anything of her for a very long
+while.
+
+And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a water-
+baby.  For my part, I believe that the naturalists get dozens of
+them when they are out dredging; but they say nothing about them,
+and throw them overboard again, for fear of spoiling their
+theories.  But, you see the professor was found out, as every one
+is in due time.  A very terrible old fairy found the professor out;
+she felt his bumps, and cast his nativity, and took the lunars of
+him carefully inside and out; and so she knew what he would do as
+well as if she had seen it in a print book, as they say in the dear
+old west country; and he did it; and so he was found out
+beforehand, as everybody always is; and the old fairy will find out
+the naturalists some day, and put them in the Times, and then on
+whose side will the laugh be?
+
+So the old fairy took him in hand very severely there and then.
+But she says she is always most severe with the best people,
+because there is most chance of curing them, and therefore they are
+the patients who pay her best; for she has to work on the same
+salary as the Emperor of China's physicians (it is a pity that all
+do not), no cure, no pay.
+
+So she took the poor professor in hand:  and because he was not
+content with things as they are, she filled his head with things as
+they are not, to try if he would like them better; and because he
+did not choose to believe in a water-baby when he saw it, she made
+him believe in worse things than water-babies--in unicorns, fire-
+drakes, manticoras, basilisks, amphisbaenas, griffins, phoenixes,
+rocs, orcs, dog-headed men, three-headed dogs, three-bodied
+geryons, and other pleasant creatures, which folks think never
+existed yet, and which folks hope never will exist, though they
+know nothing about the matter, and never will; and these creatures
+so upset, terrified, flustered, aggravated, confused, astounded,
+horrified, and totally flabbergasted the poor professor that the
+doctors said that he was out of his wits for three months; and
+perhaps they were right, as they are now and then.
+
+So all the doctors in the county were called in to make a report on
+his case; and of course every one of them flatly contradicted the
+other:  else what use is there in being men of science?  But at
+last the majority agreed on a report in the true medical language,
+one half bad Latin, the other half worse Greek, and the rest what
+might have been English, if they had only learnt to write it.  And
+this is the beginning thereof -
+
+
+"The subanhypaposupernal anastomoses of peritomic diacellurite in
+the encephalo digital region of the distinguished individual of
+whose symptomatic phoenomena we had the melancholy honour
+(subsequently to a preliminary diagnostic inspection) of making an
+inspectorial diagnosis, presenting the interexclusively
+quadrilateral and antinomian diathesis known as Bumpsterhausen's
+blue follicles, we proceeded" -
+
+
+But what they proceeded to do My Lady never knew; for she was so
+frightened at the long words that she ran for her life, and locked
+herself into her bedroom, for fear of being squashed by the words
+and strangled by the sentence.  A boa constrictor, she said, was
+bad company enough:  but what was a boa constrictor made of paving
+stones?
+
+"It was quite shocking!  What can they think is the matter with
+him?" said she to the old nurse.
+
+"That his wit's just addled; may be wi' unbelief and heathenry,"
+quoth she.
+
+"Then why can't they say so?"
+
+And the heaven, and the sea, and the rocks, and the vales re-
+echoed--"Why indeed?"  But the doctors never heard them.
+
+So she made Sir John write to the Times to command the Chancellor
+of the Exchequer for the time being to put a tax on long words; -
+
+A light tax on words over three syllables, which are necessary
+evils, like rats:  but, like them, must be kept down judiciously.
+
+A heavy tax on words over four syllables, as heterodoxy,
+spontaneity, spiritualism, spuriosity, etc.
+
+And on words over five syllables (of which I hope no one will wish
+to see any examples), a totally prohibitory tax.
+
+And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from three or more
+languages at once; words derived from two languages having become
+so common that there was no more hope of rooting out them than of
+rooting out peth-winds.
+
+The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and a man of
+sense, jumped at the notion; for he saw in it the one and only plan
+for abolishing Schedule D:  but when he brought in his bill, most
+of the Irish members, and (I am sorry to say) some of the Scotch
+likewise, opposed it most strongly, on the ground that in a free
+country no man was bound either to understand himself or to let
+others understand him.  So the bill fell through on the first
+reading; and the Chancellor, being a philosopher, comforted himself
+with the thought that it was not the first time that a woman had
+hit off a grand idea and the men turned up their stupid noses
+thereat.
+
+Now the doctors had it all their own way; and to work they went in
+earnest, and they gave the poor professor divers and sundry
+medicines, as prescribed by the ancients and moderns, from
+Hippocrates to Feuchtersleben, as below, viz.-
+
+1.  Hellebore, to wit -
+
+Hellebore of AEta.
+Hellebore of Galatia.
+Hellebore of Sicily.
+
+And all other Hellebores, after the method of the Helleborising
+Helleborists of the Helleboric era.  But that would not do.
+Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles would not stir an inch out of his
+encephalo digital region.
+
+2.  Trying to find out what was the matter with him, after the
+method of
+
+Hippocrates,
+Aretaeus,
+Celsus,
+Coelius Aurelianus,
+And Galen.
+
+But they found that a great deal too much trouble, as most people
+have since; and so had recourse to -
+
+3.  Borage.
+Cauteries.
+
+Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says Gordonius)
+"will, without doubt, do much good."  But it didn't.
+
+Bezoar stone.
+Diamargaritum.
+A ram's brain boiled in spice.
+Oil of wormwood.
+Water of Nile.
+Capers.
+Good wine (but there was none to be got).
+The water of a smith's forge.
+Ambergris.
+Mandrake pillows.
+Dormouse fat.
+Hares' ears.
+Starvation.
+Camphor.
+Salts and senna.
+Musk.
+Opium.
+Strait-waistcoats.
+Bullyings.
+Bumpings.
+Bleedings.
+Bucketings with cold water.
+Knockings down.
+Kneeling on his chest till they broke it in, etc. etc.; after the
+medieval or monkish method:  but that would not do.
+Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles stuck there still.
+
+Then -
+
+4.  Coaxing.
+Kissing.
+Champagne and turtle.
+Red herrings and soda water.
+Good advice.
+Gardening.
+Croquet.
+Musical soirees.
+Aunt Salty.
+Mild tobacco.
+The Saturday Review.
+A carriage with outriders, etc. etc.
+
+After the modern method.  But that would not do.
+
+And if he had but been a convict lunatic, and had shot at the
+Queen, killed all his creditors to avoid paying them, or indulged
+in any other little amiable eccentricity of that kind, they would
+have given him in addition -
+
+The healthiest situation in England, on Easthampstead Plain.
+
+Free run of Windsor Forest.
+
+The Times every morning.
+
+A double-barrelled gun and pointers, and leave to shoot three
+Wellington College boys a week (not more) in case black game was
+scarce.
+
+But as he was neither mad enough nor bad enough to be allowed such
+luxuries, they grew desperate, and fell into bad ways, viz. -
+
+5.  Suffumigations of sulphur.
+Herrwiggius his "Incomparable drink for madmen:"
+
+Only they could not find out what it was.
+
+Suffumigation of the liver of the fish * * *
+
+Only they had forgotten its name, so Dr. Gray could not well
+procure them a specimen.
+
+Metallic tractors.
+Holloway's Ointment.
+Electro-biology.
+Valentine Greatrakes his Stroking Cure.
+Spirit-rapping.
+Holloway's Pills.
+Table-turning.
+Morison's Pills.
+Homoeopathy.
+Parr's Life Pills.
+Mesmerism.
+Pure Bosh.
+Exorcisms, for which the read Maleus Maleficarum, Nideri
+Formicarium, Delrio, Wierus, etc.
+
+But could not get one that mentioned water-babies.
+
+Hydropathy.
+Madame Rachel's Elixir of Youth.
+The Poughkeepsie Seer his Prophecies.
+The distilled liquor of addle eggs.
+Pyropathy.
+
+As successfully employed by the old inquisitors to cure the malady
+of thought, and now by the Persian Mollahs to cure that of
+rheumatism.
+
+Geopathy, or burying him.
+Atmopathy, or steaming him.
+Sympathy, after the method of Basil Valentine his Triumph of
+Antimony, and Kenelm Digby his Weapon-salve, which some call a hair
+of the dog that bit him.
+Hermopathy, or pouring mercury down his throat to move the animal
+spirits.
+Meteoropathy, or going up to the moon to look for his lost wits, as
+Ruggiero did for Orlando Furioso's:  only, having no hippogriff,
+they were forced to use a balloon; and, falling into the North Sea,
+were picked up by a Yarmouth herring-boat, and came home much the
+wiser, and all over scales.
+
+Antipathy, or using him like "a man and a brother."
+
+Apathy, or doing nothing at all.
+
+With all other ipathies and opathies which Noodle has invented, and
+Foodle tried, since black-fellows chipped flints at Abbeville--
+which is a considerable time ago, to judge by the Great Exhibition.
+
+
+But nothing would do; for he screamed and cried all day for a
+water-baby, to come and drive away the monsters; and of course they
+did not try to find one, because they did not believe in them, and
+were thinking of nothing but Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles;
+having, as usual, set the cart before the horse, and taken the
+effect for the cause.
+
+So they were forced at last to let the poor professor ease his mind
+by writing a great book, exactly contrary to all his old opinions;
+in which he proved that the moon was made of green cheese, and that
+all the mites in it (which you may see sometimes quite plain
+through a telescope, if you will only keep the lens dirty enough,
+as Mr. Weekes kept his voltaic battery) are nothing in the world
+but little babies, who are hatching and swarming up there in
+millions, ready to come down into this world whenever children want
+a new little brother or sister.
+
+Which must be a mistake, for this one reason:  that, there being no
+atmosphere round the moon (though some one or other says there is,
+at least on the other side, and that he has been round at the back
+of it to see, and found that the moon was just the shape of a Bath
+bun, and so wet that the man in the moon went about on Midsummer-
+day in Macintoshes and Cording's boots, spearing eels and
+sneezing); that, therefore, I say, there being no atmosphere, there
+can be no evaporation; and therefore the dew-point can never fall
+below 71.5 degrees below zero of Fahrenheit:  and, therefore, it
+cannot be cold enough there about four o'clock in the morning to
+condense the babies' mesenteric apophthegms into their left
+ventricles; and, therefore, they can never catch the hooping-cough;
+and if they do not have hooping-cough, they cannot be babies at
+all; and, therefore, there are no babies in the moon.--Q.E.D.
+
+Which may seem a roundabout reason; and so, perhaps, it is:  but
+you will have heard worse ones in your time, and from better men
+than you are.
+
+But one thing is certain; that, when the good old doctor got his
+book written, he felt considerably relieved from Bumpsterhausen's
+blue follicles, and a few things infinitely worse; to wit, from
+pride and vain-glory, and from blindness and hardness of heart;
+which are the true causes of Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles, and
+of a good many other ugly things besides.  Whereon the foul flood-
+water in his brains ran down, and cleared to a fine coffee colour,
+such as fish like to rise in, till very fine clean fresh-run fish
+did begin to rise in his brains; and he caught two or three of them
+(which is exceedingly fine sport, for brain rivers), and anatomised
+them carefully, and never mentioned what he found out from them,
+except to little children; and became ever after a sadder and a
+wiser man; which is a very good thing to become, my dear little
+boy, even though one has to pay a heavy price for the blessing.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+
+"Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
+The Godhead's most benignant grace;
+Nor know we anything so fair
+As is the smile upon thy face:
+Flowers laugh before thee on their beds
+And fragrance in thy footing treads;
+Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
+And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong."
+
+WORDSWORTH, Ode to Duty.
+
+
+What became of little Tom?
+
+He slipped away off the rocks into the water, as I said before.
+But he could not help thinking of little Ellie.  He did not
+remember who she was; but he knew that she was a little girl,
+though she was a hundred times as big as he.  That is not
+surprising:  size has nothing to do with kindred.  A tiny weed may
+be first cousin to a great tree; and a little dog like Vick knows
+that Lioness is a dog too, though she is twenty times larger than
+herself.  So Tom knew that Ellie was a little girl, and thought
+about her all that day, and longed to have had her to play with;
+but he had very soon to think of something else.  And here is the
+account of what happened to him, as it was published next morning,
+in the Water-proof Gazette, on the finest watered paper, for the
+use of the great fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, who reads the news
+very carefully every morning, and especially the police cases, as
+you will hear very soon.
+
+He was going along the rocks in three-fathom water, watching the
+pollock catch prawns, and the wrasses nibble barnacles off the
+rocks, shells and all, when he saw a round cage of green withes;
+and inside it, looking very much ashamed of himself, sat his friend
+the lobster, twiddling his horns, instead of thumbs.
+
+"What, have you been naughty, and have they put you in the lock-
+up?" asked Tom.
+
+The lobster felt a little indignant at such a notion, but he was
+too much depressed in spirits to argue; so he only said, "I can't
+get out."
+
+"Why did you get in?"
+
+"After that nasty piece of dead fish."  He had thought it looked
+and smelt very nice when he was outside, and so it did, for a
+lobster:  but now he turned round and abused it because he was
+angry with himself.
+
+"Where did you get in?"
+
+"Through that round hole at the top."
+
+"Then why don't you get out through it?"
+
+"Because I can't:" and the lobster twiddled his horns more fiercely
+than ever, but he was forced to confess.
+
+"I have jumped upwards, downwards, backwards, and sideways, at
+least four thousand times; and I can't get out:  I always get up
+underneath there, and can't find the hole."
+
+Tom looked at the trap, and having more wit than the lobster, he
+saw plainly enough what was the matter; as you may if you will look
+at a lobster-pot.
+
+"Stop a bit," said Tom.  "Turn your tail up to me, and I'll pull
+you through hindforemost, and then you won't stick in the spikes."
+
+But the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he couldn't hit the
+hole.  Like a great many fox-hunters, he was very sharp as long as
+he was in his own country; but as soon as they get out of it they
+lose their heads; and so the lobster, so to speak, lost his tail.
+
+Tom reached and clawed down the hole after him, till he caught hold
+of him; and then, as was to be expected, the clumsy lobster pulled
+him in head foremost.
+
+"Hullo! here is a pretty business," said Tom.  "Now take your great
+claws, and break the points off those spikes, and then we shall
+both get out easily."
+
+"Dear me, I never thought of that," said the lobster; "and after
+all the experience of life that I have had!"
+
+You see, experience is of very little good unless a man, or a
+lobster, has wit enough to make use of it.  For a good many people,
+like old Polonius, have seen all the world, and yet remain little
+better than children after all.
+
+But they had not got half the spikes away when they saw a great
+dark cloud over them:  and lo, and behold, it was the otter.
+
+How she did grin and grin when she saw Tom.  "Yar!" said she, "you
+little meddlesome wretch, I have you now!  I will serve you out for
+telling the salmon where I was!"  And she crawled all over the pot
+to get in.
+
+Tom was horribly frightened, and still more frightened when she
+found the hole in the top, and squeezed herself right down through
+it, all eyes and teeth.  But no sooner was her head inside than
+valiant Mr. Lobster caught her by the nose and held on.
+
+And there they were all three in the pot, rolling over and over,
+and very tight packing it was.  And the lobster tore at the otter,
+and the otter tore at the lobster, and both squeezed and thumped
+poor Tom till he had no breath left in his body; and I don't know
+what would have happened to him if he had not at last got on the
+otter's back, and safe out of the hole.
+
+He was right glad when he got out:  but he would not desert his
+friend who had saved him; and the first time he saw his tail
+uppermost he caught hold of it, and pulled with all his might.
+
+But the lobster would not let go.
+
+"Come along," said Tom; "don't you see she is dead?"  And so she
+was, quite drowned and dead.
+
+And that was the end of the wicked otter.
+
+But the lobster would not let go.
+
+"Come along, you stupid old stick-in-the-mud," cried Tom, "or the
+fisherman will catch you!"  And that was true, for Tom felt some
+one above beginning to haul up the pot.
+
+But the lobster would not let go.  Tom saw the fisherman haul him
+up to the boat-side, and thought it was all up with him.  But when
+Mr. Lobster saw the fisherman, he gave such a furious and
+tremendous snap, that he snapped out of his hand, and out of the
+pot, and safe into the sea.  But he left his knobbed claw behind
+him; for it never came into his stupid head to let go after all, so
+he just shook his claw off as the easier method.  It was something
+of a bull, that; but you must know the lobster was an Irish
+lobster, and was hatched off Island Magee at the mouth of Belfast
+Lough.
+
+Tom asked the lobster why he never thought of letting go.  He said
+very determinedly that it was a point of honour among lobsters.
+And so it is, as the Mayor of Plymouth found out once to his cost--
+eight or nine hundred years ago, of course; for if it had happened
+lately it would be personal to mention it.
+
+For one day he was so tired with sitting on a hard chair, in a
+grand furred gown, with a gold chain round his neck, hearing one
+policeman after another come in and sing, "What shall we do with
+the drunken sailor, so early in the morning?" and answering them
+each exactly alike:
+
+"Put him in the round house till he gets sober, so early in the
+morning" -
+
+That, when it was over, he jumped up, and played leap-frog with the
+town-clerk till he burst his buttons, and then had his luncheon,
+and burst some more buttons, and then said:  "It is a low spring-
+tide; I shall go out this afternoon and cut my capers."
+
+Now he did not mean to cut such capers as you eat with boiled
+mutton.  It was the commandant of artillery at Valetta who used to
+amuse himself with cutting them, and who stuck upon one of the
+bastions a notice, "No one allowed to cut capers here but me,"
+which greatly edified the midshipmen in port, and the Maltese on
+the Nix Mangiare stairs.  But all that the mayor meant was that he
+would go and have an afternoon's fun, like any schoolboy, and catch
+lobsters with an iron hook.
+
+So to the Mewstone he went, and for lobsters he looked.  And when
+he came to a certain crack in the rocks he was so excited that,
+instead of putting in his hook, he put in his hand; and Mr. Lobster
+was at home, and caught him by the finger, and held on.
+
+"Yah!" said the mayor, and pulled as hard as he dared:  but the
+more he pulled, the more the lobster pinched, till he was forced to
+be quiet.
+
+Then he tried to get his hook in with his other hand; but the hole
+was too narrow.
+
+Then he pulled again; but he could not stand the pain.
+
+Then he shouted and bawled for help:  but there was no one nearer
+him than the men-of-war inside the breakwater.
+
+Then he began to turn a little pale; for the tide flowed, and still
+the lobster held on.
+
+Then he turned quite white; for the tide was up to his knees, and
+still the lobster held on.
+
+Then he thought of cutting off his finger; but he wanted two things
+to do it with--courage and a knife; and he had got neither.
+
+Then he turned quite yellow; for the tide was up to his waist, and
+still the lobster held on.
+
+Then he thought over all the naughty things he ever had done; all
+the sand which he had put in the sugar, and the sloe-leaves in the
+tea, and the water in the treacle, and the salt in the tobacco
+(because his brother was a brewer, and a man must help his own
+kin).
+
+Then he turned quite blue; for the tide was up to his breast, and
+still the lobster held on.
+
+Then, I have no doubt, he repented fully of all the said naughty
+things which he had done, and promised to mend his life, as too
+many do when they think they have no life left to mend.  Whereby,
+as they fancy, they make a very cheap bargain.  But the old fairy
+with the birch rod soon undeceives them.
+
+And then he grew all colours at once, and turned up his eyes like a
+duck in thunder; for the water was up to his chin, and still the
+lobster held on.
+
+And then came a man-of-war's boat round the Mewstone, and saw his
+head sticking up out of the water.  One said it was a keg of
+brandy, and another that it was a cocoa-nut, and another that it
+was a buoy loose, and another that it was a black diver, and wanted
+to fire at it, which would not have been pleasant for the mayor:
+but just then such a yell came out of a great hole in the middle of
+it that the midshipman in charge guessed what it was, and bade pull
+up to it as fast as they could.  So somehow or other the Jack-tars
+got the lobster out, and set the mayor free, and put him ashore at
+the Barbican.  He never went lobster-catching again; and we will
+hope he put no more salt in the tobacco, not even to sell his
+brother's beer.
+
+And that is the story of the Mayor of Plymouth, which has two
+advantages--first, that of being quite true; and second, that of
+having (as folks say all good stories ought to have) no moral
+whatsoever:  no more, indeed, has any part of this book, because it
+is a fairy tale, you know.
+
+And now happened to Tom a most wonderful thing; for he had not left
+the lobster five minutes before he came upon a water-baby.
+
+A real live water-baby, sitting on the white sand, very busy about
+a little point of rock.  And when it saw Tom it looked up for a
+moment, and then cried, "Why, you are not one of us.  You are a new
+baby!  Oh, how delightful!"
+
+And it ran to Tom, and Tom ran to it, and they hugged and kissed
+each other for ever so long, they did not know why.  But they did
+not want any introductions there under the water.
+
+At last Tom said, "Oh, where have you been all this while?  I have
+been looking for you so long, and I have been so lonely."
+
+"We have been here for days and days.  There are hundreds of us
+about the rocks.  How was it you did not see us, or hear us when we
+sing and romp every evening before we go home?"
+
+Tom looked at the baby again, and then he said:
+
+"Well, this is wonderful!  I have seen things just like you again
+and again, but I thought you were shells, or sea-creatures.  I
+never took you for water-babies like myself."
+
+Now, was not that very odd?  So odd, indeed, that you will, no
+doubt, want to know how it happened, and why Tom could never find a
+water-baby till after he had got the lobster out of the pot.  And,
+if you will read this story nine times over, and then think for
+yourself, you will find out why.  It is not good for little boys to
+be told everything, and never to be forced to use their own wits.
+They would learn, then, no more than they do at Dr. Dulcimer's
+famous suburban establishment for the idler members of the youthful
+aristocracy, where the masters learn the lessons and the boys hear
+them--which saves a great deal of trouble--for the time being.
+
+"Now," said the baby, "come and help me, or I shall not have
+finished before my brothers and sisters come, and it is time to go
+home."
+
+"What shall I help you at?"
+
+"At this poor dear little rock; a great clumsy boulder came rolling
+by in the last storm, and knocked all its head off, and rubbed off
+all its flowers.  And now I must plant it again with seaweeds, and
+coralline, and anemones, and I will make it the prettiest little
+rock-garden on all the shore."
+
+So they worked away at the rock, and planted it, and smoothed the
+sand down round, it, and capital fun they had till the tide began
+to turn.  And then Tom heard all the other babies coming, laughing
+and singing and shouting and romping; and the noise they made was
+just like the noise of the ripple.  So he knew that he had been
+hearing and seeing the water-babies all along; only he did not know
+them, because his eyes and ears were not opened.
+
+And in they came, dozens and dozens of them, some bigger than Tom
+and some smaller, all in the neatest little white bathing dresses;
+and when they found that he was a new baby, they hugged him and
+kissed him, and then put him in the middle and danced round him on
+the sand, and there was no one ever so happy as poor little Tom.
+
+"Now then," they cried all at once, "we must come away home, we
+must come away home, or the tide will leave us dry.  We have mended
+all the broken sea-weed, and put all the rock-pools in order, and
+planted all the shells again in the sand, and nobody will see where
+the ugly storm swept in last week."
+
+And this is the reason why the rock-pools are always so neat and
+clean; because the water-babies come inshore after every storm to
+sweep them out, and comb them down, and put them all to rights
+again.
+
+Only where men are wasteful and dirty, and let sewers run into the
+sea instead of putting the stuff upon the fields like thrifty
+reasonable souls; or throw herrings' heads and dead dog-fish, or
+any other refuse, into the water; or in any way make a mess upon
+the clean shore--there the water-babies will not come, sometimes
+not for hundreds of years (for they cannot abide anything smelly or
+foul), but leave the sea-anemones and the crabs to clear away
+everything, till the good tidy sea has covered up all the dirt in
+soft mud and clean sand, where the water-babies can plant live
+cockles and whelks and razor-shells and sea-cucumbers and golden-
+combs, and make a pretty live garden again, after man's dirt is
+cleared away.  And that, I suppose, is the reason why there are no
+water-babies at any watering-place which I have ever seen.
+
+And where is the home of the water-babies?  In St. Brandan's fairy
+isle.
+
+Did you never hear of the blessed St. Brandan, how he preached to
+the wild Irish on the wild, wild Kerry coast, he and five other
+hermits, till they were weary and longed to rest?  For the wild
+Irish would not listen to them, or come to confession and to mass,
+but liked better to brew potheen, and dance the pater o'pee, and
+knock each other over the head with shillelaghs, and shoot each
+other from behind turf-dykes, and steal each other's cattle, and
+burn each other's homes; till St. Brandan and his friends were
+weary of them, for they would not learn to be peaceable Christians
+at all.
+
+So St. Brandan went out to the point of Old Dunmore, and looked
+over the tide-way roaring round the Blasquets, at the end of all
+the world, and away into the ocean, and sighed--"Ah that I had
+wings as a dove!"  And far away, before the setting sun, he saw a
+blue fairy sea, and golden fairy islands, and he said, "Those are
+the islands of the blest."  Then he and his friends got into a
+hooker, and sailed away and away to the westward, and were never
+heard of more.  But the people who would not hear him were changed
+into gorillas, and gorillas they are until this day.
+
+And when St. Brandan and the hermits came to that fairy isle they
+found it overgrown with cedars and full of beautiful birds; and he
+sat down under the cedars and preached to all the birds in the air.
+And they liked his sermons so well that they told the fishes in the
+sea; and they came, and St. Brandan preached to them; and the
+fishes told the water-babies, who live in the caves under the isle;
+and they came up by hundreds every Sunday, and St. Brandan got
+quite a neat little Sunday-school.  And there he taught the water-
+babies for a great many hundred years, till his eyes grew too dim
+to see, and his beard grew so long that he dared not walk for fear
+of treading on it, and then he might have tumbled down.  And at
+last he and the five hermits fell fast asleep under the cedar-
+shades, and there they sleep unto this day.  But the fairies took
+to the water-babies, and taught them their lessons themselves.
+
+And some say that St. Brandan will awake and begin to teach the
+babies once more:  but some think that he will sleep on, for better
+for worse, till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.  But, on still clear
+summer evenings, when the sun sinks down into the sea, among golden
+cloud-capes and cloud-islands, and locks and friths of azure sky,
+the sailors fancy that they see, away to westward, St. Brandan's
+fairy isle.
+
+But whether men can see it or not, St. Brandan's Isle once actually
+stood there; a great land out in the ocean, which has sunk and sunk
+beneath the waves.  Old Plato called it Atlantis, and told strange
+tales of the wise men who lived therein, and of the wars they
+fought in the old times.  And from off that island came strange
+flowers, which linger still about this land:- the Cornish heath,
+and Cornish moneywort, and the delicate Venus's hair, and the
+London-pride which covers the Kerry mountains, and the little pink
+butterwort of Devon, and the great blue butterwort of Ireland, and
+the Connemara heath, and the bristle-fern of the Turk waterfall,
+and many a strange plant more; all fairy tokens left for wise men
+and good children from off St. Brandan's Isle.
+
+Now when Tom got there, he found that the isle stood all on
+pillars, and that its roots were full of caves.  There were pillars
+of black basalt, like Staffa; and pillars of green and crimson
+serpentine, like Kynance; and pillars ribboned with red and white
+and yellow sandstone, like Livermead; and there were blue grottoes
+like Capri, and white grottoes like Adelsberg; all curtained and
+draped with seaweeds, purple and crimson, green and brown; and
+strewn with soft white sand, on which the water-babies sleep every
+night.  But, to keep the place clean and sweet, the crabs picked up
+all the scraps off the floor and ate them like so many monkeys;
+while the rocks were covered with ten thousand sea-anemones, and
+corals and madrepores, who scavenged the water all day long, and
+kept it nice and pure.  But, to make up to them for having to do
+such nasty work, they were not left black and dirty, as poor
+chimney-sweeps and dustmen are.  No; the fairies are more
+considerate and just than that, and have dressed them all in the
+most beautiful colours and patterns, till they look like vast
+flower-beds of gay blossoms.  If you think I am talking nonsense, I
+can only say that it is true; and that an old gentleman named
+Fourier used to say that we ought to do the same by chimney-sweeps
+and dustmen, and honour them instead of despising them; and he was
+a very clever old gentleman:  but, unfortunately for him and the
+world, as mad as a March hare.
+
+And, instead of watchmen and policemen to keep out nasty things at
+night, there were thousands and thousands of water-snakes, and most
+wonderful creatures they were.  They were all named after the
+Nereids, the sea-fairies who took care of them, Eunice and Polynoe,
+Phyllodoce and Psamathe, and all the rest of the pretty darlings
+who swim round their Queen Amphitrite, and her car of cameo shell.
+They were dressed in green velvet, and black velvet, and purple
+velvet; and were all jointed in rings; and some of them had three
+hundred brains apiece, so that they must have been uncommonly
+shrewd detectives; and some had eyes in their tails; and some had
+eyes in every joint, so that they kept a very sharp look-out; and
+when they wanted a baby-snake, they just grew one at the end of
+their own tails, and when it was able to take care of itself it
+dropped off; so that they brought up their families very cheaply.
+But if any nasty thing came by, out they rushed upon it; and then
+out of each of their hundreds of feet there sprang a whole cutler's
+shop of
+
+Scythes,        Javelins,
+Billhooks,      Lances,
+Pickaxes,       Halberts,
+Forks,          Gisarines,
+Penknives,      Poleaxes,
+Rapiers,        Fishhooks,
+Sabres,         Bradawls,
+Yataghans,      Gimblets,
+Creeses,        Corkscrews,
+Ghoorka swords, Pins,
+Tucks,          Needles,
+And so forth,
+
+which stabbed, shot, poked, pricked, scratched, ripped, pinked, and
+crimped those naughty beasts so terribly, that they had to run for
+their lives, or else be chopped into small pieces and be eaten
+afterwards.  And, if that is not all, every word, true, then there
+is no faith in microscopes, and all is over with the Linnaean
+Society.
+
+And there were the water-babies in thousands, more than Tom, or you
+either, could count.--All the little children whom the good fairies
+take to, because their cruel mothers and fathers will not; all who
+are untaught and brought up heathens, and all who come to grief by
+ill-usage or ignorance or neglect; all the little children who are
+overlaid, or given gin when they are young, or are let to drink out
+of hot kettles, or to fall into the fire; all the little children
+in alleys and courts, and tumble-down cottages, who die by fever,
+and cholera, and measles, and scarlatina, and nasty complaints
+which no one has any business to have, and which no one will have
+some day, when folks have common sense; and all the little children
+who have been killed by cruel masters and wicked soldiers; they
+were all there, except, of course, the babes of Bethlehem who were
+killed by wicked King Herod; for they were taken straight to heaven
+long ago, as everybody knows, and we call them the Holy Innocents.
+
+But I wish Tom had given up all his naughty tricks, and left off
+tormenting dumb animals now that he had plenty of playfellows to
+amuse him.  Instead of that, I am sorry to say, he would meddle
+with the creatures, all but the water-snakes, for they would stand
+no nonsense.  So he tickled the madrepores, to make them shut up;
+and frightened the crabs, to make them hide in the sand and peep
+out at him with the tips of their eyes; and put stones into the
+anemones' mouths, to make them fancy that their dinner was coming.
+
+The other children warned him, and said, "Take care what you are
+at.  Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is coming."  But Tom never heeded them,
+being quite riotous with high spirits and good luck, till, one
+Friday morning early, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid came indeed.
+
+A very tremendous lady she was; and when the children saw her they
+all stood in a row, very upright indeed, and smoothed down their
+bathing dresses, and put their hands behind them, just as if they
+were going to be examined by the inspector.
+
+And she had on a black bonnet, and a black shawl, and no crinoline
+at all; and a pair of large green spectacles, and a great hooked
+nose, hooked so much that the bridge of it stood quite up above her
+eyebrows; and under her arm she carried a great birch-rod.  Indeed,
+she was so ugly that Tom was tempted to make faces at her:  but did
+not; for he did not admire the look of the birch-rod under her arm.
+
+And she looked at the children one by one, and seemed very much
+pleased with them, though she never asked them one question about
+how they were behaving; and then began giving them all sorts of
+nice sea-things--sea-cakes, sea-apples, sea-oranges, sea-bullseyes,
+sea-toffee; and to the very best of all she gave sea-ices, made out
+of sea-cows' cream, which never melt under water.
+
+And, if you don't quite believe me, then just think--What is more
+cheap and plentiful than sea-rock?  Then why should there not be
+sea-toffee as well?  And every one can find sea-lemons (ready
+quartered too) if they will look for them at low tide; and sea-
+grapes too sometimes, hanging in bunches; and, if you will go to
+Nice, you will find the fish-market full of sea-fruit, which they
+call "frutta di mare:" though I suppose they call them "fruits de
+mer" now, out of compliment to that most successful, and therefore
+most immaculate, potentate who is seemingly desirous of inheriting
+the blessing pronounced on those who remove their neighbours' land-
+mark.  And, perhaps, that is the very reason why the place is
+called Nice, because there are so many nice things in the sea
+there:  at least, if it is not, it ought to be.
+
+Now little Tom watched all these sweet things given away, till his
+mouth watered, and his eyes grew as round as an owl's.  For he
+hoped that his turn would come at last; and so it did.  For the
+lady called him up, and held out her fingers with something in
+them, and popped it into his mouth; and, lo and behold, it was a
+nasty cold hard pebble.
+
+"You are a very cruel woman," said he, and began to whimper.
+
+"And you are a very cruel boy; who puts pebbles into the sea-
+anemones' mouths, to take them in, and make them fancy that they
+had caught a good dinner!  As you did to them, so I must do to
+you."
+
+"Who told you that?" said Tom.
+
+"You did yourself, this very minute."
+
+Tom had never opened his lips; so he was very much taken aback
+indeed.
+
+"Yes; every one tells me exactly what they have done wrong; and
+that without knowing it themselves.  So there is no use trying to
+hide anything from me.  Now go, and be a good boy, and I will put
+no more pebbles in your mouth, if you put none in other
+creatures'."
+
+"I did not know there was any harm in it," said Tom.
+
+"Then you know now.  People continually say that to me:  but I tell
+them, if you don't know that fire burns, that is no reason that it
+should not burn you; and if you don't know that dirt breeds fever,
+that is no reason why the fevers should not kill you.  The lobster
+did not know that there was any harm in getting into the lobster-
+pot; but it caught him all the same."
+
+"Dear me," thought Tom, "she knows everything!"  And so she did,
+indeed.
+
+"And so, if you do not know that things are wrong that is no reason
+why you should not be punished for them; though not as much, not as
+much, my little man" (and the lady looked very kindly, after all),
+"as if you did know."
+
+"Well, you are a little hard on a poor lad," said Tom.
+
+"Not at all; I am the best friend you ever had in all your life.
+But I will tell you; I cannot help punishing people when they do
+wrong.  I like it no more than they do; I am often very, very sorry
+for them, poor things:  but I cannot help it.  If I tried not to do
+it, I should do it all the same.  For I work by machinery, just
+like an engine; and am full of wheels and springs inside; and am
+wound up very carefully, so that I cannot help going."
+
+"Was it long ago since they wound you up?" asked Tom.  For he
+thought, the cunning little fellow, "She will run down some day:
+or they may forget to wind her up, as old Grimes used to forget to
+wind up his watch when he came in from the public-house; and then I
+shall be safe."
+
+"I was wound up once and for all, so long ago, that I forget all
+about it."
+
+"Dear me," said Tom, "you must have been made a long time!"
+
+"I never was made, my child; and I shall go for ever and ever; for
+I am as old as Eternity, and yet as young as Time."
+
+And there came over the lady's face a very curious expression--very
+solemn, and very sad; and yet very, very sweet.  And she looked up
+and away, as if she were gazing through the sea, and through the
+sky, at something far, far off; and as she did so, there came such
+a quiet, tender, patient, hopeful smile over her face that Tom
+thought for the moment that she did not look ugly at all.  And no
+more she did; for she was like a great many people who have not a
+pretty feature in their faces, and yet are lovely to behold, and
+draw little children's hearts to them at once because though the
+house is plain enough, yet from the windows a beautiful and good
+spirit is looking forth.
+
+And Tom smiled in her face, she looked so pleasant for the moment.
+And the strange fairy smiled too, and said:
+
+"Yes.  You thought me very ugly just now, did you not?"
+
+Tom hung down his head, and got very red about the ears.
+
+"And I am very ugly.  I am the ugliest fairy in the world; and I
+shall be, till people behave themselves as they ought to do.  And
+then I shall grow as handsome as my sister, who is the loveliest
+fairy in the world; and her name is Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.  So
+she begins where I end, and I begin where she ends; and those who
+will not listen to her must listen to me, as you will see.  Now,
+all of you run away, except Tom; and he may stay and see what I am
+going to do.  It will be a very good warning for him to begin with,
+before he goes to school.
+
+"Now, Tom, every Friday I come down here and call up all who have
+ill-used little children and serve them as they served the
+children."
+
+And at that Tom was frightened, and crept under a stone; which made
+the two crabs who lived there very angry, and frightened their
+friend the butter-fish into flapping hysterics:  but he would not
+move for them.
+
+And first she called up all the doctors who give little children so
+much physic (they were most of them old ones; for the young ones
+have learnt better, all but a few army surgeons, who still fancy
+that a baby's inside is much like a Scotch grenadier's), and she
+set them all in a row; and very rueful they looked; for they knew
+what was coming.
+
+And first she pulled all their teeth out; and then she bled them
+all round:  and then she dosed them with calomel, and jalap, and
+salts and senna, and brimstone and treacle; and horrible faces they
+made; and then she gave them a great emetic of mustard and water,
+and no basons; and began all over again; and that was the way she
+spent the morning.
+
+And then she called up a whole troop of foolish ladies, who pinch
+up their children's waists and toes; and she laced them all up in
+tight stays, so that they were choked and sick, and their noses
+grew red, and their hands and feet swelled; and then she crammed
+their poor feet into the most dreadfully tight boots, and made them
+all dance, which they did most clumsily indeed; and then she asked
+them how they liked it; and when they said not at all, she let them
+go:  because they had only done it out of foolish fashion, fancying
+it was for their children's good, as if wasps' waists and pigs'
+toes could be pretty, or wholesome, or of any use to anybody.
+
+Then she called up all the careless nurserymaids, and stuck pins
+into them all over, and wheeled them about in perambulators with
+tight straps across their stomachs and their heads and arms hanging
+over the side, till they were quite sick and stupid, and would have
+had sun-strokes:  but, being under the water, they could only have
+water-strokes; which, I assure you, are nearly as bad, as you will
+find if you try to sit under a mill-wheel.  And mind--when you hear
+a rumbling at the bottom of the sea, sailors will tell you that it
+is a ground-swell:  but now you know better.  It is the old lady
+wheeling the maids about in perambulators.
+
+And by that time she was so tired, she had to go to luncheon.
+
+And after luncheon she set to work again, and called up all the
+cruel schoolmasters--whole regiments and brigades of them; and when
+she saw them, she frowned most terribly, and set to work in
+earnest, as if the best part of the day's work was to come.  More
+than half of them were nasty, dirty, frowzy, grubby, smelly old
+monks, who, because they dare not hit a man of their own size,
+amused themselves with beating little children instead; as you may
+see in the picture of old Pope Gregory (good man and true though he
+was, when he meddled with things which he did understand), teaching
+children to sing their fa-fa-mi-fa with a cat-o'-nine tails under
+his chair:  but, because they never had any children of their own,
+they took into their heads (as some folks do still) that they were
+the only people in the world who knew how to manage children:  and
+they first brought into England, in the old Anglo-Saxon times, the
+fashion of treating free boys, and girls too, worse than you would
+treat a dog or a horse:  but Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has caught them
+all long ago; and given them many a taste of their own rods; and
+much good may it do them.
+
+And she boxed their ears, and thumped them over the head with
+rulers, and pandied their hands with canes, and told them that they
+told stories, and were this and that bad sort of people; and the
+more they were very indignant, and stood upon their honour, and
+declared they told the truth, the more she declared they were not,
+and that they were only telling lies; and at last she birched them
+all round soundly with her great birch-rod and set them each an
+imposition of three hundred thousand lines of Hebrew to learn by
+heart before she came back next Friday.  And at that they all cried
+and howled so, that their breaths came all up through the sea like
+bubbles out of soda-water; and that is one reason of the bubbles in
+the sea.  There are others:  but that is the one which principally
+concerns little boys.  And by that time she was so tired that she
+was glad to stop; and, indeed, she had done a very good day's work.
+
+Tom did not quite dislike the old lady:  but he could not help
+thinking her a little spiteful--and no wonder if she was, poor old
+soul; for if she has to wait to grow handsome till people do as
+they would be done by, she will have to wait a very long time.
+
+Poor old Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid! she has a great deal of hard work
+before her, and had better have been born a washerwoman, and stood
+over a tub all day:  but, you see, people cannot always choose
+their own profession.
+
+But Tom longed to ask her one question; and after all, whenever she
+looked at him, she did not look cross at all; and now and then
+there was a funny smile in her face, and she chuckled to herself in
+a way which gave Tom courage, and at last he said:
+
+"Pray, ma'am, may I ask you a question?"
+
+"Certainly, my little dear."
+
+"Why don't you bring all the bad masters here and serve them out
+too?  The butties that knock about the poor collier-boys; and the
+nailers that file off their lads' noses and hammer their fingers;
+and all the master sweeps, like my master Grimes?  I saw him fall
+into the water long ago; so I surely expected he would have been
+here.  I'm sure he was bad enough to me."
+
+Then the old lady looked so very stern that Tom was quite
+frightened, and sorry that he had been so bold.  But she was not
+angry with him.  She only answered, "I look after them all the week
+round; and they are in a very different place from this, because
+they knew that they were doing wrong."
+
+She spoke very quietly; but there was something in her voice which
+made Tom tingle from head to foot, as if he had got into a shoal of
+sea-nettles.
+
+"But these people," she went on, "did not know that they were doing
+wrong:  they were only stupid and impatient; and therefore I only
+punish them till they become patient, and learn to use their common
+sense like reasonable beings.  But as for chimney-sweeps, and
+collier-boys, and nailer lads, my sister has set good people to
+stop all that sort of thing; and very much obliged to her I am; for
+if she could only stop the cruel masters from ill-using poor
+children, I should grow handsome at least a thousand years sooner.
+And now do you be a good boy, and do as you would be done by, which
+they did not; and then, when my sister, MADAME
+DOASYOUWOULDBEDONEBY, comes on Sunday, perhaps she will take notice
+of you, and teach you how to behave.  She understands that better
+than I do."  And so she went.
+
+Tom was very glad to hear that there was no chance of meeting
+Grimes again, though he was a little sorry for him, considering
+that he used sometimes to give him the leavings of the beer:  but
+he determined to be a very good boy all Saturday; and he was; for
+he never frightened one crab, nor tickled any live corals, nor put
+stones into the sea anemones' mouths, to make them fancy they had
+got a dinner; and when Sunday morning came, sure enough, MRS.
+DOASYOUWOULDBEDONEBY came too.  Whereat all the little children
+began dancing and clapping their hands, and Tom danced too with all
+his might.
+
+And as for the pretty lady, I cannot tell you what the colour of
+her hair was, or, of her eyes:  no more could Tom; for, when any
+one looks at her, all they can think of is, that she has the
+sweetest, kindest, tenderest, funniest, merriest face they ever
+saw, or want to see.  But Tom saw that she was a very tall woman,
+as tall as her sister:  but instead of being gnarly and horny, and
+scaly, and prickly, like her, she was the most nice, soft, fat,
+smooth, pussy, cuddly, delicious creature who ever nursed a baby;
+and she understood babies thoroughly, for she had plenty of her
+own, whole rows and regiments of them, and has to this day.  And
+all her delight was, whenever she had a spare moment, to play with
+babies, in which she showed herself a woman of sense; for babies
+are the best company, and the pleasantest playfellows, in the
+world; at least, so all the wise people in the world think.  And
+therefore when the children saw her, they naturally all caught hold
+of her, and pulled her till she sat down on a stone, and climbed
+into her lap, and clung round her neck, and caught hold of her
+hands; and then they all put their thumbs into their mouths, and
+began cuddling and purring like so many kittens, as they ought to
+have done.  While those who could get nowhere else sat down on the
+sand, and cuddled her feet--for no one, you know, wear shoes in the
+water, except horrid old bathing-women, who are afraid of the
+water-babies pinching their horny toes.  And Tom stood staring at
+them; for he could not understand what it was all about.
+
+"And who are you, you little darling?" she said.
+
+"Oh, that is the new baby!" they all cried, pulling their thumbs
+out of their mouths; "and he never had any mother," and they all
+put their thumbs back again, for they did not wish to lose any
+time.
+
+"Then I will be his mother, and he shall have the very best place;
+so get out, all of you, this moment."
+
+And she took up two great armfuls of babies--nine hundred under one
+arm, and thirteen hundred under the other--and threw them away,
+right and left, into the water.  But they minded it no more than
+the naughty boys in Struwelpeter minded when St. Nicholas dipped
+them in his inkstand; and did not even take their thumbs out of
+their mouths, but came paddling and wriggling back to her like so
+many tadpoles, till you could see nothing of her from head to foot
+for the swarm of little babies.
+
+But she took Tom in her arms, and laid him in the softest place of
+all, and kissed him, and patted him, and talked to him, tenderly
+and low, such things as he had never heard before in his life; and
+Tom looked up into her eyes, and loved her, and loved, till he fell
+fast asleep from pure love.
+
+And when he woke she was telling the children a story.  And what
+story did she tell them?  One story she told them, which begins
+every Christmas Eve, and yet never ends at all for ever and ever;
+and, as she went on, the children took their thumbs out of their
+mouths and listened quite seriously; but not sadly at all; for she
+never told them anything sad; and Tom listened too, and never grew
+tired of listening.  And he listened so long that he fell fast
+asleep again, and, when he woke, the lady was nursing him still.
+
+"Don't go away," said little Tom.  "This is so nice.  I never had
+any one to cuddle me before."
+
+"Don't go away," said all the children; "you have not sung us one
+song."
+
+"Well, I have time for only one.  So what shall it be?"
+
+"The doll you lost!  The doll you lost!" cried all the babies at
+once.
+
+So the strange fairy sang:-
+
+
+I once had a sweet little doll, dears,
+The prettiest doll in the world;
+Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears,
+And her hair was so charmingly curled.
+But I lost my poor little doll, dears,
+As I played in the heath one day;
+And I cried for her more than a week, dears,
+But I never could find where she lay.
+
+I found my poor little doll, dears,
+As I played in the heath one day:
+Folks say she is terribly changed, dears,
+For her paint is all washed away,
+And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears,
+And her hair not the least bit curled:
+Yet, for old sakes' sake she is still, dears,
+The prettiest doll in the world.
+
+
+What a silly song for a fairy to sing!
+
+And what silly water-babies to be quite delighted at it!
+
+Well, but you see they have not the advantage of Aunt Agitate's
+Arguments in the sea-land down below.
+
+"Now," said the fairy to Tom, "will you be a good boy for my sake,
+and torment no more sea-beasts till I come back?"
+
+"And you will cuddle me again?" said poor little Tom.
+
+"Of course I will, you little duck.  I should like to take you with
+me and cuddle you all the way, only I must not;" and away she went.
+
+So Tom really tried to be a good boy, and tormented no sea-beasts
+after that as long as he lived; and he is quite alive, I assure
+you, still.
+
+Oh, how good little boys ought to be who have kind pussy mammas to
+cuddle them and tell them stories; and how afraid they ought to be
+of growing naughty, and bringing tears into their mammas' pretty
+eyes!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+
+"Thou little child, yet glorious in the night
+Of heaven-born freedom on thy Being's height,
+Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
+The Years to bring the inevitable yoke -
+Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
+Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
+And custom lie upon thee with a weight
+Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life."
+
+WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+I come to the very saddest part of all my story.  I know some
+people will only laugh at it, and call it much ado about nothing.
+But I know one man who would not; and he was an officer with a pair
+of gray moustaches as long as your arm, who said once in company
+that two of the most heart-rending sights in the world, which moved
+him most to tears, which he would do anything to prevent or remedy,
+were a child over a broken toy and a child stealing sweets.
+
+The company did not laugh at him; his moustaches were too long and
+too gray for that:  but, after he was gone, they called him
+sentimental and so forth, all but one dear little old Quaker lady
+with a soul as white as her cap, who was not, of course, generally
+partial to soldiers; and she said very quietly, like a Quaker:
+
+"Friends, it is borne upon my mind that that is a truly brave man."
+
+Now you may fancy that Tom was quite good, when he had everything
+that he could want or wish:  but you would be very much mistaken.
+Being quite comfortable is a very good thing; but it does not make
+people good.  Indeed, it sometimes makes them naughty, as it has
+made the people in America; and as it made the people in the Bible,
+who waxed fat and kicked, like horses overfed and underworked.  And
+I am very sorry to say that this happened to little Tom.  For he
+grew so fond of the sea-bullseyes and sea-lollipops that his
+foolish little head could think of nothing else:  and he was always
+longing for more, and wondering when the strange lady would come
+again and give him some, and what she would give him, and how much,
+and whether she would give him more than the others.  And he
+thought of nothing but lollipops by day, and dreamt of nothing else
+by night--and what happened then?
+
+That he began to watch the lady to see where she kept the sweet
+things:  and began hiding, and sneaking, and following her about,
+and pretending to be looking the other way, or going after
+something else, till he found out that she kept them in a beautiful
+mother-of-pearl cabinet away in a deep crack of the rocks.
+
+And he longed to go to the cabinet, and yet he was afraid; and then
+he longed again, and was less afraid; and at last, by continual
+thinking about it, he longed so violently that he was not afraid at
+all.  And one night, when all the other children were asleep, and
+he could not sleep for thinking of lollipops, he crept away among
+the rocks, and got to the cabinet, and behold! it was open.
+
+But, when he saw all the nice things inside, instead of being
+delighted, he was quite frightened, and wished he had never come
+there.  And then he would only touch them, and he did; and then he
+would only taste one, and he did; and then he would only eat one,
+and he did; and then he would only eat two, and then three, and so
+on; and then he was terrified lest she should come and catch him,
+and began gobbling them down so fast that he did not taste them, or
+have any pleasure in them; and then he felt sick, and would have
+only one more; and then only one more again; and so on till he had
+eaten them all up.
+
+And all the while, close behind him, stood Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.
+
+Some people may say, But why did she not keep her cupboard locked?
+Well, I know.--It may seem a very strange thing, but she never does
+keep her cupboard locked; every one may go and taste for
+themselves, and fare accordingly.  It is very odd, but so it is;
+and I am quite sure that she knows best.  Perhaps she wishes people
+to keep their fingers out of the fire, by having them burned.
+
+She took off her spectacles, because she did not like to see too
+much; and in her pity she arched up her eyebrows into her very
+hair, and her eyes grew so wide that they would have taken in all
+the sorrows of the world, and filled with great big tears, as they
+too often do.
+
+But all she said was:
+
+"Ah, you poor little dear! you are just like all the rest."
+
+But she said it to herself, and Tom neither heard nor saw her.
+Now, you must not fancy that she was sentimental at all.  If you
+do, and think that she is going to let off you, or me, or any human
+being when we do wrong, because she is too tender-hearted to punish
+us, then you will find yourself very much mistaken, as many a man
+does every year and every day.
+
+But what did the strange fairy do when she saw all her lollipops
+eaten?
+
+Did she fly at Tom, catch him by the scruff of the neck, hold him,
+howk him, hump him, hurry him, hit him, poke him, pull him, pinch
+him, pound him, put him in the corner, shake him, slap him, set him
+on a cold stone to reconsider himself, and so forth?
+
+Not a bit.  You may watch her at work if you know where to find
+her.  But you will never see her do that.  For, if she had, she
+knew quite well Tom would have fought, and kicked, and bit, and
+said bad words, and turned again that moment into a naughty little
+heathen chimney-sweep, with his hand, like Ishmael's of old,
+against every man, and every man's hand against him.
+
+Did she question him, hurry him, frighten him, threaten him, to
+make him confess?  Not a bit.  You may see her, as I said, at her
+work often enough if you know where to look for her:  but you will
+never see her do that.  For, if she had, she would have tempted him
+to tell lies in his fright; and that would have been worse for him,
+if possible, than even becoming a heathen chimney-sweep again.
+
+No.  She leaves that for anxious parents and teachers (lazy ones,
+some call them), who, instead of giving children a fair trial, such
+as they would expect and demand for themselves, force them by
+fright to confess their own faults--which is so cruel and unfair
+that no judge on the bench dare do it to the wickedest thief or
+murderer, for the good British law forbids it--ay, and even punish
+them to make them confess, which is so detestable a crime that it
+is never committed now, save by Inquisitors, and Kings of Naples,
+and a few other wretched people of whom the world is weary.  And
+then they say, "We have trained up the child in the way he should
+go, and when he grew up he has departed from it.  Why then did
+Solomon say that he would not depart from it?"  But perhaps the way
+of beating, and hurrying and frightening, and questioning, was not
+the way that the child should go; for it is not even the way in
+which a colt should go if you want to break it in and make it a
+quiet serviceable horse.
+
+Some folks may say, "Ah! but the Fairy does not need to do that if
+she knows everything already."  True.  But, if she did not know,
+she would not surely behave worse than a British judge and jury;
+and no more should parents and teachers either.
+
+So she just said nothing at all about the matter, not even when Tom
+came next day with the rest for sweet things.  He was horribly
+afraid of coming:  but he was still more afraid of staying away,
+lest any one should suspect him.  He was dreadfully afraid, too,
+lest there should be no sweets--as was to be expected, he having
+eaten them all--and lest then the fairy should inquire who had
+taken them.  But, behold! she pulled out just as many as ever,
+which astonished Tom, and frightened him still more.
+
+And, when the fairy looked him full in the face, he shook from head
+to foot:  however she gave him his share like the rest, and he
+thought within himself that she could not have found him out.
+
+But, when he put the sweets into his mouth, he hated the taste of
+them; and they made him so sick that he had to get away as fast as
+he could; and terribly sick he was, and very cross and unhappy, all
+the week after.
+
+Then, when next week came, he had his share again; and again the
+fairy looked him full in the face; but more sadly than she had ever
+looked.  And he could not bear the sweets:  but took them again in
+spite of himself.
+
+And when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, he wanted to be cuddled
+like the rest; but she said very seriously:
+
+"I should like to cuddle you; but I cannot, you are so horny and
+prickly."
+
+And Tom looked at himself:  and he was all over prickles, just like
+a sea-egg.
+
+Which was quite natural; for you must know and believe that
+people's souls make their bodies just as a snail makes its shell (I
+am not joking, my little man; I am in serious, solemn earnest).
+And therefore, when Tom's soul grew all prickly with naughty
+tempers, his body could not help growing prickly, too, so that
+nobody would cuddle him, or play with him, or even like to look at
+him.
+
+What could Tom do now but go away and hide in a corner and cry?
+For nobody would play with him, and he knew full well why.
+
+And he was so miserable all that week that when the ugly fairy came
+and looked at him once more full in the face, more seriously and
+sadly than ever, he could stand it no longer, and thrust the
+sweetmeats away, saying, "No, I don't want any:  I can't bear them
+now," and then burst out crying, poor little man, and told Mrs.
+Bedonebyasyoudid every word as it happened.
+
+He was horribly frightened when he had done so; for he expected her
+to punish him very severely.  But, instead, she only took him up
+and kissed him, which was not quite pleasant, for her chin was very
+bristly indeed; but he was so lonely-hearted, he thought that rough
+kissing was better than none.
+
+"I will forgive you, little man," she said.  "I always forgive
+every one the moment they tell me the truth of their own accord."
+
+"Then you will take away all these nasty prickles?"
+
+"That is a very different matter.  You put them there yourself, and
+only you can take them away."
+
+"But how can I do that?" asked Tom, crying afresh.
+
+"Well, I think it is time for you to go to school; so I shall fetch
+you a schoolmistress, who will teach you how to get rid of your
+prickles."  And so she went away.
+
+Tom was frightened at the notion of a school-mistress; for he
+thought she would certainly come with a birch-rod or a cane; but he
+comforted himself, at last, that she might be something like the
+old woman in Vendale--which she was not in the least; for, when the
+fairy brought her, she was the most beautiful little girl that ever
+was seen, with long curls floating behind her like a golden cloud,
+and long robes floating all round her like a silver one.
+
+"There he is," said the fairy; "and you must teach him to be good,
+whether you like or not."
+
+"I know," said the little girl; but she did not seem quite to like,
+for she put her finger in her mouth, and looked at Tom under her
+brows; and Tom put his finger in his mouth, and looked at her under
+his brows, for he was horribly ashamed of himself.
+
+The little girl seemed hardly to know how to begin; and perhaps she
+would never have begun at all if poor Tom had not burst out crying,
+and begged her to teach him to be good and help him to cure his
+prickles; and at that she grew so tender-hearted that she began
+teaching him as prettily as ever child was taught in the world.
+
+And what did the little girl teach Tom?  She taught him, first,
+what you have been taught ever since you said your first prayers at
+your mother's knees; but she taught him much more simply.  For the
+lessons in that world, my child, have no such hard words in them as
+the lessons in this, and therefore the water-babies like them
+better than you like your lessons, and long to learn them more and
+more; and grown men cannot puzzle nor quarrel over their meaning,
+as they do here on land; for those lessons all rise clear and pure,
+like the Test out of Overton Pool, out of the everlasting ground of
+all life and truth.
+
+So she taught Tom every day in the week; only on Sundays she always
+went away home, and the kind fairy took her place.  And before she
+had taught Tom many Sundays, his prickles had vanished quite away,
+and his skin was smooth and clean again.
+
+"Dear me!" said the little girl; "why, I know you now.  You are the
+very same little chimney-sweep who came into my bedroom."
+
+"Dear me!" cried Tom.  "And I know you, too, now.  You are the very
+little white lady whom I saw in bed."  And he jumped at her, and
+longed to hug and kiss her; but did not, remembering that she was a
+lady born; so he only jumped round and round her till he was quite
+tired.
+
+And then they began telling each other all their story--how he had
+got into the water, and she had fallen over the rock; and how he
+had swum down to the sea, and how she had flown out of the window;
+and how this, that, and the other, till it was all talked out:  and
+then they both began over again, and I can't say which of the two
+talked fastest.
+
+And then they set to work at their lessons again, and both liked
+them so well that they went on well till seven full years were past
+and gone.
+
+You may fancy that Tom was quite content and happy all those seven
+years; but the truth is, he was not.  He had always one thing on
+his mind, and that was--where little Ellie went, when she went home
+on Sundays.
+
+To a very beautiful place, she said.
+
+But what was the beautiful place like, and where was it?
+
+Ah! that is just what she could not say.  And it is strange, but
+true, that no one can say; and that those who have been oftenest in
+it, or even nearest to it, can say least about it, and make people
+understand least what it is like.  There are a good many folks
+about the Other-end-of-Nowhere (where Tom went afterwards), who
+pretend to know it from north to south as well as if they had been
+penny postmen there; but, as they are safe at the Other-end-of-
+Nowhere, nine hundred and ninety-nine million miles away, what they
+say cannot concern us.
+
+But the dear, sweet, loving, wise, good, self-sacrificing people,
+who really go there, can never tell you anything about it, save
+that it is the most beautiful place in all the world; and, if you
+ask them more, they grow modest, and hold their peace, for fear of
+being laughed at; and quite right they are.
+
+So all that good little Ellie could say was, that it was worth all
+the rest of the world put together.  And of course that only made
+Tom the more anxious to go likewise.
+
+"Miss Ellie," he said at last, "I will know why I cannot go with
+you when you go home on Sundays, or I shall have no peace, and give
+you none either."
+
+"You must ask the fairies that."
+
+So when the fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, came next, Tom asked her.
+
+"Little boys who are only fit to play with sea-beasts cannot go
+there," she said.  "Those who go there must go first where they do
+not like, and do what they do not like, and help somebody they do
+not like."
+
+"Why, did Ellie do that?"
+
+"Ask her."
+
+And Ellie blushed, and said, "Yes, Tom; I did not like coming here
+at first; I was so much happier at home, where it is always Sunday.
+And I was afraid of you, Tom, at first, because--because--"
+
+"Because I was all over prickles?  But I am not prickly now, am I,
+Miss Ellie?"
+
+"No," said Ellie.  "I like you very much now; and I like coming
+here, too."
+
+"And perhaps," said the fairy, "you will learn to like going where
+you don't like, and helping some one that you don't like, as Ellie
+has."
+
+But Tom put his finger in his mouth, and hung his head down; for he
+did not see that at all.
+
+So when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, Tom asked her; for he
+thought in his little head, She is not so strict as her sister, and
+perhaps she may let me off more easily.
+
+Ah, Tom, Tom, silly fellow! and yet I don't know why I should blame
+you, while so many grown people have got the very same notion in
+their heads.
+
+But, when they try it, they get just the same answer as Tom did.
+For, when he asked the second fairy, she told him just what the
+first did, and in the very same words.
+
+Tom was very unhappy at that.  And, when Ellie went home on Sunday,
+he fretted and cried all day, and did not care to listen to the
+fairy's stories about good children, though they were prettier than
+ever.  Indeed, the more he overheard of them, the less he liked to
+listen, because they were all about children who did what they did
+not like, and took trouble for other people, and worked to feed
+their little brothers and sisters instead of caring only for their
+play.  And, when she began to tell a story about a holy child in
+old times, who was martyred by the heathen because it would not
+worship idols, Tom could bear no more, and ran away and hid among
+the rocks.
+
+And, when Ellie came back, he was shy with her, because he fancied
+she looked down on him, and thought him a coward.  And then he grew
+quite cross with her, because she was superior to him, and did what
+he could not do.  And poor Ellie was quite surprised and sad; and
+at last Tom burst out crying; but he would not tell her what was
+really in his mind.
+
+And all the while he was eaten up with curiosity to know where
+Ellie went to; so that he began not to care for his playmates, or
+for the sea-palace or anything else.  But perhaps that made matters
+all the easier for him; for he grew so discontented with everything
+round him that he did not care to stay, and did not care where he
+went.
+
+"Well," he said, at last, "I am so miserable here, I'll go; if only
+you will go with me?"
+
+"Ah!" said Ellie, "I wish I might; but the worst of it is, that the
+fairy says that you must go alone if you go at all.  Now don't poke
+that poor crab about, Tom" (for he was feeling very naughty and
+mischievous), "or the fairy will have to punish you."
+
+Tom was very nearly saying, "I don't care if she does;" but he
+stopped himself in time.
+
+"I know what she wants me to do," he said, whining most dolefully.
+"She wants me to go after that horrid old Grimes.  I don't like
+him, that's certain.  And if I find him, he will turn me into a
+chimney-sweep again, I know.  That's what I have been afraid of all
+along."
+
+"No, he won't--I know as much as that.  Nobody can turn water-
+babies into sweeps, or hurt them at all, as long as they are good."
+
+"Ah," said naughty Tom, "I see what you want; you are persuading me
+all along to go, because you are tired of me, and want to get rid
+of me."
+
+Little Ellie opened her eyes very wide at that, and they were all
+brimming over with tears.
+
+"Oh, Tom, Tom!" she said, very mournfully--and then she cried, "Oh,
+Tom! where are you?"
+
+And Tom cried, "Oh, Ellie, where are you?"
+
+For neither of them could see each other--not the least.  Little
+Ellie vanished quite away, and Tom heard her voice calling him, and
+growing smaller and smaller, and fainter and fainter, till all was
+silent.
+
+Who was frightened then but Tom?  He swam up and down among the
+rocks, into all the halls and chambers, faster than ever he swam
+before, but could not find her.  He shouted after her, but she did
+not answer; he asked all the other children, but they had not seen
+her; and at last he went up to the top of the water and began
+crying and screaming for Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid--which perhaps was
+the best thing to do--for she came in a moment.
+
+"Oh!" said Tom.  "Oh dear, oh dear!  I have been naughty to Ellie,
+and I have killed her--I know I have killed her."
+
+"Not quite that," said the fairy; "but I have sent her away home,
+and she will not come back again for I do not know how long."
+
+And at that Tom cried so bitterly that the salt sea was swelled
+with his tears, and the tide was .3,954,620,819 of an inch higher
+than it had been the day before:  but perhaps that was owing to the
+waxing of the moon.  It may have been so; but it is considered
+right in the new philosophy, you know, to give spiritual causes for
+physical phenomena--especially in parlour-tables; and, of course,
+physical causes for spiritual ones, like thinking, and praying, and
+knowing right from wrong.  And so they odds it till it comes even,
+as folks say down in Berkshire.
+
+"How cruel of you to send Ellie away!" sobbed Tom.  "However, I
+will find her again, if I go to the world's end to look for her."
+
+The fairy did not slap Tom, and tell him to hold his tongue:  but
+she took him on her lap very kindly, just as her sister would have
+done; and put him in mind how it was not her fault, because she was
+wound up inside, like watches, and could not help doing things
+whether she liked or not.  And then she told him how he had been in
+the nursery long enough, and must go out now and see the world, if
+he intended ever to be a man; and how he must go all alone by
+himself, as every one else that ever was born has to go, and see
+with his own eyes, and smell with his own nose, and make his own
+bed and lie on it, and burn his own fingers if he put them into the
+fire.  And then she told him how many fine things there were to be
+seen in the world, and what an odd, curious, pleasant, orderly,
+respectable, well-managed, and, on the whole, successful (as,
+indeed, might have been expected) sort of a place it was, if people
+would only be tolerably brave and honest and good in it; and then
+she told him not to be afraid of anything he met, for nothing would
+harm him if he remembered all his lessons, and did what he knew was
+right.  And at last she comforted poor little Tom so much that he
+was quite eager to go, and wanted to set out that minute.  "Only,"
+he said, "if I might see Ellie once before I went!"
+
+"Why do you want that?"
+
+"Because--because I should be so much happier if I thought she had
+forgiven me."
+
+And in the twinkling of an eye there stood Ellie, smiling, and
+looking so happy that Tom longed to kiss her; but was still afraid
+it would not be respectful, because she was a lady born.
+
+"I am going, Ellie!" said Tom.  "I am going, if it is to the
+world's end.  But I don't like going at all, and that's the truth."
+
+"Pooh! pooh! pooh!" said the fairy.  "You will like it very well
+indeed, you little rogue, and you know that at the bottom of your
+heart.  But if you don't, I will make you like it.  Come here, and
+see what happens to people who do only what is pleasant."
+
+And she took out of one of her cupboards (she had all sorts of
+mysterious cupboards in the cracks of the rocks) the most wonderful
+waterproof book, full of such photographs as never were seen.  For
+she had found out photography (and this is a fact) more than
+13,598,000 years before anybody was born; and, what is more, her
+photographs did not merely represent light and shade, as ours do,
+but colour also, and all colours, as you may see if you look at a
+black-cock's tail, or a butterfly's wing, or indeed most things
+that are or can be, so to speak.  And therefore her photographs
+were very curious and famous, and the children looked with great
+delight for the opening of the book.
+
+And on the title-page was written, "The History of the great and
+famous nation of the Doasyoulikes, who came away from the country
+of Hardwork, because they wanted to play on the Jews' harp all day
+long."
+
+In the first picture they saw these Doasyoulikes living in the land
+of Readymade, at the foot of the Happy-go-lucky Mountains, where
+flapdoodle grows wild; and if you want to know what that is, you
+must read Peter Simple.
+
+They lived very much such a life as those jolly old Greeks in
+Sicily, whom you may see painted on the ancient vases, and really
+there seemed to be great excuses for them, for they had no need to
+work.
+
+Instead of houses they lived in the beautiful caves of tufa, and
+bathed in the warm springs three times a day; and, as for clothes,
+it was so warm there that the gentlemen walked about in little
+beside a cocked hat and a pair of straps, or some light summer
+tackle of that kind; and the ladies all gathered gossamer in autumn
+(when they were not too lazy) to make their winter dresses.
+
+They were very fond of music, but it was too much trouble to learn
+the piano or the violin; and as for dancing, that would have been
+too great an exertion.  So they sat on ant-hills all day long, and
+played on the Jews' harp; and, if the ants bit them, why they just
+got up and went to the next ant-hill, till they were bitten there
+likewise.
+
+And they sat under the flapdoodle-trees, and let the flapdoodle
+drop into their mouths; and under the vines, and squeezed the
+grape-juice down their throats; and, if any little pigs ran about
+ready roasted, crying, "Come and eat me," as was their fashion in
+that country, they waited till the pigs ran against their mouths,
+and then took a bite, and were content, just as so many oysters
+would have been.
+
+They needed no weapons, for no enemies ever came near their land;
+and no tools, for everything was readymade to their hand; and the
+stern old fairy Necessity never came near them to hunt them up, and
+make them use their wits, or die.
+
+And so on, and so on, and so on, till there were never such
+comfortable, easy-going, happy-go-lucky people in the world.
+
+"Well, that is a jolly life," said Tom.
+
+"You think so?" said the fairy.  "Do you see that great peaked
+mountain there behind," said the fairy, "with smoke coming out of
+its top?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And do you see all those ashes, and slag, and cinders lying
+about?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then turn over the next five hundred years, and you will see what
+happens next."
+
+And behold the mountain had blown up like a barrel of gunpowder,
+and then boiled over like a kettle; whereby one-third of the
+Doasyoulikes were blown into the air, and another third were
+smothered in ashes; so that there was only one-third left.
+
+"You see," said the fairy, "what comes of living on a burning
+mountain."
+
+"Oh, why did you not warn them?" said little Ellie.
+
+"I did warn them all that I could.  I let the smoke come out of the
+mountain; and wherever there is smoke there is fire.  And I laid
+the ashes and cinders all about; and wherever there are cinders,
+cinders may be again.  But they did not like to face facts, my
+dears, as very few people do; and so they invented a cock-and-bull
+story, which, I am sure, I never told them, that the smoke was the
+breath of a giant, whom some gods or other had buried under the
+mountain; and that the cinders were what the dwarfs roasted the
+little pigs whole with; and other nonsense of that kind.  And, when
+folks are in that humour, I cannot teach them, save by the good old
+birch-rod."
+
+And then she turned over the next five hundred years:  and there
+were the remnant of the Doasyoulikes, doing as they liked, as
+before.  They were too lazy to move away from the mountain; so they
+said, If it has blown up once, that is all the more reason that it
+should not blow up again.  And they were few in number:  but they
+only said, The more the merrier, but the fewer the better fare.
+However, that was not quite true; for all the flapdoodle-trees were
+killed by the volcano, and they had eaten all the roast pigs, who,
+of course, could not be expected to have little ones.  So they had
+to live very hard, on nuts and roots which they scratched out of
+the ground with sticks.  Some of them talked of sowing corn, as
+their ancestors used to do, before they came into the land of
+Readymade; but they had forgotten how to make ploughs (they had
+forgotten even how to make Jews' harps by this time), and had eaten
+all the seed-corn which they brought out of the land of Hardwork
+years since; and of course it was too much trouble to go away and
+find more.  So they lived miserably on roots and nuts, and all the
+weakly little children had great stomachs, and then died.
+
+"Why," said Tom, "they are growing no better than savages."
+
+"And look how ugly they are all getting," said Ellie.
+
+"Yes; when people live on poor vegetables instead of roast beef and
+plum-pudding, their jaws grow large, and their lips grow coarse,
+like the poor Paddies who eat potatoes."
+
+And she turned over the next five hundred years.  And there they
+were all living up in trees, and making nests to keep off the rain.
+And underneath the trees lions were prowling about.
+
+"Why," said Ellie, "the lions seem to have eaten a good many of
+them, for there are very few left now."
+
+"Yes," said the fairy; "you see it was only the strongest and most
+active ones who could climb the trees, and so escape."
+
+"But what great, hulking, broad-shouldered chaps they are," said
+Tom; "they are a rough lot as ever I saw."
+
+"Yes, they are getting very strong now; for the ladies will not
+marry any but the very strongest and fiercest gentlemen, who can
+help them up the trees out of the lions' way."
+
+And she turned over the next five hundred years.  And in that they
+were fewer still, and stronger, and fiercer; but their feet had
+changed shape very oddly, for they laid hold of the branches with
+their great toes, as if they had been thumbs, just as a Hindoo
+tailor uses his toes to thread his needle.
+
+The children were very much surprised, and asked the fairy whether
+that was her doing.
+
+"Yes, and no," she said, smiling.  "It was only those who could use
+their feet as well as their hands who could get a good living:  or,
+indeed, get married; so that they got the best of everything, and
+starved out all the rest; and those who are left keep up a regular
+breed of toe-thumb-men, as a breed of short-horns, or are skye-
+terriers, or fancy pigeons is kept up."
+
+"But there is a hairy one among them," said Ellie.
+
+"Ah!" said the fairy, "that will be a great man in his time, and
+chief of all the tribe."
+
+And, when she turned over the next five hundred years, it was true.
+
+For this hairy chief had had hairy children, and they hairier
+children still; and every one wished to marry hairy husbands, and
+have hairy children too; for the climate was growing so damp that
+none but the hairy ones could live:  all the rest coughed and
+sneezed, and had sore throats, and went into consumptions, before
+they could grow up to be men and women.
+
+Then the fairy turned over the next five hundred years.  And they
+were fewer still.
+
+"Why, there is one on the ground picking up roots," said Ellie,
+"and he cannot walk upright."
+
+No more he could; for in the same way that the shape of their feet
+had altered, the shape of their backs had altered also.
+
+"Why," cried Tom, "I declare they are all apes."
+
+"Something fearfully like it, poor foolish creatures," said the
+fairy.  "They are grown so stupid now, that they can hardly think:
+for none of them have used their wits for many hundred years.  They
+have almost forgotten, too, how to talk.  For each stupid child
+forgot some of the words it heard from its stupid parents, and had
+not wits enough to make fresh words for itself.  Beside, they are
+grown so fierce and suspicious and brutal that they keep out of
+each other's way, and mope and sulk in the dark forests, never
+hearing each other's voice, till they have forgotten almost what
+speech is like.  I am afraid they will all be apes very soon, and
+all by doing only what they liked."
+
+And in the next five hundred years they were all dead and gone, by
+bad food and wild beasts and hunters; all except one tremendous old
+fellow with jaws like a jack, who stood full seven feet high; and
+M. Du Chaillu came up to him, and shot him, as he stood roaring and
+thumping his breast.  And he remembered that his ancestors had once
+been men, and tried to say, "Am I not a man and a brother?" but had
+forgotten how to use his tongue; and then he had tried to call for
+a doctor, but he had forgotten the word for one.  So all he said
+was "Ubboboo!" and died.
+
+And that was the end of the great and jolly nation of the
+Doasyoulikes.  And, when Tom and Ellie came to the end of the book,
+they looked very sad and solemn; and they had good reason so to do,
+for they really fancied that the men were apes, and never thought,
+in their simplicity, of asking whether the creatures had
+hippopotamus majors in their brains or not; in which case, as you
+have been told already, they could not possibly have been apes,
+though they were more apish than the apes of all aperies.
+
+"But could you not have saved them from becoming apes?" said little
+Ellie, at last.
+
+"At first, my dear; if only they would have behaved like men, and
+set to work to do what they did not like.  But the longer they
+waited, and behaved like the dumb beasts, who only do what they
+like, the stupider and clumsier they grew; till at last they were
+past all cure, for they had thrown their own wits away.  It is such
+things as this that help to make me so ugly, that I know not when I
+shall grow fair."
+
+"And where are they all now?" asked Ellie.
+
+"Exactly where they ought to be, my dear."
+
+"Yes!" said the fairy, solemnly, half to herself, as she closed the
+wonderful book.  "Folks say now that I can make beasts into men, by
+circumstance, and selection, and competition, and so forth.  Well,
+perhaps they are right; and perhaps, again, they are wrong.  That
+is one of the seven things which I am forbidden to tell, till the
+coming of the Cocqcigrues; and, at all events, it is no concern of
+theirs.  Whatever their ancestors were, men they are; and I advise
+them to behave as such, and act accordingly.  But let them
+recollect this, that there are two sides to every question, and a
+downhill as well as an uphill road; and, if I can turn beasts into
+men, I can, by the same laws of circumstance, and selection, and
+competition, turn men into beasts.  You were very near being turned
+into a beast once or twice, little Tom.  Indeed, if you had not
+made up your mind to go on this journey, and see the world, like an
+Englishman, I am not sure but that you would have ended as an eft
+in a pond."
+
+"Oh, dear me!" said Tom; "sooner than that, and be all over slime,
+I'll go this minute, if it is to the world's end."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+
+"And Nature, the old Nurse, took
+The child upon her knee,
+Saying, 'Here is a story book
+Thy father hath written for thee.
+
+"'Come wander with me,' she said,
+'Into regions yet untrod,
+And read what is still unread
+In the Manuscripts of God.'
+
+"And he wandered away and away
+With Nature, the dear old Nurse,
+Who sang to him night and day
+The rhymes of the universe."
+
+LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+"Now," said Tom, "I am ready be off, if it's to the world's end."
+
+"Ah!" said the fairy, "that is a brave, good boy.  But you must go
+farther than the world's end, if you want to find Mr. Grimes; for
+he is at the Other-end-of-Nowhere.  You must go to Shiny Wall, and
+through the white gate that never was opened; and then you will
+come to Peacepool, and Mother Carey's Haven, where the good whales
+go when they die.  And there Mother Carey will tell you the way to
+the Other-end-of-Nowhere, and there you will find Mr. Grimes."
+
+"Oh, dear!" said Tom.  "But I do not know my way to Shiny Wall, or
+where it is at all."
+
+"Little boys must take the trouble to find out things for
+themselves, or they will never grow to be men; so that you must ask
+all the beasts in the sea and the birds in the air, and if you have
+been good to them, some of them will tell you the way to Shiny
+Wall."
+
+"Well," said Tom, "it will be a long journey, so I had better start
+at once.  Good-bye, Miss Ellie; you know I am getting a big boy,
+and I must go out and see the world."
+
+"I know you must," said Ellie; "but you will not forget me, Tom.  I
+shall wait here till you come."
+
+And she shook hands with him, and bade him good-bye.  Tom longed
+very much again to kiss her; but he thought it would not be
+respectful, considering she was a lady born; so he promised not to
+forget her:  but his little whirl-about of a head was so full of
+the notion of going out to see the world, that it forgot her in
+five minutes:  however, though his head forgot her, I am glad to
+say his heart did not.
+
+So he asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the birds in the
+air, but none of them knew the way to Shiny Wall.  For why?  He was
+still too far down south.
+
+Then he met a ship, far larger than he had ever seen--a gallant
+ocean-steamer, with a long cloud of smoke trailing behind; and he
+wondered how she went on without sails, and swam up to her to see.
+A school of dolphins were running races round and round her, going
+three feet for her one, and Tom asked them the way to Shiny Wall:
+but they did not know.  Then he tried to find out how she moved,
+and at last he saw her screw, and was so delighted with it that he
+played under her quarter all day, till he nearly had his nose
+knocked off by the fans, and thought it time to move.  Then he
+watched the sailors upon deck, and the ladies, with their bonnets
+and parasols:  but none of them could see him, because their eyes
+were not opened,--as, indeed, most people's eyes are not.
+
+At last there came out into the quarter-gallery a very pretty lady,
+in deep black widow's weeds, and in her arms a baby.  She leaned
+over the quarter-gallery, and looked back and back toward England
+far away; and as she looked she sang:
+
+
+I.
+
+"Soft soft wind, from out the sweet south sliding,
+Waft thy silver cloud-webs athwart the summer sea;
+Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining
+Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me.
+
+II.
+
+"Deep deep Love, within thine own abyss abiding,
+Pour Thyself abroad, O Lord, on earth and air and sea;
+Worn weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding,
+Shield from sorrow, sin, and shame my helpless babe and me."
+
+
+Her voice was so soft and low, and the music of the air so sweet,
+that Tom could have listened to it all day.  But as she held the
+baby over the gallery rail, to show it the dolphins leaping and the
+water gurgling in the ship's wake, lo! and behold, the baby saw
+Tom.
+
+He was quite sure of that for when their eyes met, the baby smiled
+and held out his hands; and Tom smiled and held out his hands too;
+and the baby kicked and leaped, as if it wanted to jump overboard
+to him.
+
+"What do you see, my darling?" said the lady; and her eyes followed
+the baby's till she too caught sight of Tom, swimming about among
+the foam-beads below.
+
+She gave a little shriek and start; and then she said, quite
+quietly, "Babies in the sea?  Well, perhaps it is the happiest
+place for them;" and waved her hand to Tom, and cried, "Wait a
+little, darling, only a little:  and perhaps we shall go with you
+and be at rest."
+
+And at that an old nurse, all in black, came out and talked to her,
+and drew her in.  And Tom turned away northward, sad and wondering;
+and watched the great steamer slide away into the dusk, and the
+lights on board peep out one by one, and die out again, and the
+long bar of smoke fade away into the evening mist, till all was out
+of sight.
+
+And he swam northward again, day after day, till at last he met the
+King of the Herrings, with a curry-comb growing out of his nose,
+and a sprat in his mouth for a cigar, and asked him the way to
+Shiny Wall; so he bolted his sprat head foremost, and said:
+
+"If I were you, young Gentleman, I should go to the Allalonestone,
+and ask the last of the Gairfowl.  She is of a very ancient clan,
+very nearly as ancient as my own; and knows a good deal which these
+modern upstarts don't, as ladies of old houses are likely to do."
+
+Tom asked his way to her, and the King of the Herrings told him
+very kindly, for he was a courteous old gentleman of the old
+school, though he was horribly ugly, and strangely bedizened too,
+like the old dandies who lounge in the club-house windows.
+
+But just as Tom had thanked him and set off, he called after him:
+"Hi!  I say, can you fly?"
+
+"I never tried," says Tom.  "Why?"
+
+"Because, if you can, I should advise you to say nothing to the old
+lady about it.  There; take a hint.  Good-bye."
+
+And away Tom went for seven days and seven nights due north-west,
+till he came to a great codbank, the like of which he never saw
+before.  The great cod lay below in tens of thousands, and gobbled
+shell-fish all day long; and the blue sharks roved above in
+hundreds, and gobbled them when they came up.  So they ate, and
+ate, and ate each other, as they had done since the making of the
+world; for no man had come here yet to catch them, and find out how
+rich old Mother Carey is.
+
+And there he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing up on the
+Allalonestones all alone.  And a very grand old lady she was, full
+three feet high, and bolt upright, like some old Highland
+chieftainess.  She had on a black velvet gown, and a white pinner
+and apron, and a very high bridge to her nose (which is a sure mark
+of high breeding), and a large pair of white spectacles on it,
+which made her look rather odd:  but it was the ancient fashion of
+her house.
+
+And instead of wings, she had two little feathery arms, with which
+she fanned herself, and complained of the dreadful heat; and she
+kept on crooning an old song to herself, which she learnt when she
+was a little baby-bird, long ago -
+
+
+"Two little birds they sat on a stone,
+One swam away, and then there was one,
+With a fal-lal-la-lady.
+
+"The other swam after, and then there was none,
+And so the poor stone was left all alone;
+With a fal-lal-la-lady."
+
+
+It was "flew" away, properly, and not "swam" away:  but, as she
+could not fly, she had a right to alter it.  However, it was a very
+fit song for her to sing, because she was a lady herself.
+
+Tom came up to her very humbly, and made his bow; and the first
+thing she said was -
+
+"Have you wings?  Can you fly?"
+
+"Oh dear, no, ma'am; I should not think of such thing," said
+cunning little Tom.
+
+"Then I shall have great pleasure in talking to you, my dear.  It
+is quite refreshing nowadays to see anything without wings.  They
+must all have wings, forsooth, now, every new upstart sort of bird,
+and fly.  What can they want with flying, and raising themselves
+above their proper station in life?  In the days of my ancestors no
+birds ever thought of having wings, and did very well without; and
+now they all laugh at me because I keep to the good old fashion.
+Why, the very marrocks and dovekies have got wings, the vulgar
+creatures, and poor little ones enough they are; and my own cousins
+too, the razor-bills, who are gentlefolk born, and ought to know
+better than to ape their inferiors."
+
+And so she was running on, while Tom tried to get in a word
+edgeways; and at last he did, when the old lady got out of breath,
+and began fanning herself again; and then he asked if she knew the
+way to Shiny Wall.
+
+"Shiny Wall?  Who should know better than I?  We all came from
+Shiny Wall, thousands of years ago, when it was decently cold, and
+the climate was fit for gentlefolk; but now, what with the heat,
+and what with these vulgar-winged things who fly up and down and
+eat everything, so that gentlepeople's hunting is all spoilt, and
+one really cannot get one's living, or hardly venture off the rock
+for fear of being flown against by some creature that would not
+have dared to come within a mile of one a thousand years ago--what
+was I saying?  Why, we have quite gone down in the world, my dear,
+and have nothing left but our honour.  And I am the last of my
+family.  A friend of mine and I came and settled on this rock when
+we were young, to be out of the way of low people.  Once we were a
+great nation, and spread over all the Northern Isles.  But men shot
+us so, and knocked us on the head, and took our eggs--why, if you
+will believe it, they say that on the coast of Labrador the sailors
+used to lay a plank from the rock on board the thing called their
+ship, and drive us along the plank by hundreds, till we tumbled
+down into the ship's waist in heaps; and then, I suppose, they ate
+us, the nasty fellows!  Well--but--what was I saying?  At last,
+there were none of us left, except on the old Gairfowlskerry, just
+off the Iceland coast, up which no man could climb.  Even there we
+had no peace; for one day, when I was quite a young girl, the land
+rocked, and the sea boiled, and the sky grew dark, and all the air
+was filled with smoke and dust, and down tumbled the old
+Gairfowlskerry into the sea.  The dovekies and marrocks, of course,
+all flew away; but we were too proud to do that.  Some of us were
+dashed to pieces, and some drowned; and those who were left got
+away to Eldey, and the dovekies tell me they are all dead now, and
+that another Gairfowlskerry has risen out of the sea close to the
+old one, but that it is such a poor flat place that it is not safe
+to live on:  and so here I am left alone."
+
+This was the Gairfowl's story, and, strange as it may seem, it is
+every word of it true.
+
+"If you only had had wings!" said Tom; "then you might all have
+flown away too."
+
+"Yes, young gentleman:  and if people are not gentleman and ladies,
+and forget that noblesse oblige, they will find it as easy to get
+on in the world as other people who don't care what they do.  Why,
+if I had not recollected that noblesse oblige, I should not have
+been all alone now."  And the poor old lady sighed.
+
+"How was that, ma'am?"
+
+"Why, my dear, a gentleman came hither with me, and after we had
+been here some time, he wanted to marry--in fact, he actually
+proposed to me.  Well, I can't blame him; I was young, and very
+handsome then, I don't deny:  but you see, I could not hear of such
+a thing, because he was my deceased sister's husband, you see?"
+
+"Of course not, ma'am," said Tom; though, of course, he knew
+nothing about it.  "She was very much diseased, I suppose?"
+
+"You do not understand me, my dear.  I mean, that being a lady, and
+with right and honourable feelings, as our house always has had, I
+felt it my duty to snub him, and howk him, and peck him
+continually, to keep him at his proper distance; and, to tell the
+truth, I once pecked him a little too hard, poor fellow, and he
+tumbled backwards off the rock, and--really, it was very
+unfortunate, but it was not my fault--a shark coming by saw him
+flapping, and snapped him up. And since then I have lived all alone
+-
+
+
+'With a fal-lal-la-lady.'
+
+
+And soon I shall be gone, my little dear, and nobody will miss me;
+and then the poor stone will be left all alone."
+
+"But, please, which is the way to Shiny Wall?" said Tom.
+
+"Oh, you must go, my little dear--you must go.  Let me see--I am
+sure--that is--really, my poor old brains are getting quite
+puzzled.  Do you know, my little dear, I am afraid, if you want to
+know, you must ask some of these vulgar birds about, for I have
+quite forgotten."
+
+And the poor old Gairfowl began to cry tears of pure oil; and Tom
+was quite sorry for her; and for himself too, for he was at his
+wit's end whom to ask.
+
+But by there came a flock of petrels, who are Mother Carey's own
+chickens; and Tom thought them much prettier than Lady Gairfowl,
+and so perhaps they were; for Mother Carey had had a great deal of
+fresh experience between the time that she invented the Gairfowl
+and the time that she invented them.  They flitted along like a
+flock of black swallows, and hopped and skipped from wave to wave,
+lifting up their little feet behind them so daintily, and whistling
+to each other so tenderly, that Tom fell in love with them at once,
+and called them to know the way to Shiny Wall.
+
+"Shiny Wall?  Do you want Shiny Wall?  Then come with us, and we
+will show you.  We are Mother Carey's own chickens, and she sends
+us out over all the seas, to show the good birds the way home."
+
+Tom was delighted, and swam off to them, after he had made his bow
+to the Gairfowl.  But she would not return his bow:  but held
+herself bolt upright, and wept tears of oil as she sang:
+
+
+"And so the poor stone was left all alone;
+With a fal-lal-la-lady."
+
+
+But she was wrong there; for the stone was not left all alone:  and
+the next time that Tom goes by it, he will see a sight worth
+seeing.
+
+The old Gairfowl is gone already:  but there are better things come
+in her place; and when Tom comes he will see the fishing-smacks
+anchored there in hundreds, from Scotland, and from Ireland, and
+from the Orkneys, and the Shetlands, and from all the Northern
+ports, full of the children of the old Norse Vikings, the masters
+of the sea.  And the men will be hauling in the great cod by
+thousands, till their hands are sore from the lines; and they will
+be making cod-liver oil and guano, and salting down the fish; and
+there will be a man-of-war steamer there to protect them, and a
+lighthouse to show them the way; and you and I, perhaps, shall go
+some day to the Allalonestone to the great summer sea-fair, and
+dredge strange creatures such as man never saw before; and we shall
+hear the sailors boast that it is not the worst jewel in Queen
+Victoria's crown, for there are eighty miles of codbank, and food
+for all the poor folk in the land.  That is what Tom will see, and
+perhaps you and I shall see it too.  And then we shall not be sorry
+because we cannot get a Gairfowl to stuff, much less find gairfowl
+enough to drive them into stone pens and slaughter them, as the old
+Norsemen did, or drive them on board along a plank till the ship
+was victualled with them, as the old English and French rovers used
+to do, of whom dear old Hakluyt tells:  but we shall remember what
+Mr. Tennyson says:  how
+
+
+"The old order changeth, giving place to the new,
+And God fulfils himself in many ways."
+
+
+And now Tom was all agog to start for Shiny Wall; but the petrels
+said no.  They must go first to Allfowlsness, and wait there for
+the great gathering of all the sea-birds, before they start for
+their summer breeding-places far away in the Northern Isles; and
+there they would be sure to find some birds which were going to
+Shiny Wall:  but where Allfowlsness was, he must promise never to
+tell, lest men should go there and shoot the birds, and stuff them,
+and put them into stupid museums, instead of leaving them to play
+and breed and work in Mother Carey's water-garden, where they ought
+to be.
+
+So where Allfowlsness is nobody must know; and all that is to be
+said about it is, that Tom waited there many days; and as he
+waited, he saw a very curious sight.  On the rabbit burrows on the
+shore there gathered hundreds and hundreds of hoodie-crows, such as
+you see in Cambridgeshire.  And they made such a noise, that Tom
+came on shore and went up to see what was the matter.
+
+And there he found them holding their great caucus, which they hold
+every year in the North; and all their stump-orators were
+speechifying; and for a tribune, the speaker stood on an old
+sheep's skull.
+
+And they cawed and cawed, and boasted of all the clever things they
+had done; how many lambs' eyes they had picked out, and how many
+dead bullocks they had eaten, and how many young grouse they had
+swallowed whole, and how many grouse-eggs they had flown away with,
+stuck on the point of their bills, which is the hoodie-crow's
+particularly clever feat, of which he is as proud as a gipsy is of
+doing the hokany-baro; and what that is, I won't tell you.
+
+And at last they brought out the prettiest, neatest young lady-crow
+that ever was seen, and set her in the middle, and all began
+abusing and vilifying, and rating, and bullyragging at her, because
+she had stolen no grouse-eggs, and had actually dared to say that
+she would not steal any.  So she was to be tried publicly by their
+laws (for the hoodies always try some offenders in their great
+yearly parliament).  And there she stood in the middle, in her
+black gown and gray hood, looking as meek and as neat as a
+Quakeress, and they all bawled at her at once -
+
+And it was in vain that she pleaded -
+
+
+That she did not like grouse-eggs;
+That she could get her living very well without them;
+That she was afraid to eat them, for fear of the gamekeepers;
+That she had not the heart to eat them, because the grouse were
+such pretty, kind, jolly birds;
+And a dozen reasons more.
+
+
+For all the other scaul-crows set upon her, and pecked her to death
+there and then, before Tom could come to help her; and then flew
+away, very proud of what they had done.
+
+Now, was not this a scandalous transaction?
+
+But they are true republicans, these hoodies, who do every one just
+what he likes, and make other people do so too; so that, for any
+freedom of speech, thought, or action, which is allowed among them,
+they might as well be American citizens of the new school.
+
+But the fairies took the good crow, and gave her nine new sets of
+feathers running, and turned her at last into the most beautiful
+bird of paradise with a green velvet suit and a long tail, and sent
+her to eat fruit in the Spice Islands, where cloves and nutmegs
+grow.
+
+And Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid settled her account with the wicked
+hoodies.  For, as they flew away, what should they find but a nasty
+dead dog?--on which they all set to work, peeking and gobbling and
+cawing and quarrelling to their hearts' content.  But the moment
+afterwards, they all threw up their bills into the air, and gave
+one screech; and then turned head over heels backward, and fell
+down dead, one hundred and twenty-three of them at once.  For why?
+The fairy had told the gamekeeper in a dream, to fill the dead dog
+full of strychnine; and so he did.
+
+And after a while the birds began to gather at Allfowlsness, in
+thousands and tens of thousands, blackening all the air; swans and
+brant geese, harlequins and eiders, harolds and garganeys, smews
+and goosanders, divers and loons, grebes and dovekies, auks and
+razor-bills, gannets and petrels, skuas and terns, with gulls
+beyond all naming or numbering; and they paddled and washed and
+splashed and combed and brushed themselves on the sand, till the
+shore was white with feathers; and they quacked and clucked and
+gabbled and chattered and screamed and whooped as they talked over
+matters with their friends, and settled where they were to go and
+breed that summer, till you might have heard them ten miles off;
+and lucky it was for them that there was no one to hear them but
+the old keeper, who lived all alone upon the Ness, in a turf hut
+thatched with heather and fringed round with great stones slung
+across the roof by bent-ropes, lest the winter gales should blow
+the hut right away.  But he never minded the birds nor hurt them,
+because they were not in season; indeed, he minded but two things
+in the whole world, and those were, his Bible and his grouse; for
+he was as good an old Scotchman as ever knit stockings on a
+winter's night:  only, when all the birds were going, he toddled
+out, and took off his cap to them, and wished them a merry journey
+and a safe return; and then gathered up all the feathers which they
+had left, and cleaned them to sell down south, and make feather-
+beds for stuffy people to lie on.
+
+Then the petrels asked this bird and that whether they would take
+Tom to Shiny Wall:  but one set was going to Sutherland, and one to
+the Shetlands, and one to Norway, and one to Spitzbergen, and one
+to Iceland, and one to Greenland:  but none would go to Shiny Wall.
+So the good-natured petrels said that they would show him part of
+the way themselves, but they were only going as far as Jan Mayen's
+Land; and after that he must shift for himself.
+
+And then all the birds rose up, and streamed away in long black
+lines, north, and north-east, and north-west, across the bright
+blue summer sky; and their cry was like ten thousand packs of
+hounds, and ten thousand peals of bells.  Only the puffins stayed
+behind, and killed the young rabbits, and laid their eggs in the
+rabbit-burrows; which was rough practice, certainly; but a man must
+see to his own family.
+
+And, as Tom and the petrels went north-eastward, it began to blow
+right hard; for the old gentleman in the gray great-coat, who looks
+after the big copper boiler, in the gulf of Mexico, had got
+behindhand with his work; so Mother Carey had sent an electric
+message to him for more steam; and now the steam was coming, as
+much in an hour as ought to have come in a week, puffing and
+roaring and swishing and swirling, till you could not see where the
+sky ended and the sea began.  But Tom and the petrels never cared,
+for the gale was right abaft, and away they went over the crests of
+the billows, as merry as so many flying-fish.
+
+And at last they saw an ugly sight--the black side of a great ship,
+waterlogged in the trough of the sea.  Her funnel and her masts
+were overboard, and swayed and surged under her lee; her decks were
+swept as clean as a barn floor, and there was no living soul on
+board.
+
+The petrels flew up to her, and wailed round her; for they were
+very sorry indeed, and also they expected to find some salt pork;
+and Tom scrambled on board of her and looked round, frightened and
+sad.
+
+And there, in a little cot, lashed tight under the bulwark, lay a
+baby fast asleep; the very same baby, Tom saw at once, which he had
+seen in the singing lady's arms.
+
+He went up to it, and wanted to wake it; but behold, from under the
+cot out jumped a little black and tan terrier dog, and began
+barking and snapping at Tom, and would not let him touch the cot.
+
+Tom knew the dog's teeth could not hurt him:  but at least it could
+shove him away, and did; and he and the dog fought and struggled,
+for he wanted to help the baby, and did not want to throw the poor
+dog overboard:  but as they were struggling there came a tall green
+sea, and walked in over the weather side of the ship, and swept
+them all into the waves.
+
+"Oh, the baby, the baby!" screamed Tom:  but the next moment he did
+not scream at all; for he saw the cot settling down through the
+green water, with the baby, smiling in it, fast asleep; and he saw
+the fairies come up from below, and carry baby and cradle gently
+down in their soft arms; and then he knew it was all right, and
+that there would be a new water-baby in St. Brandan's Isle.
+
+And the poor little dog?
+
+Why, after he had kicked and coughed a little, he sneezed so hard,
+that he sneezed himself clean out of his skin, and turned into a
+water-dog, and jumped and danced round Tom, and ran over the crests
+of the waves, and snapped at the jelly-fish and the mackerel, and
+followed Tom the whole way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.
+
+Then they went on again, till they began to see the peak of Jan
+Mayen's Land, standing-up like a white sugar-loaf, two miles above
+the clouds.
+
+And there they fell in with a whole flock of molly-mocks, who were
+feeding on a dead whale.
+
+"These are the fellows to show you the way," said Mother Carey's
+chickens; "we cannot help you farther north.  We don't like to get
+among the ice pack, for fear it should nip our toes:  but the
+mollys dare fly anywhere."
+
+So the petrels called to the mollys:  but they were so busy and
+greedy, gobbling and peeking and spluttering and fighting over the
+blubber, that they did not take the least notice.
+
+"Come, come," said the petrels, "you lazy greedy lubbers, this
+young gentleman is going to Mother Carey, and if you don't attend
+on him, you won't earn your discharge from her, you know."
+
+"Greedy we are," says a great fat old molly, "but lazy we ain't;
+and, as for lubbers, we're no more lubbers than you.  Let's have a
+look at the lad."
+
+And he flapped right into Tom's face, and stared at him in the most
+impudent way (for the mollys are audacious fellows, as all whalers
+know), and then asked him where he hailed from, and what land he
+sighted last.
+
+And, when Tom told him, he seemed pleased, and said he was a good
+plucked one to have got so far.
+
+"Come along, lads," he said to the rest, "and give this little chap
+a cast over the pack, for Mother Carey's sake.  We've eaten blubber
+enough for to-day, and we'll e'en work out a bit of our time by
+helping the lad."
+
+So the mollys took Tom up on their backs, and flew off with him,
+laughing and joking--and oh, how they did smell of train oil!
+
+"Who are you, you jolly birds?" asked Tom.
+
+"We are the spirits of the old Greenland skippers (as every sailor
+knows), who hunted here, right whales and horse-whales, full
+hundreds of years agone.  But, because we were saucy and greedy, we
+were all turned into mollys, to eat whale's blubber all our days.
+But lubbers we are none, and could sail a ship now against any man
+in the North seas, though we don't hold with this new-fangled
+steam.  And it's a shame of those black imps of petrels to call us
+so; but because they're her grace's pets, they think they may say
+anything they like."
+
+"And who are you?" asked Tom of him, for he saw that he was the
+king of all the birds.
+
+"My name is Hendrick Hudson, and a right good skipper was I; and my
+name will last to the world's end, in spite of all the wrong I did.
+For I discovered Hudson River, and I named Hudson's Bay; and many
+have come in my wake that dared not have shown me the way.  But I
+was a hard man in my time, that's truth, and stole the poor Indians
+off the coast of Maine, and sold them for slaves down in Virginia;
+and at last I was so cruel to my sailors, here in these very seas,
+that they set me adrift in an open boat, and I never was heard of
+more.  So now I'm the king of all mollys, till I've worked out my
+time."
+
+And now they came to the edge of the pack, and beyond it they could
+see Shiny Wall looming, through mist, and snow, and storm.  But the
+pack rolled horribly upon the swell, and the ice giants fought and
+roared, and leapt upon each other's backs, and ground each other to
+powder, so that Tom was afraid to venture among them, lest he
+should be ground to powder too.  And he was the more afraid, when
+he saw lying among the ice pack the wrecks of many a gallant ship;
+some with masts and yards all standing, some with the seamen frozen
+fast on board.  Alas, alas, for them!  They were all true English
+hearts; and they came to their end like good knights-errant, in
+searching for the white gate that never was opened yet.
+
+But the good mollys took Tom and his dog up, and flew with them
+safe over the pack and the roaring ice giants, and set them down at
+the foot of Shiny Wall.
+
+"And where is the gate?" asked Tom.
+
+"There is no gate," said the mollys.
+
+"No gate?" cried Tom, aghast.
+
+"None; never a crack of one, and that's the whole of the secret, as
+better fellows, lad, than you have found to their cost; and if
+there had been, they'd have killed by now every right whale that
+swims the sea."
+
+"What am I to do, then?"
+
+"Dive under the floe, to be sure, if you have pluck."
+
+"I've not come so far to turn now," said Tom; "so here goes for a
+header."
+
+"A lucky voyage to you, lad," said the mollys; "we knew you were
+one of the right sort.  So good-bye."
+
+"Why don't you come too?" asked Tom.
+
+But the mollys only wailed sadly, "We can't go yet, we can't go
+yet," and flew away over the pack.
+
+So Tom dived under the great white gate which never was opened yet,
+and went on in black darkness, at the bottom of the sea, for seven
+days and seven nights.  And yet he was not a bit frightened.  Why
+should he be?  He was a brave English lad, whose business is to go
+out and see all the world.
+
+And at last he saw the light, and clear clear water overhead; and
+up he came a thousand fathoms, among clouds of sea-moths, which
+fluttered round his head.  There were moths with pink heads and
+wings and opal bodies, that flapped about slowly; moths with brown
+wings that flapped about quickly; yellow shrimps that hopped and
+skipped most quickly of all; and jellies of all the colours in the
+world, that neither hopped nor skipped, but only dawdled and
+yawned, and would not get out of his way.  The dog snapped at them
+till his jaws were tired; but Tom hardly minded them at all, he was
+so eager to get to the top of the water, and see the pool where the
+good whales go.
+
+And a very large pool it was, miles and miles across, though the
+air was so clear that the ice cliffs on the opposite side looked as
+if they were close at hand.  All round it the ice cliffs rose, in
+walls and spires and battlements, and caves and bridges, and
+stories and galleries, in which the ice-fairies live, and drive
+away the storms and clouds, that Mother Carey's pool may lie calm
+from year's end to year's end.  And the sun acted policeman, and
+walked round outside every day, peeping just over the top of the
+ice wall, to see that all went right; and now and then he played
+conjuring tricks, or had an exhibition of fireworks, to amuse the
+ice-fairies.  For he would make himself into four or five suns at
+once, or paint the sky with rings and crosses and crescents of
+white fire, and stick himself in the middle of them, and wink at
+the fairies; and I daresay they were very much amused; for
+anything's fun in the country.
+
+And there the good whales lay, the happy sleepy beasts, upon the
+still oily sea.  They were all right whales, you must know, and
+finners, and razor-backs, and bottle-noses, and spotted sea-
+unicorns with long ivory horns.  But the sperm whales are such
+raging, ramping, roaring, rumbustious fellows, that, if Mother
+Carey let them in, there would be no more peace in Peacepool.  So
+she packs them away in a great pond by themselves at the South
+Pole, two hundred and sixty-three miles south-south-east of Mount
+Erebus, the great volcano in the ice; and there they butt each
+other with their ugly noses, day and night from year's end to
+year's end.
+
+But here there were only good quiet beasts, lying about like the
+black hulls of sloops, and blowing every now and then jets of white
+steam, or sculling round with their huge mouths open, for the sea-
+moths to swim down their throats.  There were no threshers there to
+thresh their poor old backs, or sword-fish to stab their stomachs,
+or saw-fish to rip them up, or ice-sharks to bite lumps out of
+their sides, or whalers to harpoon and lance them.  They were quite
+safe and happy there; and all they had to do was to wait quietly in
+Peacepool, till Mother Carey sent for them to make them out of old
+beasts into new.
+
+Tom swam up to the nearest whale, and asked the way to Mother
+Carey.
+
+"There she sits in the middle," said the whale.
+
+Tom looked; but he could see nothing in the middle of the pool, but
+one peaked iceberg:  and he said so.
+
+"That's Mother Carey," said the whale, "as you will find when you
+get to her.  There she sits making old beasts into new all the year
+round."
+
+"How does she do that?"
+
+"That's her concern, not mine," said the old whale; and yawned so
+wide (for he was very large) that there swam into his mouth 943
+sea-moths, 13,846 jelly-fish no bigger than pins' heads, a string
+of salpae nine yards long, and forty-three little ice-crabs, who
+gave each other a parting pinch all round, tucked their legs under
+their stomachs, and determined to die decently, like Julius Caesar.
+
+"I suppose," said Tom, "she cuts up a great whale like you into a
+whole shoal of porpoises?"
+
+At which the old whale laughed so violently that he coughed up all
+the creatures; who swam away again very thankful at having escaped
+out of that terrible whalebone net of his, from which bourne no
+traveller returns; and Tom went on to the iceberg, wondering.
+
+And, when he came near it, it took the form of the grandest old
+lady he had ever seen--a white marble lady, sitting on a white
+marble throne.  And from the foot of the throne there swum away,
+out and out into the sea, millions of new-born creatures, of more
+shapes and colours than man ever dreamed.  And they were Mother
+Carey's children, whom she makes out of the sea-water all day long.
+
+He expected, of course--like some grown people who ought to know
+better--to find her snipping, piecing, fitting, stitching,
+cobbling, basting, filing, planing, hammering, turning, polishing,
+moulding, measuring, chiselling, clipping, and so forth, as men do
+when they go to work to make anything.
+
+But, instead of that, she sat quite still with her chin upon her
+hand, looking down into the sea with two great grand blue eyes, as
+blue as the sea itself.  Her hair was as white as the snow--for she
+was very very old--in fact, as old as anything which you are likely
+to come across, except the difference between right and wrong.
+
+And, when she saw Tom, she looked at him very kindly.
+
+"What do you want, my little man?  It is long since I have seen a
+water-baby here."
+
+Tom told her his errand, and asked the way to the Other-end-of-
+Nowhere.
+
+"You ought to know yourself, for you have been there already."
+
+"Have I, ma'am?  I'm sure I forget all about it."
+
+"Then look at me."
+
+And, as Tom looked into her great blue eyes, he recollected the way
+perfectly.
+
+Now, was not that strange?
+
+"Thank you, ma'am," said Tom.  "Then I won't trouble your ladyship
+any more; I hear you are very busy."
+
+"I am never more busy than I am now," she said, without stirring a
+finger.
+
+"I heard, ma'am, that you were always making new beasts out of
+old."
+
+"So people fancy.  But I am not going to trouble myself to make
+things, my little dear.  I sit here and make them make themselves."
+
+"You are a clever fairy, indeed," thought Tom.  And he was quite
+right.
+
+That is a grand trick of good old Mother Carey's, and a grand
+answer, which she has had occasion to make several times to
+impertinent people.
+
+There was once, for instance, a fairy who was so clever that she
+found out how to make butterflies.  I don't mean sham ones; no:
+but real live ones, which would fly, and eat, and lay eggs, and do
+everything that they ought; and she was so proud of her skill that
+she went flying straight off to the North Pole, to boast to Mother
+Carey how she could make butterflies.
+
+But Mother Carey laughed.
+
+"Know, silly child," she said, "that any one can make things, if
+they will take time and trouble enough:  but it is not every one
+who, like me, can make things make themselves."
+
+But people do not yet believe that Mother Carey is as clever as all
+that comes to; and they will not till they, too, go the journey to
+the Other-end-of-Nowhere.
+
+"And now, my pretty little man," said Mother Carey, "you are sure
+you know the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere?"
+
+Tom thought; and behold, he had forgotten it utterly.
+
+"That is because you took your eyes off me."
+
+Tom looked at her again, and recollected; and then looked away, and
+forgot in an instant.
+
+"But what am I to do, ma'am?  For I can't keep looking at you when
+I am somewhere else."
+
+"You must do without me, as most people have to do, for nine
+hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of their lives; and look at the
+dog instead; for he knows the way well enough, and will not forget
+it.  Besides, you may meet some very queer-tempered people there,
+who will not let you pass without this passport of mine, which you
+must hang round your neck and take care of; and, of course, as the
+dog will always go behind you, you must go the whole way backward."
+
+"Backward!" cried Tom.  "Then I shall not be able to see my way."
+
+"On the contrary, if you look forward, you will not see a step
+before you, and be certain to go wrong; but, if you look behind
+you, and watch carefully whatever you have passed, and especially
+keep your eye on the dog, who goes by instinct, and therefore can't
+go wrong, then you will know what is coming next, as plainly as if
+you saw it in a looking-glass."
+
+Tom was very much astonished:  but he obeyed her, for he had learnt
+always to believe what the fairies told him.
+
+"So it is, my dear child," said Mother Carey; "and I will tell you
+a story, which will show you that I am perfectly right, as it is my
+custom to be.
+
+"Once on a time, there were two brothers.  One was called
+Prometheus, because he always looked before him, and boasted that
+he was wise beforehand.  The other was called Epimetheus, because
+he always looked behind him, and did not boast at all; but said
+humbly, like the Irishman, that he had sooner prophesy after the
+event.
+
+"Well, Prometheus was a very clever fellow, of course, and invented
+all sorts of wonderful things.  But, unfortunately, when they were
+set to work, to work was just what they would not do:  wherefore
+very little has come of them, and very little is left of them; and
+now nobody knows what they were, save a few archaeological old
+gentlemen who scratch in queer corners, and find little there save
+Ptinum Furem, Blaptem Mortisagam, Acarum Horridum, and Tineam
+Laciniarum.
+
+"But Epimetheus was a very slow fellow, certainly, and went among
+men for a clod, and a muff, and a milksop, and a slowcoach, and a
+bloke, and a boodle, and so forth.  And very little he did, for
+many years:  but what he did, he never had to do over again.
+
+"And what happened at last?  There came to the two brothers the
+most beautiful creature that ever was seen, Pandora by name; which
+means, All the gifts of the Gods.  But because she had a strange
+box in her hand, this fanciful, forecasting, suspicious,
+prudential, theoretical, deductive, prophesying Prometheus, who was
+always settling what was going to happen, would have nothing to do
+with pretty Pandora and her box.
+
+"But Epimetheus took her and it, as he took everything that came;
+and married her for better for worse, as every man ought, whenever
+he has even the chance of a good wife.  And they opened the box
+between them, of course, to see what was inside:  for, else, of
+what possible use could it have been to them?
+
+"And out flew all the ills which flesh is heir to; all the children
+of the four great bogies, Self-will, Ignorance, Fear, and Dirt--for
+instance:
+
+
+Measles,        Famines,
+Monks,          Quacks,
+Scarlatina,     Unpaid bills,
+Idols,          Tight stays,
+Hooping-coughs, Potatoes,
+Popes,          Bad Wine,
+Wars,           Despots,
+Peacemongers,   Demagogues,
+And, worst of all, Naughty Boys and Girls.
+
+
+But one thing remained at the bottom of the box, and that was,
+Hope.
+
+"So Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, as most men do in this
+world:  but he got the three best things in the world into the
+bargain--a good wife, and experience, and hope:  while Prometheus
+had just as much trouble, and a great deal more (as you will hear),
+of his own making; with nothing beside, save fancies spun out of
+his own brain, as a spider spins her web out of her stomach.
+
+"And Prometheus kept on looking before him so far ahead, that as he
+was running about with a box of lucifers (which were the only
+useful things he ever invented, and do as much harm as good), he
+trod on his own nose, and tumbled down (as most deductive
+philosophers do), whereby he set the Thames on fire; and they have
+hardly put it out again yet.  So he had to be chained to the top of
+a mountain, with a vulture by him to give him a peck whenever he
+stirred, lest he should turn the whole world upside down with his
+prophecies and his theories.
+
+"But stupid old Epimetheus went working and grubbing on, with the
+help of his wife Pandora, always looking behind him to see what had
+happened, till he really learnt to know now and then what would
+happen next; and understood so well which side his bread was
+buttered, and which way the cat jumped, that he began to make
+things which would work, and go on working, too; to till and drain
+the ground, and to make looms, and ships, and railroads, and steam
+ploughs, and electric telegraphs, and all the things which you see
+in the Great Exhibition; and to foretell famine, and bad weather,
+and the price of stocks and (what is hardest of all) the next
+vagary of the great idol Whirligig, which some call Public Opinion;
+till at last he grew as rich as a Jew, and as fat as a farmer, and
+people thought twice before they meddled with him, but only once
+before they asked him to help them; for, because he earned his
+money well, he could afford to spend it well likewise.
+
+"And his children are the men of science, who get good lasting work
+done in the world; but the children of Prometheus are the fanatics,
+and the theorists, and the bigots, and the bores, and the noisy
+windy people, who go telling silly folk what will happen, instead
+of looking to see what has happened already."
+
+Now, was not Mother Carey's a wonderful story?  And, I am happy to
+say, Tom believed it every word.
+
+For so it happened to Tom likewise.  He was very sorely tried; for
+though, by keeping the dog to heels (or rather to toes, for he had
+to walk backward), he could see pretty well which way the dog was
+hunting, yet it was much slower work to go backwards than to go
+forwards.  But, what was more trying still, no sooner had he got
+out of Peacepool, than there came running to him all the conjurors,
+fortune-tellers, astrologers, prophesiers, projectors,
+prestigiators, as many as were in those parts (and there are too
+many of them everywhere), Old Mother Shipton on her broomstick,
+with Merlin, Thomas the Rhymer, Gerbertus, Rabanus Maurus,
+Nostradamus, Zadkiel, Raphael, Moore, Old Nixon, and a good many in
+black coats and white ties who might have known better, considering
+in what century they were born, all bawling and screaming at him,
+"Look a-head, only look a-head; and we will show you what man never
+saw before, and right away to the end of the world!"
+
+But I am proud to say that, though Tom had not been to Cambridge--
+for, if he had, he would have certainly been senior wrangler--he
+was such a little dogged, hard, gnarly, foursquare brick of an
+English boy, that he never turned his head round once all the way
+from Peacepool to the Other-end-of-Nowhere:  but kept his eye on
+the dog, and let him pick out the scent, hot or cold, straight or
+crooked, wet or dry, up hill or down dale; by which means he never
+made a single mistake, and saw all the wonderful and hitherto by-
+no-mortal-man-imagined things, which it is my duty to relate to you
+in the next chapter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII AND LAST
+
+
+
+"Come to me, O ye children!
+For I hear you at your play;
+And the questions that perplexed me
+Have vanished quite away.
+
+"Ye open the Eastern windows,
+That look towards the sun,
+Where thoughts are singing swallows,
+And the brooks of morning run.
+
+* * * * *
+
+"For what are all our contrivings
+And the wisdom of our books,
+When compared with your caresses,
+And the gladness of your looks?
+
+"Ye are better than all the ballads
+That ever were sung or said;
+For ye are living poems,
+And all the rest are dead."
+
+LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+Here begins the never-to-be-too-much-studied account of the nine-
+hundred-and-ninety-ninth part of the wonderful things which Tom saw
+on his journey to the Other-end-of-Nowhere; which all good little
+children are requested to read; that, if ever they get to the
+Other-end-of-Nowhere, as they may very probably do, they may not
+burst out laughing, or try to run away, or do any other silly
+vulgar thing which may offend Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.
+
+Now, as soon as Tom had left Peacepool, he came to the white lap of
+the great sea-mother, ten thousand fathoms deep; where she makes
+world-pap all day long, for the steam-giants to knead, and the
+fire-giants to bake, till it has risen and hardened into mountain-
+loaves and island-cakes.
+
+And there Tom was very near being kneaded up in the world-pap, and
+turned into a fossil water-baby; which would have astonished the
+Geological Society of New Zealand some hundreds of thousands of
+years hence.
+
+For, as he walked along in the silence of the sea-twilight, on the
+soft white ocean floor, he was aware of a hissing, and a roaring,
+and a thumping, and a pumping, as of all the steam-engines in the
+world at once.  And, when he came near, the water grew boiling-hot;
+not that that hurt him in the least:  but it also grew as foul as
+gruel; and every moment he stumbled over dead shells, and fish, and
+sharks, and seals, and whales, which had been killed by the hot
+water.
+
+And at last he came to the great sea-serpent himself, lying dead at
+the bottom; and as he was too thick to scramble over, Tom had to
+walk round him three-quarters of a mile and more, which put him out
+of his path sadly; and, when he had got round, he came to the place
+called Stop.  And there he stopped, and just in time.
+
+For he was on the edge of a vast hole in the bottom of the sea, up
+which was rushing and roaring clear steam enough to work all the
+engines in the world at once; so clear, indeed, that it was quite
+light at moments; and Tom could see almost up to the top of the
+water above, and down below into the pit for nobody knows how far.
+
+But, as soon as he bent his head over the edge, he got such a rap
+on the nose from pebbles, that he jumped back again; for the steam,
+as it rushed up, rasped away the sides of the hole, and hurled it
+up into the sea in a shower of mud and gravel and ashes; and then
+it spread all around, and sank again, and covered in the dead fish
+so fast, that before Tom had stood there five minutes he was buried
+in silt up to his ankles, and began to be afraid that he should
+have been buried alive.
+
+And perhaps he would have been, but that while he was thinking, the
+whole piece of ground on which he stood was torn off and blown
+upwards, and away flew Tom a mile up through the sea, wondering
+what was coming next.
+
+At last he stopped--thump! and found himself tight in the legs of
+the most wonderful bogy which he had ever seen.
+
+It had I don't know how many wings, as big as the sails of a
+windmill, and spread out in a ring like them; and with them it
+hovered over the steam which rushed up, as a ball hovers over the
+top of a fountain.  And for every wing above it had a leg below,
+with a claw like a comb at the tip, and a nostril at the root; and
+in the middle it had no stomach and one eye; and as for its mouth,
+that was all on one side, as the madreporiform tubercle in a star-
+fish is.  Well, it was a very strange beast; but no stranger than
+some dozens which you may see.
+
+"What do you want here," it cried quite peevishly, "getting in my
+way?" and it tried to drop Tom:  but he held on tight to its claws,
+thinking himself safer where he was.
+
+So Tom told him who he was, and what his errand was.  And the thing
+winked its one eye, and sneered:
+
+"I am too old to be taken in in that way.  You are come after gold-
+-I know you are."
+
+"Gold!  What is gold?"  And really Tom did not know; but the
+suspicious old bogy would not believe him.
+
+But after a while Tom began to understand a little.  For, as the
+vapours came up out of the hole, the bogy smelt them with his
+nostrils, and combed them and sorted them with his combs; and then,
+when they steamed up through them against his wings, they were
+changed into showers and streams of metal.  From one wing fell
+gold-dust, and from another silver, and from another copper, and
+from another tin, and from another lead, and so on, and sank into
+the soft mud, into veins and cracks, and hardened there.  Whereby
+it comes to pass that the rocks are full of metal.
+
+But, all of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam below, and the
+hole was left empty in an instant:  and then down rushed the water
+into the hole, in such a whirlpool that the bogy spun round and
+round as fast as a teetotum.  But that was all in his day's work,
+like a fair fall with the hounds; so all he did was to say to Tom -
+
+"Now is your time, youngster, to get down, if you are in earnest,
+which I don't believe."
+
+"You'll soon see," said Tom; and away he went, as bold as Baron
+Munchausen, and shot down the rushing cataract like a salmon at
+Ballisodare.
+
+And, when he got to the bottom, he swam till he was washed on shore
+safe upon the Other-end-of-Nowhere; and he found it, to his
+surprise, as most other people do, much more like This-End-of-
+Somewhere than he had been in the habit of expecting
+
+And first he went through Waste-paper-land, where all the stupid
+books lie in heaps, up hill and down dale, like leaves in a winter
+wood; and there he saw people digging and grubbing among them, to
+make worse books out of bad ones, and thrashing chaff to save the
+dust of it; and a very good trade they drove thereby, especially
+among children.
+
+Then he went by the sea of slops, to the mountain of messes, and
+the territory of tuck, where the ground was very sticky, for it was
+all made of bad toffee (not Everton toffee, of course), and full of
+deep cracks and holes choked with wind-fallen fruit, and green
+goose-berries, and sloes, and crabs, and whinberries, and hips and
+haws, and all the nasty things which little children will eat, if
+they can get them.  But the fairies hide them out of the way in
+that country as fast as they can, and very hard work they have, and
+of very little use it is.  For as fast as they hide away the old
+trash, foolish and wicked people make fresh trash full of lime and
+poisonous paints, and actually go and steal receipts out of old
+Madame Science's big book to invent poisons for little children,
+and sell them at wakes and fairs and tuck-shops.  Very well.  Let
+them go on.  Dr. Letheby and Dr. Hassall cannot catch them, though
+they are setting traps for them all day long.  But the Fairy with
+the birch-rod will catch them all in time, and make them begin at
+one corner of their shops, and eat their way out at the other:  by
+which time they will have got such stomach-aches as will cure them
+of poisoning little children.
+
+Next he saw all the little people in the world, writing all the
+little books in the world, about all the other little people in the
+world; probably because they had no great people to write about:
+and if the names of the books were not Squeeky, nor the Pump-
+lighter, nor the Narrow Narrow World, nor the Hills of the
+Chattermuch, nor the Children's Twaddeday, why then they were
+something else.  And, all the rest of the little people in the
+world read the books, and thought themselves each as good as the
+President; and perhaps they were right, for every one knows his own
+business best.  But Tom thought he would sooner have a jolly good
+fairy tale, about Jack the Giant-killer or Beauty and the Beast,
+which taught him something that he didn't know already.
+
+And next he came to the centre of Creation (the hub, they call it
+there), which lies in latitude 42.21 degrees south, and longitude
+108.56 degrees east.
+
+And there he found all the wise people instructing mankind in the
+science of spirit-rapping, while their house was burning over their
+heads:  and when Tom told them of the fire, they held an
+indignation meeting forthwith, and unanimously determined to hang
+Tom's dog for coming into their country with gunpowder in his
+mouth.  Tom couldn't help saying that though they did fancy they
+had carried all the wit away with them out of Lincolnshire two
+hundred years ago, yet if they had had one such Lincolnshire
+nobleman among them as good old Lord Yarborough, he would have
+called for the fire-engines before he hanged other people's dogs.
+But it was of no use, and the dog was hanged:  and Tom couldn't
+even have his carcase; for they had abolished the have-his-carcase
+act in that country, for fear lest when rogues fell out, honest men
+should come by their own.  And so they would have succeeded
+perfectly, as they always do, only that (as they also always do)
+they failed in one little particular, viz. that the dog would not
+die, being a water-dog, but bit their fingers so abominably that
+they were forced to let him go, and Tom likewise, as British
+subjects.  Whereon they recommenced rapping for the spirits of
+their fathers; and very much astonished the poor old spirits were
+when they came, and saw how, according to the laws of Mrs.
+Bedonebyasyoudid, their descendants had weakened their constitution
+by hard living.
+
+Then came Tom to the Island of Polupragmosyne (which some call
+Rogues' Harbour; but they are wrong; for that is in the middle of
+Bramshill Bushes, and the county police have cleared it out long
+ago).  There every one knows his neighbour's business better than
+his own; and a very noisy place it is, as might be expected,
+considering that all the inhabitants are ex officio on the wrong
+side of the house in the "Parliament of Man, and the Federation of
+the World;" and are always making wry mouths, and crying that the
+fairies' grapes were sour.
+
+There Tom saw ploughs drawing horses, nails driving hammers, birds'
+nests taking boys, books making authors, bulls keeping china-shops,
+monkeys shaving cats, dead dogs drilling live lions, blind
+brigadiers shelfed as principals of colleges, play-actors not in
+the least shelfed as popular preachers; and, in short, every one
+set to do something which he had not learnt, because in what he had
+learnt, or pretended to learn, he had failed.
+
+There stands the Pantheon of the Great Unsuccessful, from the
+builders of the Tower of Babel to those of the Trafalgar Fountains;
+in which politicians lecture on the constitutions which ought to
+have marched, conspirators on the revolutions which ought to have
+succeeded, economists on the schemes which ought to have made every
+one's fortune, and projectors on the discoveries which ought to
+have set the Thames on fire.  There cobblers lecture on orthopedy
+(whatsoever that may be) because they cannot sell their shoes; and
+poets on AEsthetics (whatsoever that may be) because they cannot
+sell their poetry.  There philosophers demonstrate that England
+would be the freest and richest country in the world, if she would
+only turn Papist again; penny-a-liners abuse the Times, because
+they have not wit enough to get on its staff; and young ladies walk
+about with lockets of Charles the First's hair (or of somebody
+else's, when the Jews' genuine stock is used up), inscribed with
+the neat and appropriate legend--which indeed is popular through
+all that land, and which, I hope, you will learn to translate in
+due time and to perpend likewise:-
+
+
+"Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa puellis."
+
+
+When he got into the middle of the town, they all set on him at
+once, to show him his way; or rather, to show him that he did not
+know his way; for as for asking him what way he wanted to go, no
+one ever thought of that.
+
+But one pulled him hither, and another poked him thither, and a
+third cried -
+
+"You mustn't go west, I tell you; it is destruction to go west."
+
+"But I am not going west, as you may see," said Tom.
+
+And another, "The east lies here, my dear; I assure you this is the
+east."
+
+"But I don't want to go east," said Tom.
+
+"Well, then, at all events, whichever way you are going, you are
+going wrong," cried they all with one voice--which was the only
+thing which they ever agreed about; and all pointed at once to all
+the thirty-and-two points of the compass, till Tom thought all the
+sign-posts in England had got together, and fallen fighting.
+
+And whether he would have ever escaped out of the town, it is hard
+to say, if the dog had not taken it into his head that they were
+going to pull his master in pieces, and tackled them so sharply
+about the gastrocnemius muscle, that he gave them some business of
+their own to think of at last; and while they were rubbing their
+bitten calves, Tom and the dog got safe away.
+
+On the borders of that island he found Gotham, where the wise men
+live; the same who dragged the pond because the moon had fallen
+into it, and planted a hedge round the cuckoo, to keep spring all
+the year.  And he found them bricking up the town gate, because it
+was so wide that little folks could not get through.  And, when he
+asked why, they told him they were expanding their liturgy.  So he
+went on; for it was no business of his:  only he could not help
+saying that in his country, if the kitten could not get in at the
+same hole as the cat, she might stay outside and mew.
+
+But he saw the end of such fellows, when he came to the island of
+the Golden Asses, where nothing but thistles grow.  For there they
+were all turned into mokes with ears a yard long, for meddling with
+matters which they do not understand, as Lucius did in the story.
+And like him, mokes they must remain, till, by the laws of
+development, the thistles develop into roses.  Till then, they must
+comfort themselves with the thought, that the longer their ears
+are, the thicker their hides; and so a good beating don't hurt
+them.
+
+Then came Tom to the great land of Hearsay, in which are no less
+than thirty and odd kings, beside half a dozen Republics, and
+perhaps more by next mail.
+
+And there he fell in with a deep, dark, deadly, and destructive
+war, waged by the princes and potentates of those parts, both
+spiritual and temporal, against what do you think?  One thing I am
+sure of.  That unless I told you, you would never know; nor how
+they waged that war either; for all their strategy and art military
+consisted in the safe and easy process of stopping their ears and
+screaming, "Oh, don't tell us!" and then running away.
+
+So when Tom came into that land, he found them all, high and low,
+man, woman, and child, running for their lives day and night
+continually, and entreating not to be told they didn't know what:
+only the land being an island, and they having a dislike to the
+water (being a musty lot for the most part), they ran round and
+round the shore for ever, which (as the island was exactly of the
+same circumference as the planet on which we have the honour of
+living) was hard work, especially to those who had business to look
+after.  But before them, as bandmaster and fugleman, ran a
+gentleman shearing a pig; the melodious strains of which animal led
+them for ever, if not to conquest, still to flight; and kept up
+their spirits mightily with the thought that they would at least
+have the pig's wool for their pains.
+
+And running after them, day and night, came such a poor, lean,
+seedy, hard-worked old giant, as ought to have been cockered up,
+and had a good dinner given him, and a good wife found him, and
+been set to play with little children; and then he would have been
+a very presentable old fellow after all; for he had a heart, though
+it was considerably overgrown with brains.
+
+He was made up principally of fish bones and parchment, put
+together with wire and Canada balsam; and smelt strongly of
+spirits, though he never drank anything but water:  but spirits he
+used somehow, there was no denying.  He had a great pair of
+spectacles on his nose, and a butterfly-net in one hand, and a
+geological hammer in the other; and was hung all over with pockets,
+full of collecting boxes, bottles, microscopes, telescopes,
+barometers, ordnance maps, scalpels, forceps, photographic
+apparatus, and all other tackle for finding out everything about
+everything, and a little more too.  And, most strange of all, he
+was running not forwards but backwards, as fast as he could.
+
+Away all the good folks ran from him, except Tom, who stood his
+ground and dodged between his legs; and the giant, when he had
+passed him, looked down, and cried, as if he was quite pleased and
+comforted, -
+
+"What? who are you?  And you actually don't run away, like all the
+rest?"  But he had to take his spectacles off, Tom remarked, in
+order to see him plainly.
+
+Tom told him who he was; and the giant pulled out a bottle and a
+cork instantly, to collect him with.
+
+But Tom was too sharp for that, and dodged between his legs and in
+front of him; and then the giant could not see him at all.
+
+"No, no, no!" said Tom, "I've not been round the world, and through
+the world, and up to Mother Carey's haven, beside being caught in a
+net and called a Holothurian and a Cephalopod, to be bottled up by
+any old giant like you."
+
+And when the giant understood what a great traveller Tom had been,
+he made a truce with him at once, and would have kept him there to
+this day to pick his brains, so delighted was he at finding any one
+to tell him what he did not know before.
+
+"Ah, you lucky little dog!" said he at last, quite simply--for he
+was the simplest, pleasantest, honestest, kindliest old Dominie
+Sampson of a giant that ever turned the world upside down without
+intending it--"ah, you lucky little dog!  If I had only been where
+you have been, to see what you have seen!"
+
+"Well," said Tom, "if you want to do that, you had best put your
+head under water for a few hours, as I did, and turn into a water-
+baby, or some other baby, and then you might have a chance."
+
+"Turn into a baby, eh?  If I could do that, and know what was
+happening to me for but one hour, I should know everything then,
+and be at rest.  But I can't; I can't be a little child again; and
+I suppose if I could, it would be no use, because then I should
+then know nothing about what was happening to me.  Ah, you lucky
+little dog!" said the poor old giant.
+
+"But why do you run after all these poor people?" said Tom, who
+liked the giant very much.
+
+"My dear, it's they that have been running after me, father and
+son, for hundreds and hundreds of years, throwing stones at me till
+they have knocked off my spectacles fifty times, and calling me a
+malignant and a turbaned Turk, who beat a Venetian and traduced the
+State--goodness only knows what they mean, for I never read poetry-
+-and hunting me round and round--though catch me they can't, for
+every time I go over the same ground, I go the faster, and grow the
+bigger.  While all I want is to be friends with them, and to tell
+them something to their advantage, like Mr. Joseph Ady:  only
+somehow they are so strangely afraid of hearing it.  But, I suppose
+I am not a man of the world, and have no tact."
+
+"But why don't you turn round and tell them so?"
+
+"Because I can't.  You see, I am one of the sons of Epimetheus, and
+must go backwards, if I am to go at all."
+
+"But why don't you stop, and let them come up to you?"
+
+"Why, my dear, only think.  If I did, all the butterflies and
+cockyolybirds would fly past me, and then I should catch no more
+new species, and should grow rusty and mouldy, and die.  And I
+don't intend to do that, my dear; for I have a destiny before me,
+they say:  though what it is I don't know, and don't care."
+
+"Don't care?" said Tom.
+
+"No.  Do the duty which lies nearest you, and catch the first
+beetle you come across, is my motto; and I have thriven by it for
+some hundred years.  Now I must go on.  Dear me, while I have been
+talking to you, at least nine new species have escaped me."
+
+And on went the giant, behind before, like a bull in a china-shop,
+till he ran into the steeple of the great idol temple (for they are
+all idolaters in those parts, of course, else they would never be
+afraid of giants), and knocked the upper half clean off, hurting
+himself horribly about the small of the back.
+
+But little he cared; for as soon as the ruins of the steeple were
+well between his legs, he poked and peered among the falling
+stones, and shifted his spectacles, and pulled out his pocket-
+magnifier, and cried -
+
+"An entirely new Oniscus, and three obscure Podurellae!  Besides a
+moth which M. le Roi des Papillons (though he, like all Frenchmen,
+is given to hasty inductions) says is confined to the limits of the
+Glacial Drift.  This is most important!"
+
+And down he sat on the nave of the temple (not being a man of the
+world) to examine his Podurellae.  Whereon (as was to be expected)
+the roof caved in bodily, smashing the idols, and sending the
+priests flying out of doors and windows, like rabbits out of a
+burrow when a ferret goes in.
+
+But he never heeded; for out of the dust flew a bat, and the giant
+had him in a moment.
+
+"Dear me!  This is even more important!  Here is a cognate species
+to that which Macgilliwaukie Brown insists is confined to the
+Buddhist temples of Little Thibet; and now when I look at it, it
+may be only a variety produced by difference of climate!"
+
+And having bagged his bat, up he got, and on he went; while all the
+people ran, being in none the better humour for having their temple
+smashed for the sake of three obscure species of Podurella, and a
+Buddhist bat.
+
+"Well," thought Tom, "this is a very pretty quarrel, with a good
+deal to be said on both sides.  But it is no business of mine."
+
+And no more it was, because he was a water-baby, and had the
+original sow by the right ear; which you will never have, unless
+you be a baby, whether of the water, the land, or the air, matters
+not, provided you can only keep on continually being a baby.
+
+So the giant ran round after the people, and the people ran round
+after the giant, and they are running, unto this day for aught I
+know, or do not know; and will run till either he, or they, or
+both, turn into little children.  And then, as Shakespeare says
+(and therefore it must be true) -
+
+
+"Jack shall have Gill
+Nought shall go ill
+The man shall have his mare again, and all go well."
+
+
+Then Tom came to a very famous island, which was called, in the
+days of the great traveller Captain Gulliver, the Isle of Laputa.
+But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has named it over again the Isle of
+Tomtoddies, all heads and no bodies.
+
+And when Tom came near it, he heard such a grumbling and grunting
+and growling and wailing and weeping and whining that he thought
+people must be ringing little pigs, or cropping puppies' ears, or
+drowning kittens:  but when he came nearer still, he began to hear
+words among the noise; which was the Tomtoddies' song which they
+sing morning and evening, and all night too, to their great idol
+Examination -
+
+
+"I can't learn my lesson:  the examiner's coming!"
+
+
+And that was the only song which they knew.
+
+And when Tom got on shore the first thing he saw was a great
+pillar, on one side of which was inscribed, "Playthings not allowed
+here;" at which he was so shocked that he would not stay to see
+what was written on the other side.  Then he looked round for the
+people of the island:  but instead of men, women, and children, he
+found nothing but turnips and radishes, beet and mangold wurzel,
+without a single green leaf among them, and half of them burst and
+decayed, with toad-stools growing out of them.  Those which were
+left began crying to Tom, in half a dozen different languages at
+once, and all of them badly spoken, "I can't learn my lesson; do
+come and help me!"  And one cried, "Can you show me how to extract
+this square root?"
+
+And another, "Can you tell me the distance between [alpha] Lyrae
+and [beta] Camelopardis?"
+
+And another, "What is the latitude and longitude of Snooksville, in
+Noman's County, Oregon, U.S.?"
+
+And another, "What was the name of Mutius Scaevola's thirteenth
+cousin's grandmother's maid's cat?"
+
+And another, "How long would it take a school-inspector of average
+activity to tumble head over heels from London to York?"
+
+And another, "Can you tell me the name of a place that nobody ever
+heard of, where nothing ever happened, in a country which has not
+been discovered yet?"
+
+And another, "Can you show me how to correct this hopelessly
+corrupt passage of Graidiocolosyrtus Tabenniticus, on the cause why
+crocodiles have no tongues?"
+
+And so on, and so on, and so on, till one would have thought they
+were all trying for tide-waiters' places, or cornetcies in the
+heavy dragoons.
+
+"And what good on earth will it do you if I did tell you?" quoth
+Tom.
+
+Well, they didn't know that:  all they knew was the examiner was
+coming.
+
+Then Tom stumbled on the hugest and softest nimblecomequick turnip
+you ever saw filling a hole in a crop of swedes, and it cried to
+him, "Can you tell me anything at all about anything you like?"
+
+"About what?" says Tom.
+
+"About anything you like; for as fast as I learn things I forget
+them again.  So my mamma says that my intellect is not adapted for
+methodic science, and says that I must go in for general
+information."
+
+Tom told him that he did not know general information, nor any
+officers in the army; only he had a friend once that went for a
+drummer:  but he could tell him a great many strange things which
+he had seen in his travels.
+
+So he told him prettily enough, while the poor turnip listened very
+carefully; and the more he listened, the more he forgot, and the
+more water ran out of him.
+
+Tom thought he was crying:  but it was only his poor brains running
+away, from being worked so hard; and as Tom talked, the unhappy
+turnip streamed down all over with juice, and split and shrank till
+nothing was left of him but rind and water; whereat Tom ran away in
+a fright, for he thought he might be taken up for killing the
+turnip.
+
+But, on the contrary, the turnip's parents were highly delighted,
+and considered him a saint and a martyr, and put up a long
+inscription over his tomb about his wonderful talents, early
+development, and unparalleled precocity.  Were they not a foolish
+couple?  But there was a still more foolish couple next to them,
+who were beating a wretched little radish, no bigger than my thumb,
+for sullenness and obstinacy and wilful stupidity, and never knew
+that the reason why it couldn't learn or hardly even speak was,
+that there was a great worm inside it eating out all its brains.
+But even they are no foolisher than some hundred score of papas and
+mammas, who fetch the rod when they ought to fetch a new toy, and
+send to the dark cupboard instead of to the doctor.
+
+Tom was so puzzled and frightened with all he saw, that he was
+longing to ask the meaning of it; and at last he stumbled over a
+respectable old stick lying half covered with earth.  But a very
+stout and worthy stick it was, for it belonged to good Roger Ascham
+in old time, and had carved on its head King Edward the Sixth, with
+the Bible in his hand.
+
+"You see," said the stick, "there were as pretty little children
+once as you could wish to see, and might have been so still if they
+had been only left to grow up like human beings, and then handed
+over to me; but their foolish fathers and mothers, instead of
+letting them pick flowers, and make dirt-pies, and get birds'
+nests, and dance round the gooseberry bush, as little children
+should, kept them always at lessons, working, working, working,
+learning week-day lessons all week-days, and Sunday lessons all
+Sunday, and weekly examinations every Saturday, and monthly
+examinations every month, and yearly examinations every year,
+everything seven times over, as if once was not enough, and enough
+as good as a feast--till their brains grew big, and their bodies
+grew small, and they were all changed into turnips, with little but
+water inside; and still their foolish parents actually pick the
+leaves off them as fast as they grow, lest they should have
+anything green about them."
+
+"Ah!" said Tom, "if dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby knew of it she
+would send them a lot of tops, and balls, and marbles, and
+ninepins, and make them all as jolly as sand-boys."
+
+"It would be no use," said the stick.  "They can't play now, if
+they tried.  Don't you see how their legs have turned to roots and
+grown into the ground, by never taking any exercise, but sapping
+and moping always in the same place?  But here comes the Examiner-
+of-all-Examiners.  So you had better get away, I warn you, or he
+will examine you and your dog into the bargain, and set him to
+examine all the other dogs, and you to examine all the other water-
+babies.  There is no escaping out of his hands, for his nose is
+nine thousand miles long, and can go down chimneys, and through
+keyholes, upstairs, downstairs, in my lady's chamber, examining all
+little boys, and the little boys' tutors likewise.  But when he is
+thrashed--so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has promised me--I shall have
+the thrashing of him:  and if I don't lay it on with a will it's a
+pity."
+
+Tom went off:  but rather slowly and surlily; for he was somewhat
+minded to face this same Examiner-of-all-Examiners, who came
+striding among the poor turnips, binding heavy burdens and grievous
+to be borne, and laying them on little children's shoulders, like
+the Scribes and Pharisees of old, and not touching the same with
+one of his fingers; for he had plenty of money, and a fine house to
+live in, and so forth; which was more than the poor little turnips
+had.
+
+But when he got near, he looked so big and burly and dictatorial,
+and shouted so loud to Tom, to come and be examined, that Tom ran
+for his life, and the dog too.  And really it was time; for the
+poor turnips, in their hurry and fright, crammed themselves so fast
+to be ready for the Examiner, that they burst and popped by dozens
+all round him, till the place sounded like Aldershot on a field-
+day, and Tom thought he should be blown into the air, dog and all.
+
+As he went down to the shore he passed the poor turnip's new tomb.
+But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid had taken away the epitaph about talents
+and precocity and development, and put up one of her own instead
+which Tom thought much more sensible:-
+
+
+"Instruction sore long time I bore,
+And cramming was in vain;
+Till heaven did please my woes to ease
+With water on the brain."
+
+
+So Tom jumped into the sea, and swam on his way, singing:-
+
+
+"Farewell, Tomtoddies all; I thank my stars
+That nought I know save those three royal r's:
+Reading and riting sure, with rithmetick,
+Will help a lad of sense through thin and thick."
+
+
+Whereby you may see that Tom was no poet:  but no more was John
+Bunyan, though he was as wise a man as you will meet in a month of
+Sundays.
+
+And next he came to Oldwivesfabledom, where the folks were all
+heathens, and worshipped a howling ape.  And there he found a
+little boy sitting in the middle of the road, and crying bitterly.
+
+"What are you crying for?" said Tom.
+
+"Because I am not as frightened as I could wish to be."
+
+"Not frightened?  You are a queer little chap:  but, if you want to
+be frightened, here goes--Boo!"
+
+"Ah," said the little boy, "that is very kind of you; but I don't
+feel that it has made any impression."
+
+Tom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on him, fettle him over
+the head with a brick, or anything else whatsoever which would give
+him the slightest comfort.
+
+But he only thanked Tom very civilly, in fine long words which he
+had heard other folk use, and which therefore, he thought were fit
+and proper to use himself; and cried on till his papa and mamma
+came, and sent off for the Powwow man immediately.  And a very
+good-natured gentleman and lady they were, though they were
+heathens; and talked quite pleasantly to Tom about his travels,
+till the Powwow man arrived, with his thunderbox under his arm.
+
+And a well-fed, ill-favoured gentleman he was, as ever served Her
+Majesty at Portland.  Tom was a little frightened at first; for he
+thought it was Grimes.  But he soon saw his mistake:  for Grimes
+always looked a man in the face; and this fellow never did.  And
+when he spoke, it was fire and smoke; and when he sneezed, it was
+squibs and crackers; and when he cried (which he did whenever it
+paid him), it was boiling pitch; and some of it was sure to stick.
+
+"Here we are again!" cried he, like the clown in a pantomime.  "So
+you can't feel frightened, my little dear--eh?  I'll do that for
+you.  I'll make an impression on you!  Yah!  Boo!  Whirroo!
+Hullabaloo!"
+
+And he rattled, thumped, brandished his thunder-box, yelled,
+shouted, raved, roared, stamped, and danced corrobory like any
+black fellow; and then he touched a spring in the thunderbox, and
+out popped turnip-ghosts and magic-lanthorns and pasteboard bogies
+and spring-heeled Jacks, and sallaballas, with such a horrid din,
+clatter, clank, roll, rattle, and roar, that the little boy turned
+up the whites of his eyes, and fainted right away.
+
+And at that his poor heathen papa and mamma were as much delighted
+as if they had found a gold mine; and fell down upon their knees
+before the Powwow man, and gave him a palanquin with a pole of
+solid silver and curtains of cloth of gold; and carried him about
+in it on their own backs:  but as soon as they had taken him up,
+the pole stuck to their shoulders, and they could not set him down
+any more, but carried him on willynilly, as Sinbad carried the old
+man of the sea:  which was a pitiable sight to see; for the father
+was a very brave officer, and wore two swords and a blue button;
+and the mother was as pretty a lady as ever had pinched feet like a
+Chinese.  But you see, they had chosen to do a foolish thing just
+once too often; so, by the laws of Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, they had
+to go on doing it whether they chose or not, till the coming of the
+Cocqcigrues.
+
+Ah! don't you wish that some one would go and convert those poor
+heathens, and teach them not to frighten their little children into
+fits?
+
+"Now, then," said the Powwow man to Tom, "wouldn't you like to be
+frightened, my little dear?  For I can see plainly that you are a
+very wicked, naughty, graceless, reprobate boy."
+
+"You're another," quoth Tom, very sturdily.  And when the man ran
+at him, and cried "Boo!"  Tom ran at him in return, and cried
+"Boo!" likewise, right in his face, and set the little dog upon
+him; and at his legs the dog went.
+
+At which, if you will believe it, the fellow turned tail,
+thunderbox and all, with a "Woof!" like an old sow on the common;
+and ran for his life, screaming, "Help! thieves! murder! fire!  He
+is going to kill me!  I am a ruined man!  He will murder me; and
+break, burn, and destroy my precious and invaluable thunderbox; and
+then you will have no more thunder-showers in the land.  Help!
+help! help!"
+
+At which the papa and mamma and all the people of Oldwivesfabledom
+flew at Tom, shouting, "Oh, the wicked, impudent, hard-hearted,
+graceless boy!  Beat him, kick him, shoot him, drown him, hang him,
+burn him!" and so forth:  but luckily they had nothing to shoot,
+hang, or burn him with, for the fairies had hid all the killing-
+tackle out of the way a little while before; so they could only
+pelt him with stones; and some of the stones went clean through
+him, and came out the other side.  But he did not mind that a bit;
+for the holes closed up again as fast as they were made, because he
+was a water-baby.  However, he was very glad when he was safe out
+of the country, for the noise there made him all but deaf.
+
+Then he came to a very quiet place, called Leaveheavenalone.  And
+there the sun was drawing water out of the sea to make steam-
+threads, and the wind was twisting them up to make cloud-patterns,
+till they had worked between them the loveliest wedding veil of
+Chantilly lace, and hung it up in their own Crystal Palace for any
+one to buy who could afford it; while the good old sea never
+grudged, for she knew they would pay her back honestly.  So the sun
+span, and the wind wove, and all went well with the great steam-
+loom; as is likely, considering--and considering--and considering -
+
+And at last, after innumerable adventures, each more wonderful than
+the last, he saw before him a huge building, much bigger, and--what
+is most surprising--a little uglier than a certain new lunatic
+asylum, but not built quite of the same materials.  None of it, at
+least--or, indeed, for aught that I ever saw, any part of any other
+building whatsoever--is cased with nine-inch brick inside and out,
+and filled up with rubble between the walls, in order that any
+gentleman who has been confined during Her Majesty's pleasure may
+be unconfined during his own pleasure, and take a walk in the
+neighbouring park to improve his spirits, after an hour's light and
+wholesome labour with his dinner-fork or one of the legs of his
+iron bedstead.  No.  The walls of this building were built on an
+entirely different principle, which need not be described, as it
+has not yet been discovered.
+
+Tom walked towards this great building, wondering what it was, and
+having a strange fancy that he might find Mr. Grimes inside it,
+till he saw running toward him, and shouting "Stop!" three or four
+people, who, when they came nearer, were nothing else than
+policemen's truncheons, running along without legs or arms.
+
+Tom was not astonished.  He was long past that.  Besides, he had
+seen the naviculae in the water move nobody knows how, a hundred
+times, without arms, or legs, or anything to stand in their stead.
+Neither was he frightened for he had been doing no harm.
+
+So he stopped; and, when the foremost truncheon came up and asked
+his business, he showed Mother Carey's pass; and the truncheon
+looked at it in the oddest fashion; for he had one eye in the
+middle of his upper end, so that when he looked at anything, being
+quite stiff, he had to slope himself, and poke himself, till it was
+a wonder why he did not tumble over; but, being quite full of the
+spirit of justice (as all policemen, and their truncheons, ought to
+be), he was always in a position of stable equilibrium, whichever
+way he put himself.
+
+"All right--pass on," said he at last.  And then he added:  "I had
+better go with you, young man."  And Tom had no objection, for such
+company was both respectable and safe; so the truncheon coiled its
+thong neatly round its handle, to prevent tripping itself up--for
+the thong had got loose in running--and marched on by Tom's side.
+
+"Why have you no policeman to carry you?" asked Tom, after a while.
+
+"Because we are not like those clumsy-made truncheons in the land-
+world, which cannot go without having a whole man to carry them
+about.  We do our own work for ourselves; and do it very well,
+though I say it who should not."
+
+"Then why have you a thong to your handle?" asked Tom.
+
+"To hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are off duty."
+
+Tom had got his answer, and had no more to say, till they came up
+to the great iron door of the prison.  And there the truncheon
+knocked twice, with its own head.
+
+A wicket in the door opened, and out looked a tremendous old brass
+blunderbuss charged up to the muzzle with slugs, who was the
+porter; and Tom started back a little at the sight of him.
+
+"What case is this?" he asked in a deep voice, out of his broad
+bell mouth.
+
+"If you please, sir, it is no case; only a young gentleman from her
+ladyship, who wants to see Grimes, the master-sweep."
+
+"Grimes?" said the blunderbuss.  And he pulled in his muzzle,
+perhaps to look over his prison-lists.
+
+"Grimes is up chimney No. 345," he said from inside.  "So the young
+gentleman had better go on to the roof."
+
+Tom looked up at the enormous wall, which seemed at least ninety
+miles high, and wondered how he should ever get up:  but, when he
+hinted that to the truncheon, it settled the matter in a moment.
+For it whisked round, and gave him such a shove behind as sent him
+up to the roof in no time, with his little dog under his arm.
+
+And there he walked along the leads, till he met another truncheon,
+and told him his errand.
+
+"Very good," it said.  "Come along:  but it will be of no use.  He
+is the most unremorseful, hard-hearted, foul-mouthed fellow I have
+in charge; and thinks about nothing but beer and pipes, which are
+not allowed here, of course."
+
+So they walked along over the leads, and very sooty they were, and
+Tom thought the chimneys must want sweeping very much.  But he was
+surprised to see that the soot did not stick to his feet, or dirty
+them in the least.  Neither did the live coals, which were lying
+about in plenty, burn him; for, being a water-baby, his radical
+humours were of a moist and cold nature, as you may read at large
+in Lemnius, Cardan, Van Helmont, and other gentlemen, who knew as
+much as they could, and no man can know more.
+
+And at last they came to chimney No. 345.  Out of the top of it,
+his head and shoulders just showing, stuck poor Mr. Grimes, so
+sooty, and bleared, and ugly, that Tom could hardly bear to look at
+him.  And in his mouth was a pipe; but it was not a-light; though
+he was pulling at it with all his might.
+
+"Attention, Mr. Grimes," said the truncheon; "here is a gentleman
+come to see you."
+
+But Mr. Grimes only said bad words; and kept grumbling, "My pipe
+won't draw.  My pipe won't draw."
+
+"Keep a civil tongue, and attend!" said the truncheon; and popped
+up just like Punch, hitting Grimes such a crack over the head with
+itself, that his brains rattled inside like a dried walnut in its
+shell.  He tried to get his hands out, and rub the place:  but he
+could not, for they were stuck fast in the chimney.  Now he was
+forced to attend.
+
+"Hey!" he said, "why, it's Tom!  I suppose you have come here to
+laugh at me, you spiteful little atomy?"
+
+Tom assured him he had not, but only wanted to help him.
+
+"I don't want anything except beer, and that I can't get; and a
+light to this bothering pipe, and that I can't get either."
+
+"I'll get you one," said Tom; and he took up a live coal (there
+were plenty lying about) and put it to Grimes' pipe:  but it went
+out instantly.
+
+"It's no use," said the truncheon, leaning itself up against the
+chimney and looking on.  "I tell you, it is no use.  His heart is
+so cold that it freezes everything that comes near him.  You will
+see that presently, plain enough."
+
+"Oh, of course, it's my fault.  Everything's always my fault," said
+Grimes.  "Now don't go to hit me again" (for the truncheon started
+upright, and looked very wicked); "you know, if my arms were only
+free, you daren't hit me then."
+
+The truncheon leant back against the chimney, and took no notice of
+the personal insult, like a well-trained policeman as it was,
+though he was ready enough to avenge any transgression against
+morality or order.
+
+"But can't I help you in any other way?  Can't I help you to get
+out of this chimney?" said Tom.
+
+"No," interposed the truncheon; "he has come to the place where
+everybody must help themselves; and he will find it out, I hope,
+before he has done with me."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Grimes, "of course it's me.  Did I ask to be
+brought here into the prison?  Did I ask to be set to sweep your
+foul chimneys?  Did I ask to have lighted straw put under me to
+make me go up?  Did I ask to stick fast in the very first chimney
+of all, because it was so shamefully clogged up with soot?  Did I
+ask to stay here--I don't know how long--a hundred years, I do
+believe, and never get my pipe, nor my beer, nor nothing fit for a
+beast, let alone a man?"
+
+"No," answered a solemn voice behind.  "No more did Tom, when you
+behaved to him in the very same way."
+
+It was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.  And, when the truncheon saw her, it
+started bolt upright--Attention!--and made such a low bow, that if
+it had not been full of the spirit of justice, it must have tumbled
+on its end, and probably hurt its one eye.  And Tom made his bow
+too.
+
+"Oh, ma'am," he said, "don't think about me; that's all past and
+gone, and good times and bad times and all times pass over.  But
+may not I help poor Mr. Grimes?  Mayn't I try and get some of these
+bricks away, that he may move his arms?"
+
+"You may try, of course," she said.
+
+So Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks:  but he could not move one.
+And then he tried to wipe Mr. Grimes' face:  but the soot would not
+come off.
+
+"Oh, dear!" he said.  "I have come all this way, through all these
+terrible places, to help you, and now I am of no use at all."
+
+"You had best leave me alone," said Grimes; "you are a good-natured
+forgiving little chap, and that's truth; but you'd best be off.
+The hail's coming on soon, and it will beat the eyes out of your
+little head."
+
+"What hail?"
+
+"Why, hail that falls every evening here; and, till it comes close
+to me, it's like so much warm rain:  but then it turns to hail over
+my head, and knocks me about like small shot."
+
+"That hail will never come any more," said the strange lady.  "I
+have told you before what it was.  It was your mother's tears,
+those which she shed when she prayed for you by her bedside; but
+your cold heart froze it into hail.  But she is gone to heaven now,
+and will weep no more for her graceless son."
+
+Then Grimes was silent awhile; and then he looked very sad.
+
+"So my old mother's gone, and I never there to speak to her!  Ah! a
+good woman she was, and might have been a happy one, in her little
+school there in Vendale, if it hadn't been for me and my bad ways."
+
+"Did she keep the school in Vendale?" asked Tom.  And then he told
+Grimes all the story of his going to her house, and how she could
+not abide the sight of a chimney-sweep, and then how kind she was,
+and how he turned into a water-baby.
+
+"Ah!" said Grimes, "good reason she had to hate the sight of a
+chimney-sweep.  I ran away from her and took up with the sweeps,
+and never let her know where I was, nor sent her a penny to help
+her, and now it's too late--too late!" said Mr. Grimes.
+
+And he began crying and blubbering like a great baby, till his pipe
+dropped out of his mouth, and broke all to bits.
+
+"Oh, dear, if I was but a little chap in Vendale again, to see the
+clear beck, and the apple-orchard, and the yew-hedge, how different
+I would go on!  But it's too late now.  So you go along, you kind
+little chap, and don't stand to look at a man crying, that's old
+enough to be your father, and never feared the face of man, nor of
+worse neither.  But I'm beat now, and beat I must be.  I've made my
+bed, and I must lie on it.  Foul I would be, and foul I am, as an
+Irishwoman said to me once; and little I heeded it.  It's all my
+own fault:  but it's too late."  And he cried so bitterly that Tom
+began crying too.
+
+"Never too late," said the fairy, in such a strange soft new voice
+that Tom looked up at her; and she was so beautiful for the moment,
+that Tom half fancied she was her sister.
+
+No more was it too late.  For, as poor Grimes cried and blubbered
+on, his own tears did what his mother's could not do, and Tom's
+could not do, and nobody's on earth could do for him; for they
+washed the soot off his face and off his clothes; and then they
+washed the mortar away from between the bricks; and the chimney
+crumbled down; and Grimes began to get out of it.
+
+Up jumped the truncheon, and was going to hit him on the crown a
+tremendous thump, and drive him down again like a cork into a
+bottle.  But the strange lady put it aside.
+
+"Will you obey me if I give you a chance?"
+
+"As you please, ma'am.  You're stronger than me--that I know too
+well, and wiser than me, I know too well also.  And, as for being
+my own master, I've fared ill enough with that as yet.  So whatever
+your ladyship pleases to order me; for I'm beat, and that's the
+truth."
+
+"Be it so then--you may come out.  But remember, disobey me again,
+and into a worse place still you go."
+
+"I beg pardon ma'am, but I never disobeyed you that I know of.  I
+never had the honour of setting eyes upon you till I came to these
+ugly quarters."
+
+"Never saw me?  Who said to you, Those that will be foul, foul they
+will be?"
+
+Grimes looked up; and Tom looked up too; for the voice was that of
+the Irishwoman who met them the day that they went out together to
+Harthover.  "I gave you your warning then:  but you gave it
+yourself a thousand times before and since.  Every bad word that
+you said--every cruel and mean thing that you did--every time that
+you got tipsy--every day that you went dirty--you were disobeying
+me, whether you knew it or not."
+
+"If I'd only known, ma'am--"
+
+"You knew well enough that you were disobeying something, though
+you did not know it was me.  But come out and take your chance.
+Perhaps it may be your last."
+
+So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, if it had not
+been for the scars on his face, he looked as clean and respectable
+as a master-sweep need look.
+
+"Take him away," said she to the truncheon, "and give him his
+ticket-of-leave."
+
+"And what is he to do, ma'am?"
+
+"Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will find some very
+steady men working out their time there, who will teach him his
+business:  but mind, if that crater gets choked again, and there is
+an earthquake in consequence, bring them all to me, and I shall
+investigate the case very severely."
+
+So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking as meek as a
+drowned worm.
+
+And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweeping the crater of
+Etna to this very day.
+
+"And now," said the fairy to Tom, "your work here is done.  You may
+as well go back again."
+
+"I should be glad enough to go," said Tom, "but how am I to get up
+that great hole again, now the steam has stopped blowing?"
+
+"I will take you up the backstairs:  but I must bandage your eyes
+first; for I never allow anybody to see those backstairs of mine."
+
+"I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, ma'am, if you bid
+me not."
+
+"Aha!  So you think, my little man.  But you would soon forget your
+promise if you got back into the land-world.  For, if people only
+once found out that you had been up my backstairs, you would have
+all the fine ladies kneeling to you, and the rich men emptying
+their purses before you, and statesmen offering you place and
+power; and young and old, rich and poor, crying to you, 'Only tell
+us the great backstairs secret, and we will be your slaves; we will
+make you lord, king, emperor, bishop, archbishop, pope, if you
+like--only tell us the secret of the backstairs.  For thousands of
+years we have been paying, and petting, and obeying, and
+worshipping quacks who told us they had the key of the backstairs,
+and could smuggle us up them; and in spite of all our
+disappointments, we will honour, and glorify, and adore, and
+beatify, and translate, and apotheotise you likewise, on the chance
+of your knowing something about the backstairs, that we may all go
+on pilgrimage to it; and, even if we cannot get up it, lie at the
+foot of it, and cry -
+
+
+'Oh, backstairs,
+precious backstairs,
+invaluable backstairs,
+requisite backstairs,
+necessary backstairs,
+good-natured backstairs,
+cosmopolitan backstairs,
+comprehensive backstairs,
+accommodating backstairs,
+well-bred backstairs,
+commercial backstairs,
+economical backstairs,
+practical backstairs,
+logical backstairs,
+deductive backstairs,
+comfortable backstairs,
+humane backstairs,
+reasonable backstairs,
+long-sought backstairs,
+coveted backstairs,
+aristocratic backstairs,
+respectable backstairs,
+gentlenmanlike backstairs,
+ladylike backstairs,
+orthodox backstairs,
+probable backstairs,
+credible backstairs,
+demonstrable backstairs,
+irrefragable backstairs,
+potent backstairs,
+all-but-omnipotent backstairs,
+&c.
+
+
+Save us from the consequences of our own actions, and from the
+cruel fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid!'  Do not you think that you
+would be a little tempted then to tell what you know, laddie?"
+
+Tom thought so certainly.  "But why do they want so to know about
+the backstairs?" asked he, being a little frightened at the long
+words, and not understanding them the least; as, indeed, he was not
+meant to do, or you either.
+
+"That I shall not tell you.  I never put things into little folks'
+heads which are but too likely to come there of themselves.  So
+come--now I must bandage your eyes."  So she tied the bandage on
+his eyes with one hand, and with the other she took it off.
+
+"Now," she said, "you are safe up the stairs."  Tom opened his eyes
+very wide, and his mouth too; for he had not, as he thought, moved
+a single step.  But, when he looked round him, there could be no
+doubt that he was safe up the backstairs, whatsoever they may be,
+which no man is going to tell you, for the plain reason that no man
+knows.
+
+The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, high and sharp
+against the rosy dawn; and St. Brandan's Isle reflected double in
+the still broad silver sea.  The wind sang softly in the cedars,
+and the water sang among the eaves:  the sea-birds sang as they
+streamed out into the ocean, and the land-birds as they built among
+the boughs; and the air was so full of song that it stirred St.
+Brandan and his hermits, as they slumbered in the shade; and they
+moved their good old lips, and sang their morning hymn amid their
+dreams.  But among all the songs one came across the water more
+sweet and clear than all; for it was the song of a young girl's
+voice.
+
+And what was the song which she sang?  Ah, my little man, I am too
+old to sing that song, and you too young to understand it.  But
+have patience, and keep your eye single, and your hands clean, and
+you will learn some day to sing it yourself, without needing any
+man to teach you.
+
+And as Tom neared the island, there sat upon a rock the most
+graceful creature that ever was seen, looking down, with her chin
+upon her hand, and paddling with her feet in the water.  And when
+they came to her she looked up, and behold it was Ellie.
+
+"Oh, Miss Ellie," said he, "how you are grown!"
+
+"Oh, Tom," said she, "how you are grown too!"
+
+And no wonder; they were both quite grown up--he into a tall man,
+and she into a beautiful woman.
+
+"Perhaps I may be grown," she said.  "I have had time enough; for I
+have been sitting here waiting for you many a hundred years, till I
+thought you were never coming."
+
+"Many a hundred years?" thought Tom; but he had seen so much in his
+travels that he had quite given up being astonished; and, indeed,
+he could think of nothing but Ellie.  So he stood and looked at
+Ellie, and Ellie looked at him; and they liked the employment so
+much that they stood and looked for seven years more, and neither
+spoke nor stirred.
+
+At last they heard the fairy say:  "Attention, children.  Are you
+never going to look at me again?"
+
+"We have been looking at you all this while," they said.  And so
+they thought they had been.
+
+"Then look at me once more," said she.
+
+They looked--and both of them cried out at once, "Oh, who are you,
+after all?"
+
+"You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby."
+
+"No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid; but you are grown quite
+beautiful now!"
+
+"To you," said the fairy.  "But look again."
+
+"You are Mother Carey," said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice; for
+he had found out something which made him very happy, and yet
+frightened him more than all that he had ever seen.
+
+"But you are grown quite young again."
+
+"To you," said the fairy.  "Look again."
+
+"You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to Harthover!"
+
+And when they looked she was neither of them, and yet all of them
+at once.
+
+"My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there."
+
+And they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, and they changed
+again and again into every hue, as the light changes in a diamond.
+
+"Now read my name," said she, at last.
+
+And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, blazing light:
+but the children could not read her name; for they were dazzled,
+and hid their faces in their hands.
+
+"Not yet, young things, not yet," said she, smiling; and then she
+turned to Ellie.
+
+"You may take him home with you now on Sundays, Ellie.  He has won
+his spurs in the great battle, and become fit to go with you and be
+a man; because he has done the thing he did not like."
+
+So Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and sometimes on week-days,
+too; and he is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads,
+and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so
+forth; and knows everything about everything, except why a hen's
+egg don't turn into a crocodile, and two or three other little
+things which no one will know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.
+And all this from what he learnt when he was a water-baby,
+underneath the sea.
+
+"And of course Tom married Ellie?"
+
+My dear child, what a silly notion!  Don't you know that no one
+ever marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a prince or a
+princess?
+
+"And Tom's dog?"
+
+Oh, you may see him any clear night in July; for the old dog-star
+was so worn out by the last three hot summers that there have been
+no dog-days since; so that they had to take him down and put Tom's
+dog up in his place.  Therefore, as new brooms sweep clean, we may
+hope for some warm weather this year.  And that is the end of my
+story.
+
+
+
+MORAL.
+
+
+
+And now, my dear little man, what should we learn from this
+parable?
+
+We should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things, I am not
+exactly sure which:  but one thing, at least, we may learn, and
+that is this--when we see efts in the pond, never to throw stones
+at them, or catch them with crooked pins, or put them into
+vivariums with sticklebacks, that the sticklebacks may prick them
+in their poor little stomachs, and make them jump out of the glass
+into somebody's work-box, and so come to a bad end.  For these efts
+are nothing else but the water-babies who are stupid and dirty, and
+will not learn their lessons and keep themselves clean; and,
+therefore (as comparative anatomists will tell you fifty years
+hence, though they are not learned enough to tell you now), their
+skulls grow flat, their jaws grow out, and their brains grow small,
+and their tails grow long, and they lose all their ribs (which I am
+sure you would not like to do), and their skins grow dirty and
+spotted, and they never get into the clear rivers, much less into
+the great wide sea, but hang about in dirty ponds, and live in the
+mud, and eat worms, as they deserve to do.
+
+But that is no reason why you should ill-use them:  but only why
+you should pity them, and be kind to them, and hope that some day
+they will wake up, and be ashamed of their nasty, dirty, lazy,
+stupid life, and try to amend, and become something better once
+more.  For, perhaps, if they do so, then after 379,423 years, nine
+months, thirteen days, two hours, and twenty-one minutes (for aught
+that appears to the contrary), if they work very hard and wash very
+hard all that time, their brains may grow bigger, and their jaws
+grow smaller, and their ribs come back, and their tails wither off,
+and they will turn into water-babies again, and perhaps after that
+into land-babies; and after that perhaps into grown men.
+
+You know they won't?  Very well, I daresay you know best.  But you
+see, some folks have a great liking for those poor little efts.
+They never did anybody any harm, or could if they tried; and their
+only fault is, that they do no good--any more than some thousands
+of their betters.  But what with ducks, and what with pike, and
+what with sticklebacks, and what with water-beetles, and what with
+naughty boys, they are "sae sair hadden doun," as the Scotsmen say,
+that it is a wonder how they live; and some folks can't help
+hoping, with good Bishop Butler, that they may have another chance,
+to make things fair and even, somewhere, somewhen, somehow.
+
+Meanwhile, do you learn your lessons, and thank God that you have
+plenty of cold water to wash in; and wash in it too, like a true
+Englishman.  And then, if my story is not true, something better
+is; and if I am not quite right, still you will be, as long as you
+stick to hard work and cold water.
+
+But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all a
+fairy tale, and only fun and pretence:  and, therefore, you are not
+to believe a word of it, even if it is true.
+
+
+
+
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+<title>The Water-Babies</title>
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+<h2>
+<a href="#startoftext">The Water-Babies, by Charles Kingsley</a>
+</h2>
+<pre>
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+Title: The Water-Babies
+
+Author: Charles Kingsley
+
+Release Date: August, 1997  [EBook #1018]
+[This file was first posted on August 8, 1997]
+[Most recently updated: May 23, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+</pre>
+<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p>
+<h1>THE WATER BABIES</h1>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I heard a thousand blended notes,<br />While in a grove I
+sate reclined;<br />In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts<br />Bring
+sad thoughts to the mind.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To her fair works did Nature link<br />The human soul that
+through me ran;<br />And much it grieved my heart to think,<br />What
+man has made of man.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>WORDSWORTH.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Once upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, and his name was
+Tom.&nbsp; That is a short name, and you have heard it before, so you
+will not have much trouble in remembering it.&nbsp; He lived in a great
+town in the North country, where there were plenty of chimneys to sweep,
+and plenty of money for Tom to earn and his master to spend.&nbsp; He
+could not read nor write, and did not care to do either; and he never
+washed himself, for there was no water up the court where he lived.&nbsp;
+He had never been taught to say his prayers.&nbsp; He never had heard
+of God, or of Christ, except in words which you never have heard, and
+which it would have been well if he had never heard.&nbsp; He cried
+half his time, and laughed the other half.&nbsp; He cried when he had
+to climb the dark flues, rubbing his poor knees and elbows raw; and
+when the soot got into his eyes, which it did every day in the week;
+and when his master beat him, which he did every day in the week; and
+when he had not enough to eat, which happened every day in the week
+likewise.&nbsp; And he laughed the other half of the day, when he was
+tossing halfpennies with the other boys, or playing leap-frog over the
+posts, or bowling stones at the horses&rsquo; legs as they trotted by,
+which last was excellent fun, when there was a wall at hand behind which
+to hide.&nbsp; As for chimney-sweeping, and being hungry, and being
+beaten, he took all that for the way of the world, like the rain and
+snow and thunder, and stood manfully with his back to it till it was
+over, as his old donkey did to a hail-storm; and then shook his ears
+and was as jolly as ever; and thought of the fine times coming, when
+he would be a man, and a master sweep, and sit in the public-house with
+a quart of beer and a long pipe, and play cards for silver money, and
+wear velveteens and ankle-jacks, and keep a white bull-dog with one
+gray ear, and carry her puppies in his pocket, just like a man.&nbsp;
+And he would have apprentices, one, two, three, if he could.&nbsp; How
+he would bully them, and knock them about, just as his master did to
+him; and make them carry home the soot sacks, while he rode before them
+on his donkey, with a pipe in his mouth and a flower in his button-hole,
+like a king at the head of his army.&nbsp; Yes, there were good times
+coming; and, when his master let him have a pull at the leavings of
+his beer, Tom was the jolliest boy in the whole town.</p>
+<p>One day a smart little groom rode into the court where Tom lived.&nbsp;
+Tom was just hiding behind a wall, to heave half a brick at his horse&rsquo;s
+legs, as is the custom of that country when they welcome strangers;
+but the groom saw him, and halloed to him to know where Mr. Grimes,
+the chimney-sweep, lived.&nbsp; Now, Mr. Grimes was Tom&rsquo;s own
+master, and Tom was a good man of business, and always civil to customers,
+so he put the half-brick down quietly behind the wall, and proceeded
+to take orders.</p>
+<p>Mr. Grimes was to come up next morning to Sir John Harthover&rsquo;s,
+at the Place, for his old chimney-sweep was gone to prison, and the
+chimneys wanted sweeping.&nbsp; And so he rode away, not giving Tom
+time to ask what the sweep had gone to prison for, which was a matter
+of interest to Tom, as he had been in prison once or twice himself.&nbsp;
+Moreover, the groom looked so very neat and clean, with his drab gaiters,
+drab breeches, drab jacket, snow-white tie with a smart pin in it, and
+clean round ruddy face, that Tom was offended and disgusted at his appearance,
+and considered him a stuck-up fellow, who gave himself airs because
+he wore smart clothes, and other people paid for them; and went behind
+the wall to fetch the half-brick after all; but did not, remembering
+that he had come in the way of business, and was, as it were, under
+a flag of truce.</p>
+<p>His master was so delighted at his new customer that he knocked Tom
+down out of hand, and drank more beer that night than he usually did
+in two, in order to be sure of getting up in time next morning; for
+the more a man&rsquo;s head aches when he wakes, the more glad he is
+to turn out, and have a breath of fresh air.&nbsp; And, when he did
+get up at four the next morning, he knocked Tom down again, in order
+to teach him (as young gentlemen used to be taught at public schools)
+that he must be an extra good boy that day, as they were going to a
+very great house, and might make a very good thing of it, if they could
+but give satisfaction.</p>
+<p>And Tom thought so likewise, and, indeed, would have done and behaved
+his best, even without being knocked down.&nbsp; For, of all places
+upon earth, Harthover Place (which he had never seen) was the most wonderful,
+and, of all men on earth, Sir John (whom he had seen, having been sent
+to gaol by him twice) was the most awful.</p>
+<p>Harthover Place was really a grand place, even for the rich North
+country; with a house so large that in the frame-breaking riots, which
+Tom could just remember, the Duke of Wellington, and ten thousand soldiers
+to match, were easily housed therein; at least, so Tom believed; with
+a park full of deer, which Tom believed to be monsters who were in the
+habit of eating children; with miles of game-preserves, in which Mr.
+Grimes and the collier lads poached at times, on which occasions Tom
+saw pheasants, and wondered what they tasted like; with a noble salmon-river,
+in which Mr. Grimes and his friends would have liked to poach; but then
+they must have got into cold water, and that they did not like at all.&nbsp;
+In short, Harthover was a grand place, and Sir John a grand old man,
+whom even Mr. Grimes respected; for not only could he send Mr. Grimes
+to prison when he deserved it, as he did once or twice a week; not only
+did he own all the land about for miles; not only was he a jolly, honest,
+sensible squire, as ever kept a pack of hounds, who would do what he
+thought right by his neighbours, as well as get what he thought right
+for himself; but, what was more, he weighed full fifteen stone, was
+nobody knew how many inches round the chest, and could have thrashed
+Mr. Grimes himself in fair fight, which very few folk round there could
+do, and which, my dear little boy, would not have been right for him
+to do, as a great many things are not which one both can do, and would
+like very much to do.&nbsp; So Mr. Grimes touched his hat to him when
+he rode through the town, and called him a &ldquo;buirdly awd chap,&rdquo;
+and his young ladies &ldquo;gradely lasses,&rdquo; which are two high
+compliments in the North country; and thought that that made up for
+his poaching Sir John&rsquo;s pheasants; whereby you may perceive that
+Mr. Grimes had not been to a properly-inspected Government National
+School.</p>
+<p>Now, I dare say, you never got up at three o&rsquo;clock on a midsummer
+morning.&nbsp; Some people get up then because they want to catch salmon;
+and some because they want to climb Alps; and a great many more because
+they must, like Tom.&nbsp; But, I assure you, that three o&rsquo;clock
+on a midsummer morning is the pleasantest time of all the twenty-four
+hours, and all the three hundred and sixty-five days; and why every
+one does not get up then, I never could tell, save that they are all
+determined to spoil their nerves and their complexions by doing all
+night what they might just as well do all day.&nbsp; But Tom, instead
+of going out to dinner at half-past eight at night, and to a ball at
+ten, and finishing off somewhere between twelve and four, went to bed
+at seven, when his master went to the public-house, and slept like a
+dead pig; for which reason he was as piert as a game-cock (who always
+gets up early to wake the maids), and just ready to get up when the
+fine gentlemen and ladies were just ready to go to bed.</p>
+<p>So he and his master set out; Grimes rode the donkey in front, and
+Tom and the brushes walked behind; out of the court, and up the street,
+past the closed window-shutters, and the winking weary policemen, and
+the roofs all shining gray in the gray dawn.</p>
+<p>They passed through the pitmen&rsquo;s village, all shut up and silent
+now, and through the turnpike; and then the were out in the real country,
+and plodding along the black dusty road, between black slag walls, with
+no sound but the groaning and thumping of the pit-engine in the next
+field.&nbsp; But soon the road grew white, and the walls likewise; and
+at the wall&rsquo;s foot grew long grass and gay flowers, all drenched
+with dew; and instead of the groaning of the pit-engine, they heard
+the skylark saying his matins high up in the air, and the pit-bird warbling
+in the sedges, as he had warbled all night long.</p>
+<p>All else was silent.&nbsp; For old Mrs. Earth was still fast asleep;
+and, like many pretty people, she looked still prettier asleep than
+awake.&nbsp; The great elm-trees in the gold-green meadows were fast
+asleep above, and the cows fast asleep beneath them; nay, the few clouds
+which were about were fast asleep likewise, and so tired that they had
+lain down on the earth to rest, in long white flakes and bars, among
+the stems of the elm-trees, and along the tops of the alders by the
+stream, waiting for the sun to bid them rise and go about their day&rsquo;s
+business in the clear blue overhead.</p>
+<p>On they went; and Tom looked, and looked, for he never had been so
+far into the country before; and longed to get over a gate, and pick
+buttercups, and look for birds&rsquo; nests in the hedge; but Mr. Grimes
+was a man of business, and would not have heard of that.</p>
+<p>Soon they came up with a poor Irishwoman, trudging along with a bundle
+at her back.&nbsp; She had a gray shawl over her head, and a crimson
+madder petticoat; so you may be sure she came from Galway.&nbsp; She
+had neither shoes nor stockings, and limped along as if she were tired
+and footsore; but she was a very tall handsome woman, with bright gray
+eyes, and heavy black hair hanging about her cheeks.&nbsp; And she took
+Mr. Grimes&rsquo; fancy so much, that when he came alongside he called
+out to her:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is a hard road for a gradely foot like that.&nbsp; Will
+ye up, lass, and ride behind me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But, perhaps, she did not admire Mr. Grimes&rsquo; look and voice;
+for she answered quietly:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, thank you: I&rsquo;d sooner walk with your little lad
+here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You may please yourself,&rdquo; growled Grimes, and went on
+smoking.</p>
+<p>So she walked beside Tom, and talked to him, and asked him where
+he lived, and what he knew, and all about himself, till Tom thought
+he had never met such a pleasant-spoken woman.&nbsp; And she asked him,
+at last, whether he said his prayers! and seemed sad when he told her
+that he knew no prayers to say.</p>
+<p>Then he asked her where she lived, and she said far away by the sea.&nbsp;
+And Tom asked her about the sea; and she told him how it rolled and
+roared over the rocks in winter nights, and lay still in the bright
+summer days, for the children to bathe and play in it; and many a story
+more, till Tom longed to go and see the sea, and bathe in it likewise.</p>
+<p>At last, at the bottom of a hill, they came to a spring; not such
+a spring as you see here, which soaks up out of a white gravel in the
+bog, among red fly-catchers, and pink bottle-heath, and sweet white
+orchis; nor such a one as you may see, too, here, which bubbles up under
+the warm sandbank in the hollow lane by the great tuft of lady ferns,
+and makes the sand dance reels at the bottom, day and night, all the
+year round; not such a spring as either of those; but a real North country
+limestone fountain, like one of those in Sicily or Greece, where the
+old heathen fancied the nymphs sat cooling themselves the hot summer&rsquo;s
+day, while the shepherds peeped at them from behind the bushes.&nbsp;
+Out of a low cave of rock, at the foot of a limestone crag, the great
+fountain rose, quelling, and bubbling, and gurgling, so clear that you
+could not tell where the water ended and the air began; and ran away
+under the road, a stream large enough to turn a mill; among blue geranium,
+and golden globe-flower, and wild raspberry, and the bird-cherry with
+its tassels of snow.</p>
+<p>And there Grimes stopped, and looked; and Tom looked too.&nbsp; Tom
+was wondering whether anything lived in that dark cave, and came out
+at night to fly in the meadows.&nbsp; But Grimes was not wondering at
+all.&nbsp; Without a word, he got off his donkey, and clambered over
+the low road wall, and knelt down, and began dipping his ugly head into
+the spring&mdash;and very dirty he made it.</p>
+<p>Tom was picking the flowers as fast as he could.&nbsp; The Irishwoman
+helped him, and showed him how to tie them up; and a very pretty nosegay
+they had made between them.&nbsp; But when he saw Grimes actually wash,
+he stopped, quite astonished; and when Grimes had finished, and began
+shaking his ears to dry them, he said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, master, I never saw you do that before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nor will again, most likely.&nbsp; &rsquo;Twasn&rsquo;t for
+cleanliness I did it, but for coolness.&nbsp; I&rsquo;d be ashamed to
+want washing every week or so, like any smutty collier lad.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish I might go and dip my head in,&rdquo; said poor little
+Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;It must be as good as putting it under the town-pump;
+and there is no beadle here to drive a chap away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thou come along,&rdquo; said Grimes; &ldquo;what dost want
+with washing thyself?&nbsp; Thou did not drink half a gallon of beer
+last night, like me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care for you,&rdquo; said naughty Tom, and ran
+down to the stream, and began washing his face.</p>
+<p>Grimes was very sulky, because the woman preferred Tom&rsquo;s company
+to his; so he dashed at him with horrid words, and tore him up from
+his knees, and began beating him.&nbsp; But Tom was accustomed to that,
+and got his head safe between Mr. Grimes&rsquo; legs, and kicked his
+shins with all his might.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes?&rdquo; cried
+the Irishwoman over the wall.</p>
+<p>Grimes looked up, startled at her knowing his name; but all he answered
+was, &ldquo;No, nor never was yet;&rdquo; and went on beating Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;True for you.&nbsp; If you ever had been ashamed of yourself,
+you would have gone over into Vendale long ago.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you know about Vendale?&rdquo; shouted Grimes; but
+he left off beating Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know about Vendale, and about you, too.&nbsp; I know, for
+instance, what happened in Aldermire Copse, by night, two years ago
+come Martinmas.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You do?&rdquo; shouted Grimes; and leaving Tom, he climbed
+up over the wall, and faced the woman.&nbsp; Tom thought he was going
+to strike her; but she looked him too full and fierce in the face for
+that.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes; I was there,&rdquo; said the Irishwoman quietly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are no Irishwoman, by your speech,&rdquo; said Grimes,
+after many bad words.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Never mind who I am.&nbsp; I saw what I saw; and if you strike
+that boy again, I can tell what I know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Grimes seemed quite cowed, and got on his donkey without another
+word.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; said the Irishwoman.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have one
+more word for you both; for you will both see me again before all is
+over.&nbsp; Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be; and those
+that wish to be foul, foul they will be.&nbsp; Remember.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she turned away, and through a gate into the meadow.&nbsp; Grimes
+stood still a moment, like a man who had been stunned.&nbsp; Then he
+rushed after her, shouting, &ldquo;You come back.&rdquo;&nbsp; But when
+he got into the meadow, the woman was not there.</p>
+<p>Had she hidden away?&nbsp; There was no place to hide in.&nbsp; But
+Grimes looked about, and Tom also, for he was as puzzled as Grimes himself
+at her disappearing so suddenly; but look where they would, she was
+not there.</p>
+<p>Grimes came back again, as silent as a post, for he was a little
+frightened; and, getting on his donkey, filled a fresh pipe, and smoked
+away, leaving Tom in peace.</p>
+<p>And now they had gone three miles and more, and came to Sir John&rsquo;s
+lodge-gates.</p>
+<p>Very grand lodges they were, with very grand iron gates and stone
+gate-posts, and on the top of each a most dreadful bogy, all teeth,
+horns, and tail, which was the crest which Sir John&rsquo;s ancestors
+wore in the Wars of the Roses; and very prudent men they were to wear
+it, for all their enemies must have run for their lives at the very
+first sight of them.</p>
+<p>Grimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper on the spot, and opened.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was told to expect thee,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Now
+thou&rsquo;lt be so good as to keep to the main avenue, and not let
+me find a hare or a rabbit on thee when thou comest back.&nbsp; I shall
+look sharp for one, I tell thee.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not if it&rsquo;s in the bottom of the soot-bag,&rdquo; quoth
+Grimes, and at that he laughed; and the keeper laughed and said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If that&rsquo;s thy sort, I may as well walk up with thee
+to the hall.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think thou best had.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s thy business to see
+after thy game, man, and not mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So the keeper went with them; and, to Tom&rsquo;s surprise, he and
+Grimes chatted together all the way quite pleasantly.&nbsp; He did not
+know that a keeper is only a poacher turned outside in, and a poacher
+a keeper turned inside out.</p>
+<p>They walked up a great lime avenue, a full mile long, and between
+their stems Tom peeped trembling at the horns of the sleeping deer,
+which stood up among the ferns.&nbsp; Tom had never seen such enormous
+trees, and as he looked up he fancied that the blue sky rested on their
+heads.&nbsp; But he was puzzled very much by a strange murmuring noise,
+which followed them all the way.&nbsp; So much puzzled, that at last
+he took courage to ask the keeper what it was.</p>
+<p>He spoke very civilly, and called him Sir, for he was horribly afraid
+of him, which pleased the keeper, and he told him that they were the
+bees about the lime flowers.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are bees?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What make honey.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is honey?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thou hold thy noise,&rdquo; said Grimes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let the boy be,&rdquo; said the keeper.&nbsp; &ldquo;He&rsquo;s
+a civil young chap now, and that&rsquo;s more than he&rsquo;ll be long
+if he bides with thee.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Grimes laughed, for he took that for a compliment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish I were a keeper,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;to live in
+such a beautiful place, and wear green velveteens, and have a real dog-whistle
+at my button, like you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The keeper laughed; he was a kind-hearted fellow enough.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let well alone, lad, and ill too at times.&nbsp; Thy life&rsquo;s
+safer than mine at all events, eh, Mr. Grimes?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And Grimes laughed again, and then the two men began talking, quite
+low.&nbsp; Tom could hear, though, that it was about some poaching fight;
+and at last Grimes said surlily, &ldquo;Hast thou anything against me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then don&rsquo;t ask me any questions till thou hast, for
+I am a man of honour.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And at that they both laughed again, and thought it a very good joke.</p>
+<p>And by this time they were come up to the great iron gates in front
+of the house; and Tom stared through them at the rhododendrons and azaleas,
+which were all in flower; and then at the house itself, and wondered
+how many chimneys there were in it, and how long ago it was built, and
+what was the man&rsquo;s name that built it, and whether he got much
+money for his job?</p>
+<p>These last were very difficult questions to answer.&nbsp; For Harthover
+had been built at ninety different times, and in nineteen different
+styles, and looked as if somebody had built a whole street of houses
+of every imaginable shape, and then stirred them together with a spoon.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>For the attics were Anglo-Saxon.<br />The third door Norman.<br />The
+second Cinque-cento.<br />The first-floor Elizabethan.<br />The right
+wing Pure Doric.<br />The centre Early English, with a huge portico
+copied from the Parthenon.<br />The left wing pure Boeotian, which the
+country folk admired most of all, became it was just like the new barracks
+in the town, only three times as big.<br />The grand staircase was copied
+from the Catacombs at Rome.<br />The back staircase from the Tajmahal
+at Agra.&nbsp; This was built by Sir John&rsquo;s great-great-great-uncle,
+who won, in Lord Clive&rsquo;s Indian Wars, plenty of money, plenty
+of wounds, and no more taste than his betters.<br />The cellars were
+copied from the caves of Elephanta.<br />The offices from the Pavilion
+at Brighton.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>And the rest from nothing in heaven, or earth, or under the earth.</p>
+<p>So that Harthover House was a great puzzle to antiquarians, and a
+thorough Naboth&rsquo;s vineyard to critics, and architects, and all
+persons who like meddling with other men&rsquo;s business, and spending
+other men&rsquo;s money.&nbsp; So they were all setting upon poor Sir
+John, year after year, and trying to talk him into spending a hundred
+thousand pounds or so, in building, to please them and not himself.&nbsp;
+But he always put them off, like a canny North-countryman as he was.&nbsp;
+One wanted him to build a Gothic house, but he said he was no Goth;
+and another to build an Elizabethan, but he said he lived under good
+Queen Victoria, and not good Queen Bess; and another was bold enough
+to tell him that his house was ugly, but he said he lived inside it,
+and not outside; and another, that there was no unity in it, but he
+said that that was just why he liked the old place.&nbsp; For he liked
+to see how each Sir John, and Sir Hugh, and Sir Ralph, and Sir Randal,
+had left his mark upon the place, each after his own taste; and he had
+no more notion of disturbing his ancestors&rsquo; work than of disturbing
+their graves.&nbsp; For now the house looked like a real live house,
+that had a history, and had grown and grown as the world grew; and that
+it was only an upstart fellow who did not know who his own grandfather
+was, who would change it for some spick and span new Gothic or Elizabethan
+thing, which looked as if it bad been all spawned in a night, as mushrooms
+are.&nbsp; From which you may collect (if you have wit enough) that
+Sir John was a very sound-headed, sound-hearted squire, and just the
+man to keep the country side in order, and show good sport with his
+hounds.</p>
+<p>But Tom and his master did not go in through the great iron gates,
+as if they had been Dukes or Bishops, but round the back way, and a
+very long way round it was; and into a little back-door, where the ash-boy
+let them in, yawning horribly; and then in a passage the housekeeper
+met them, in such a flowered chintz dressing-gown, that Tom mistook
+her for My Lady herself, and she gave Grimes solemn orders about &ldquo;You
+will take care of this, and take care of that,&rdquo; as if he was going
+up the chimneys, and not Tom.&nbsp; And Grimes listened, and said every
+now and then, under his voice, &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll mind that, you little
+beggar?&rdquo; and Tom did mind, all at least that he could.&nbsp; And
+then the housekeeper turned them into a grand room, all covered up in
+sheets of brown paper, and bade them begin, in a lofty and tremendous
+voice; and so after a whimper or two, and a kick from his master, into
+the grate Tom went, and up the chimney, while a housemaid stayed in
+the room to watch the furniture; to whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful
+and chivalrous compliments, but met with very slight encouragement in
+return.</p>
+<p>How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say; but he swept so many that
+he got quite tired, and puzzled too, for they were not like the town
+flues to which he was accustomed, but such as you would find&mdash;if
+you would only get up them and look, which perhaps you would not like
+to do&mdash;in old country-houses, large and crooked chimneys, which
+had been altered again and again, till they ran one into another, anastomosing
+(as Professor Owen would say) considerably.&nbsp; So Tom fairly lost
+his way in them; not that he cared much for that, though he was in pitchy
+darkness, for he was as much at home in a chimney as a mole is underground;
+but at last, coming down as he thought the right chimney, he came down
+the wrong one, and found himself standing on the hearthrug in a room
+the like of which he had never seen before.</p>
+<p>Tom had never seen the like.&nbsp; He had never been in gentlefolks&rsquo;
+rooms but when the carpets were all up, and the curtains down, and the
+furniture huddled together under a cloth, and the pictures covered with
+aprons and dusters; and he had often enough wondered what the rooms
+were like when they were all ready for the quality to sit in.&nbsp;
+And now he saw, and he thought the sight very pretty.</p>
+<p>The room was all dressed in white,&mdash;white window-curtains, white
+bed-curtains, white furniture, and white walls, with just a few lines
+of pink here and there.&nbsp; The carpet was all over gay little flowers;
+and the walls were hung with pictures in gilt frames, which amused Tom
+very much.&nbsp; There were pictures of ladies and gentlemen, and pictures
+of horses and dogs.&nbsp; The horses he liked; but the dogs he did not
+care for much, for there were no bull-dogs among them, not even a terrier.&nbsp;
+But the two pictures which took his fancy most were, one a man in long
+garments, with little children and their mothers round him, who was
+laying his hand upon the children&rsquo;s heads.&nbsp; That was a very
+pretty picture, Tom thought, to hang in a lady&rsquo;s room.&nbsp; For
+he could see that it was a lady&rsquo;s room by the dresses which lay
+about.</p>
+<p>The other picture was that of a man nailed to a cross, which surprised
+Tom much.&nbsp; He fancied that he had seen something like it in a shop-window.&nbsp;
+But why was it there?&nbsp; &ldquo;Poor man,&rdquo; thought Tom, &ldquo;and
+he looks so kind and quiet.&nbsp; But why should the lady have such
+a sad picture as that in her room?&nbsp; Perhaps it was some kinsman
+of hers, who had been murdered by the savages in foreign parts, and
+she kept it there for a remembrance.&rdquo;&nbsp; And Tom felt sad,
+and awed, and turned to look at something else.</p>
+<p>The next thing he saw, and that too puzzled him, was a washing-stand,
+with ewers and basins, and soap and brushes, and towels, and a large
+bath full of clean water&mdash;what a heap of things all for washing!&nbsp;
+&ldquo;She must be a very dirty lady,&rdquo; thought Tom, &ldquo;by
+my master&rsquo;s rule, to want as much scrubbing as all that.&nbsp;
+But she must be very cunning to put the dirt out of the way so well
+afterwards, for I don&rsquo;t see a speck about the room, not even on
+the very towels.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And then, looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty lady, and held
+his breath with astonishment.</p>
+<p>Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white pillow, lay the
+most beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen.&nbsp; Her cheeks
+were almost as white as the pillow, and her hair was like threads of
+gold spread all about over the bed.&nbsp; She might have been as old
+as Tom, or maybe a year or two older; but Tom did not think of that.&nbsp;
+He thought only of her delicate skin and golden hair, and wondered whether
+she was a real live person, or one of the wax dolls he had seen in the
+shops.&nbsp; But when he saw her breathe, he made up his mind that she
+was alive, and stood staring at her, as if she had been an angel out
+of heaven.</p>
+<p>No.&nbsp; She cannot be dirty.&nbsp; She never could have been dirty,
+thought Tom to himself.&nbsp; And then he thought, &ldquo;And are all
+people like that when they are washed?&rdquo;&nbsp; And he looked at
+his own wrist, and tried to rub the soot off, and wondered whether it
+ever would come off.&nbsp; &ldquo;Certainly I should look much prettier
+then, if I grew at all like her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close to him, a little
+ugly, black, ragged figure, with bleared eyes and grinning white teeth.&nbsp;
+He turned on it angrily.&nbsp; What did such a little black ape want
+in that sweet young lady&rsquo;s room?&nbsp; And behold, it was himself,
+reflected in a great mirror, the like of which Tom had never seen before.</p>
+<p>And Tom, for the first time in his life, found out that he was dirty;
+and burst into tears with shame and anger; and turned to sneak up the
+chimney again and hide; and upset the fender and threw the fire-irons
+down, with a noise as of ten thousand tin kettles tied to ten thousand
+mad dogs&rsquo; tails.</p>
+<p>Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, seeing Tom, screamed
+as shrill as any peacock.&nbsp; In rushed a stout old nurse from the
+next room, and seeing Tom likewise, made up her mind that he had come
+to rob, plunder, destroy, and burn; and dashed at him, as he lay over
+the fender, so fast that she caught him by the jacket.</p>
+<p>But she did not hold him.&nbsp; Tom had been in a policeman&rsquo;s
+hands many a time, and out of them too, what is more; and he would have
+been ashamed to face his friends for ever if he had been stupid enough
+to be caught by an old woman; so he doubled under the good lady&rsquo;s
+arm, across the room, and out of the window in a moment.</p>
+<p>He did not need to drop out, though he would have done so bravely
+enough.&nbsp; Nor even to let himself down a spout, which would have
+been an old game to him; for once he got up by a spout to the church
+roof, he said to take jackdaws&rsquo; eggs, but the policeman said to
+steal lead; and, when he was seen on high, sat there till the sun got
+too hot, and came down by another spout, leaving the policemen to go
+back to the stationhouse and eat their dinners.</p>
+<p>But all under the window spread a tree, with great leaves and sweet
+white flowers, almost as big as his head.&nbsp; It was magnolia, I suppose;
+but Tom knew nothing about that, and cared less; for down the tree he
+went, like a cat, and across the garden lawn, and over the iron railings
+and up the park towards the wood, leaving the old nurse to scream murder
+and fire at the window.</p>
+<p>The under gardener, mowing, saw Tom, and threw down his scythe; caught
+his leg in it, and cut his shin open, whereby he kept his bed for a
+week; but in his hurry he never knew it, and gave chase to poor Tom.&nbsp;
+The dairymaid heard the noise, got the churn between her knees, and
+tumbled over it, spilling all the cream; and yet she jumped up, and
+gave chase to Tom.&nbsp; A groom cleaning Sir John&rsquo;s hack at the
+stables let him go loose, whereby he kicked himself lame in five minutes;
+but he ran out and gave chase to Tom.&nbsp; Grimes upset the soot-sack
+in the new-gravelled yard, and spoilt it all utterly; but he ran out
+and gave chase to Tom.&nbsp; The old steward opened the park-gate in
+such a hurry, that he hung up his pony&rsquo;s chin upon the spikes,
+and, for aught I know, it hangs there still; but he jumped off, and
+gave chase to Tom.&nbsp; The ploughman left his horses at the headland,
+and one jumped over the fence, and pulled the other into the ditch,
+plough and all; but he ran on, and gave chase to Tom.&nbsp; The keeper,
+who was taking a stoat out of a trap, let the stoat go, and caught his
+own finger; but he jumped up, and ran after Tom; and considering what
+he said, and how he looked, I should have been sorry for Tom if he had
+caught him.&nbsp; Sir John looked out of his study window (for he was
+an early old gentleman) and up at the nurse, and a marten dropped mud
+in his eye, so that he had at last to send for the doctor; and yet he
+ran out, and gave chase to Tom.&nbsp; The Irishwoman, too, was walking
+up to the house to beg,&mdash;she must have got round by some byway&mdash;but
+she threw away her bundle, and gave chase to Tom likewise.&nbsp; Only
+my Lady did not give chase; for when she had put her head out of the
+window, her night-wig fell into the garden, and she had to ring up her
+lady&rsquo;s-maid, and send her down for it privately, which quite put
+her out of the running, so that she came in nowhere, and is consequently
+not placed.</p>
+<p>In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place&mdash;not even when
+the fox was killed in the conservatory, among acres of broken glass,
+and tons of smashed flower-pots&mdash;such a noise, row, hubbub, babel,
+shindy, hullabaloo, stramash, charivari, and total contempt of dignity,
+repose, and order, as that day, when Grimes, gardener, the groom, the
+dairymaid, Sir John, the steward, the ploughman, the keeper, and the
+Irishwoman, all ran up the park, shouting, &ldquo;Stop thief,&rdquo;
+in the belief that Tom had at least a thousand pounds&rsquo; worth of
+jewels in his empty pockets; and the very magpies and jays followed
+Tom up, screaking and screaming, as if he were a hunted fox, beginning
+to droop his brush.</p>
+<p>And all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with his little bare
+feet, like a small black gorilla fleeing to the forest.&nbsp; Alas for
+him! there was no big father gorilla therein to take his part&mdash;to
+scratch out the gardener&rsquo;s inside with one paw, toss the dairymaid
+into a tree with another, and wrench off Sir John&rsquo;s head with
+a third, while he cracked the keeper&rsquo;s skull with his teeth as
+easily as if it had been a cocoa-nut or a paving-stone.</p>
+<p>However, Tom did not remember ever having had a father; so he did
+not look for one, and expected to have to take care of himself; while
+as for running, he could keep up for a couple of miles with any stage-coach,
+if there was the chance of a copper or a cigar-end, and turn coach-wheels
+on his hands and feet ten times following, which is more than you can
+do.&nbsp; Wherefore his pursuers found it very difficult to catch him;
+and we will hope that they did not catch him at all.</p>
+<p>Tom, of course, made for the woods.&nbsp; He had never been in a
+wood in his life; but he was sharp enough to know that he might hide
+in a bush, or swarm up a tree, and, altogether, had more chance there
+than in the open.&nbsp; If he had not known that, he would have been
+foolisher than a mouse or a minnow.</p>
+<p>But when he got into the wood, he found it a very different sort
+of place from what he had fancied.&nbsp; He pushed into a thick cover
+of rhododendrons, and found himself at once caught in a trap.&nbsp;
+The boughs laid hold of his legs and arms, poked him in his face and
+his stomach, made him shut his eyes tight (though that was no great
+loss, for he could not see at best a yard before his nose); and when
+he got through the rhododendrons, the hassock-grass and sedges tumbled
+him over, and cut his poor little fingers afterwards most spitefully;
+the birches birched him as soundly as if he had been a nobleman at Eton,
+and over the face too (which is not fair swishing as all brave boys
+will agree); and the lawyers tripped him up, and tore his shins as if
+they had sharks&rsquo; teeth&mdash;which lawyers are likely enough to
+have.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I must get out of this,&rdquo; thought Tom, &ldquo;or I shall
+stay here till somebody comes to help me&mdash;which is just what I
+don&rsquo;t want.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But how to get out was the difficult matter.&nbsp; And indeed I don&rsquo;t
+think he would ever have got out at all, but have stayed there till
+the cock-robins covered him with leaves, if he had not suddenly run
+his head against a wall.</p>
+<p>Now running your head against a wall is not pleasant, especially
+if it is a loose wall, with the stones all set on edge, and a sharp
+cornered one hits you between the eyes and makes you see all manner
+of beautiful stars.&nbsp; The stars are very beautiful, certainly; but
+unfortunately they go in the twenty-thousandth part of a split second,
+and the pain which comes after them does not.&nbsp; And so Tom hurt
+his head; but he was a brave boy, and did not mind that a penny.&nbsp;
+He guessed that over the wall the cover would end; and up it he went,
+and over like a squirrel.</p>
+<p>And there he was, out on the great grouse-moors, which the country
+folk called Harthover Fell&mdash;heather and bog and rock, stretching
+away and up, up to the very sky.</p>
+<p>Now, Tom was a cunning little fellow&mdash;as cunning as an old Exmoor
+stag.&nbsp; Why not?&nbsp; Though he was but ten years old, he had lived
+longer than most stags, and had more wits to start with into the bargain.</p>
+<p>He knew as well as a stag, that if he backed he might throw the hounds
+out.&nbsp; So the first thing he did when he was over the wall was to
+make the neatest double sharp to his right, and run along under the
+wall for nearly half a mile.</p>
+<p>Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the steward, and the gardener,
+and the ploughman, and the dairymaid, and all the hue-and-cry together,
+went on ahead half a mile in the very opposite direction, and inside
+the wall, leaving him a mile off on the outside; while Tom heard their
+shouts die away in the woods and chuckled to himself merrily.</p>
+<p>At last he came to a dip in the land, and went to the bottom of it,
+and then he turned bravely away from the wall and up the moor; for he
+knew that he had put a hill between him and his enemies, and could go
+on without their seeing him.</p>
+<p>But the Irishwoman, alone of them all, had seen which way Tom went.&nbsp;
+She had kept ahead of every one the whole time; and yet she neither
+walked nor ran.&nbsp; She went along quite smoothly and gracefully,
+while her feet twinkled past each other so fast that you could not see
+which was foremost; till every one asked the other who the strange woman
+was; and all agreed, for want of anything better to say, that she must
+be in league with Tom.</p>
+<p>But when she came to the plantation, they lost sight of her; and
+they could do no less.&nbsp; For she went quietly over the wall after
+Tom, and followed him wherever he went.&nbsp; Sir John and the rest
+saw no more of her; and out of sight was out of mind.</p>
+<p>And now Tom was right away into the heather, over just such a moor
+as those in which you have been bred, except that there were rocks and
+stones lying about everywhere, and that, instead of the moor growing
+flat as he went upwards, it grew more and more broken and hilly, but
+not so rough but that little Tom could jog along well enough, and find
+time, too, to stare about at the strange place, which was like a new
+world to him.</p>
+<p>He saw great spiders there, with crowns and crosses marked on their
+backs, who sat in the middle of their webs, and when they saw Tom coming,
+shook them so fast that they became invisible.&nbsp; Then he saw lizards,
+brown and gray and green, and thought they were snakes, and would sting
+him; but they were as much frightened as he, and shot away into the
+heath.&nbsp; And then, under a rock, he saw a pretty sight&mdash;a great
+brown, sharp-nosed creature, with a white tag to her brush, and round
+her four or five smutty little cubs, the funniest fellows Tom ever saw.&nbsp;
+She lay on her back, rolling about, and stretching out her legs and
+head and tail in the bright sunshine; and the cubs jumped over her,
+and ran round her, and nibbled her paws, and lugged her about by the
+tail; and she seemed to enjoy it mightily.&nbsp; But one selfish little
+fellow stole away from the rest to a dead crow close by, and dragged
+it off to hide it, though it was nearly as big as he was.&nbsp; Whereat
+all his little brothers set off after him in full cry, and saw Tom;
+and then all ran back, and up jumped Mrs. Vixen, and caught one up in
+her mouth, and the rest toddled after her, and into a dark crack in
+the rocks; and there was an end of the show.</p>
+<p>And next he had a fright; for, as he scrambled up a sandy brow&mdash;whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock-kick&mdash;something
+went off in his face, with a most horrid noise.&nbsp; He thought the
+ground had blown up, and the end of the world come.</p>
+<p>And when he opened his eyes (for he shut them very tight) it was
+only an old cock-grouse, who had been washing himself in sand, like
+an Arab, for want of water; and who, when Tom had all but trodden on
+him, jumped up with a noise like the express train, leaving his wife
+and children to shift for themselves, like an old coward, and went off,
+screaming &ldquo;Cur-ru-u-uck, cur-ru-u-uck&mdash;murder, thieves, fire&mdash;cur-u-uck-cock-kick&mdash;the
+end of the world is come&mdash;kick-kick-cock-kick.&rdquo;&nbsp; He
+was always fancying that the end of the world was come, when anything
+happened which was farther off than the end of his own nose.&nbsp; But
+the end of the world was not come, any more than the twelfth of August
+was; though the old grouse-cock was quite certain of it.</p>
+<p>So the old grouse came back to his wife and family an hour afterwards,
+and said solemnly, &ldquo;Cock-cock-kick; my dears, the end of the world
+is not quite come; but I assure you it is coming the day after to-morrow&mdash;cock.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+But his wife had heard that so often that she knew all about it, and
+a little more.&nbsp; And, besides, she was the mother of a family, and
+had seven little poults to wash and feed every day; and that made her
+very practical, and a little sharp-tempered; so all she answered was:
+&ldquo;Kick-kick-kick&mdash;go and catch spiders, go and catch spiders&mdash;kick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why; but he liked the great
+wide strange place, and the cool fresh bracing air.&nbsp; But he went
+more and more slowly as he got higher up the hill; for now the ground
+grew very bad indeed.&nbsp; Instead of soft turf and springy heather,
+he met great patches of flat limestone rock, just like ill-made pavements,
+with deep cracks between the stones and ledges, filled with ferns; so
+he had to hop from stone to stone, and now and then he slipped in between,
+and hurt his little bare toes, though they were tolerably tough ones;
+but still he would go on and up, he could not tell why.</p>
+<p>What would Tom have said if he had seen, walking over the moor behind
+him, the very same Irishwoman who had taken his part upon the road?&nbsp;
+But whether it was that he looked too little behind him, or whether
+it was that she kept out of sight behind the rocks and knolls, he never
+saw her, though she saw him.</p>
+<p>And now he began to get a little hungry, and very thirsty; for he
+had run a long way, and the sun had risen high in heaven, and the rock
+was as hot as an oven, and the air danced reels over it, as it does
+over a limekiln, till everything round seemed quivering and melting
+in the glare.</p>
+<p>But he could see nothing to eat anywhere, and still less to drink.</p>
+<p>The heath was full of bilberries and whimberries; but they were only
+in flower yet, for it was June.&nbsp; And as for water; who can find
+that on the top of a limestone rock?&nbsp; Now and then he passed by
+a deep dark swallow-hole, going down into the earth, as if it was the
+chimney of some dwarfs house underground; and more than once, as he
+passed, he could hear water falling, trickling, tinkling, many many
+feet below.&nbsp; How he longed to get down to it, and cool his poor
+baked lips!&nbsp; But, brave little chimney-sweep as he was, he dared
+not climb down such chimneys as those.</p>
+<p>So he went on and on, till his head spun round with the heat, and
+he thought he heard church-bells ringing a long way off.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;where there is a church there
+will be houses and people; and, perhaps, some one will give me a bit
+and a sup.&rdquo;&nbsp; So he set off again, to look for the church;
+for he was sure that he heard the bells quite plain.</p>
+<p>And in a minute more, when he looked round, he stopped again, and
+said, &ldquo;Why, what a big place the world is!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And so it was; for, from the top of the mountain he could see&mdash;what
+could he not see?</p>
+<p>Behind him, far below, was Harthover, and the dark woods, and the
+shining salmon river; and on his left, far below, was the town, and
+the smoking chimneys of the collieries; and far, far away, the river
+widened to the shining sea; and little white specks, which were ships,
+lay on its bosom.&nbsp; Before him lay, spread out like a map, great
+plains, and farms, and villages, amid dark knots of trees.&nbsp; They
+all seemed at his very feet; but he had sense to see that they were
+long miles away.</p>
+<p>And to his right rose moor after moor, hill after hill, till they
+faded away, blue into blue sky.&nbsp; But between him and those moors,
+and really at his very feet, lay something, to which, as soon as Tom
+saw it, he determined to go, for that was the place for him.</p>
+<p>A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow, and filled with
+wood; but through the wood, hundreds of feet below him, he could see
+a clear stream glance.&nbsp; Oh, if he could but get down to that stream!&nbsp;
+Then, by the stream, he saw the roof of a little cottage, and a little
+garden set out in squares and beds.&nbsp; And there was a tiny little
+red thing moving in the garden, no bigger than a fly.&nbsp; As Tom looked
+down, he saw that it was a woman in a red petticoat.&nbsp; Ah! perhaps
+she would give him something to eat.&nbsp; And there were the church-bells
+ringing again.&nbsp; Surely there must be a village down there.&nbsp;
+Well, nobody would know him, or what had happened at the Place.&nbsp;
+The news could not have got there yet, even if Sir John had set all
+the policemen in the county after him; and he could get down there in
+five minutes.</p>
+<p>Tom was quite right about the hue-and-cry not having got thither;
+for he had come without knowing it, the best part of ten miles from
+Harthover; but he was wrong about getting down in five minutes, for
+the cottage was more than a mile off, and a good thousand feet below.</p>
+<p>However, down he went; like a brave little man as he was, though
+he was very footsore, and tired, and hungry, and thirsty; while the
+church-bells rang so loud, he began to think that they must be inside
+his own head, and the river chimed and tinkled far below; and this was
+the song which it sang:-</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Clear and cool, clear and cool,<br />By laughing shallow, and dreaming
+pool;<br />Cool and clear, cool and clear,<br />By shining shingle,
+and foaming wear;<br />Under the crag where the ouzel sings,<br />And
+the ivied wall where the church-bell rings,<br />Undefiled, for the
+undefiled;<br />Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child.</p>
+<p>Dank and foul, dank and foul,<br />By the smoky town in its murky
+cowl;<br />Foul and dank, foul and dank,<br />By wharf and sewer and
+slimy bank;<br />Darker and darker the farther I go,<br />Baser and
+baser the richer I grow;<br />Who dares sport with the sin-defiled?<br />Shrink
+from me, turn from me, mother and child.</p>
+<p>Strong and free, strong and free,<br />The floodgates are open, away
+to the sea,<br />Free and strong, free and strong,<br />Cleansing my
+streams as I hurry along,<br />To the golden sands, and the leaping
+bar,<br />And the taintless tide that awaits me afar.<br />As I lose
+myself in the infinite main,<br />Like a soul that has sinned and is
+pardoned again.<br />Undefiled, for the undefiled;<br />Play by me,
+bathe in me, mother and child.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>So Tom went down; and all the while he never saw the Irishwoman going
+down behind him.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;And is there care in heaven? and is there love<br />In heavenly
+spirits to these creatures base<br />That may compassion of their evils
+move?<br />There is:- else much more wretched were the case<br />Of
+men than beasts: But oh! the exceeding grace<br />Of Highest God that
+loves His creatures so,<br />And all His works with mercy doth embrace,<br />That
+blessed Angels He sends to and fro,<br />To serve to wicked man, to
+serve His wicked foe!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>SPENSER.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>A mile off, and a thousand feet down.</p>
+<p>So Tom found it; though it seemed as if he could have chucked a pebble
+on to the back of the woman in the red petticoat who was weeding in
+the garden, or even across the dale to the rocks beyond.&nbsp; For the
+bottom of the valley was just one field broad, and on the other side
+ran the stream; and above it, gray crag, gray down, gray stair, gray
+moor walled up to heaven.</p>
+<p>A quiet, silent, rich, happy place; a narrow crack cut deep into
+the earth; so deep, and so out of the way, that the bad bogies can hardly
+find it out.&nbsp; The name of the place is Vendale; and if you want
+to see it for yourself, you must go up into the High Craven, and search
+from Bolland Forest north by Ingleborough, to the Nine Standards and
+Cross Fell; and if you have not found it, you must turn south, and search
+the Lake Mountains, down to Scaw Fell and the sea; and then, if you
+have not found it, you must go northward again by merry Carlisle, and
+search the Cheviots all across, from Annan Water to Berwick Law; and
+then, whether you have found Vendale or not, you will have found such
+a country, and such a people, as ought to make you proud of being a
+British boy.</p>
+<p>So Tom went to go down; and first he went down three hundred feet
+of steep heather, mixed up with loose brown grindstone, as rough as
+a file; which was not pleasant to his poor little heels, as he came
+bump, stump, jump, down the steep.&nbsp; And still he thought he could
+throw a stone into the garden.</p>
+<p>Then he went down three hundred feet of lime-stone terraces, one
+below the other, as straight as if a carpenter had ruled them with his
+ruler and then cut them out with his chisel.&nbsp; There was no heath
+there, but -</p>
+<p>First, a little grass slope, covered with the prettiest flowers,
+rockrose and saxifrage, and thyme and basil, and all sorts of sweet
+herbs.</p>
+<p>Then bump down a two-foot step of limestone.</p>
+<p>Then another bit of grass and flowers.</p>
+<p>Then bump down a one-foot step.</p>
+<p>Then another bit of grass and flowers for fifty yards, as steep as
+the house-roof, where he had to slide down on his dear little tail.</p>
+<p>Then another step of stone, ten feet high; and there he had to stop
+himself, and crawl along the edge to find a crack; for if he had rolled
+over, he would have rolled right into the old woman&rsquo;s garden,
+and frightened her out of her wits.</p>
+<p>Then, when he had found a dark narrow crack, full of green-stalked
+fern, such as hangs in the basket in the drawing-room, and had crawled
+down through it, with knees and elbows, as he would down a chimney,
+there was another grass slope, and another step, and so on, till&mdash;oh,
+dear me!&nbsp; I wish it was all over; and so did he.&nbsp; And yet
+he thought he could throw a stone into the old woman&rsquo;s garden.</p>
+<p>At last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs; white-beam with its
+great silver-backed leaves, and mountain-ash, and oak; and below them
+cliff and crag, cliff and crag, with great beds of crown-ferns and wood-sedge;
+while through the shrubs he could see the stream sparkling, and hear
+it murmur on the white pebbles.&nbsp; He did not know that it was three
+hundred feet below.</p>
+<p>You would have been giddy, perhaps, at looking down: but Tom was
+not.&nbsp; He was a brave little chimney-sweep; and when he found himself
+on the top of a high cliff, instead of sitting down and crying for his
+baba (though he never had had any baba to cry for), he said, &ldquo;Ah,
+this will just suit me!&rdquo; though he was very tired; and down he
+went, by stock and stone, sedge and ledge, bush and rush, as if he had
+been born a jolly little black ape, with four hands instead of two.</p>
+<p>And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman coming down behind
+him.</p>
+<p>But he was getting terribly tired now.&nbsp; The burning sun on the
+fells had sucked him up; but the damp heat of the woody crag sucked
+him up still more; and the perspiration ran out of the ends of his fingers
+and toes, and washed him cleaner than he had been for a whole year.&nbsp;
+But, of course, he dirtied everything, terribly as he went.&nbsp; There
+has been a great black smudge all down the crag ever since.&nbsp; And
+there have been more black beetles in Vendale since than ever were known
+before; all, of course, owing to Tom&rsquo;s having blacked the original
+papa of them all, just as he was setting off to be married, with a sky-blue
+coat and scarlet leggins, as smart as a gardener&rsquo;s dog with a
+polyanthus in his mouth.</p>
+<p>At last he got to the bottom.&nbsp; But, behold, it was not the bottom&mdash;as
+people usually find when they are coming down a mountain.&nbsp; For
+at the foot of the crag were heaps and heaps of fallen limestone of
+every size from that of your head to that of a stage-waggon, with holes
+between them full of sweet heath-fern; and before Tom got through them,
+he was out in the bright sunshine again; and then he felt, once for
+all and suddenly, as people generally do, that he was b-e-a-t, beat.</p>
+<p>You must expect to be beat a few times in your life, little man,
+if you live such a life as a man ought to live, let you be as strong
+and healthy as you may: and when you are, you will find it a very ugly
+feeling.&nbsp; I hope that that day you may have a stout staunch friend
+by you who is not beat; for, if you have not, you had best lie where
+you are, and wait for better times, as poor Tom did.</p>
+<p>He could not get on.&nbsp; The sun was burning, and yet he felt chill
+all over.&nbsp; He was quite empty, and yet he felt quite sick.&nbsp;
+There was but two hundred yards of smooth pasture between him and the
+cottage, and yet he could not walk down it.&nbsp; He could hear the
+stream murmuring only one field beyond it, and yet it seemed to him
+as if it was a hundred miles off.</p>
+<p>He lay down on the grass till the beetles ran over him, and the flies
+settled on his nose.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know when he would have got
+up again, if the gnats and the midges had not taken compassion on him.&nbsp;
+But the gnats blew their trumpets so loud in his ear, and the midges
+nibbled so at his hands and face wherever they could find a place free
+from soot, that at last he woke up, and stumbled away, down over a low
+wall, and into a narrow road, and up to the cottage-door.</p>
+<p>And a neat pretty cottage it was, with clipped yew hedges all round
+the garden, and yews inside too, cut into peacocks and trumpets and
+teapots and all kinds of queer shapes.&nbsp; And out of the open door
+came a noise like that of the frogs on the Great-A, when they know that
+it is going to be scorching hot to-morrow&mdash;and how they know that
+I don&rsquo;t know, and you don&rsquo;t know, and nobody knows.</p>
+<p>He came slowly up to the open door, which was all hung round with
+clematis and roses; and then peeped in, half afraid.</p>
+<p>And there sat by the empty fireplace, which was filled with a pot
+of sweet herbs, the nicest old woman that ever was seen, in her red
+petticoat, and short dimity bedgown, and clean white cap, with a black
+silk handkerchief over it, tied under her chin.&nbsp; At her feet sat
+the grandfather of all the cats; and opposite her sat, on two benches,
+twelve or fourteen neat, rosy, chubby little children, learning their
+Chris-cross-row; and gabble enough they made about it.</p>
+<p>Such a pleasant cottage it was, with a shiny clean stone floor, and
+curious old prints on the walls, and an old black oak sideboard full
+of bright pewter and brass dishes, and a cuckoo clock in the corner,
+which began shouting as soon as Tom appeared: not that it was frightened
+at Tom, but that it was just eleven o&rsquo;clock.</p>
+<p>All the children started at Tom&rsquo;s dirty black figure,&mdash;the
+girls began to cry, and the boys began to laugh, and all pointed at
+him rudely enough; but Tom was too tired to care for that.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What art thou, and what dost want?&rdquo; cried the old dame.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;A chimney-sweep!&nbsp; Away with thee!&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll have
+no sweeps here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Water,&rdquo; said poor little Tom, quite faint.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Water?&nbsp; There&rsquo;s plenty i&rsquo; the beck,&rdquo;
+she said, quite sharply.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But I can&rsquo;t get there; I&rsquo;m most clemmed with hunger
+and drought.&rdquo;&nbsp; And Tom sank down upon the door-step, and
+laid his head against the post.</p>
+<p>And the old dame looked at him through her spectacles one minute,
+and two, and three; and then she said, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s sick; and a
+bairn&rsquo;s a bairn, sweep or none.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Water,&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;God forgive me!&rdquo; and she put by her spectacles, and
+rose, and came to Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Water&rsquo;s bad for thee; I&rsquo;ll
+give thee milk.&rdquo;&nbsp; And she toddled off into the next room,
+and brought a cup of milk and a bit of bread.</p>
+<p>Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then looked up, revived.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where didst come from?&rdquo; said the dame.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Over Fell, there,&rdquo; said Tom, and pointed up into the
+sky.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Over Harthover? and down Lewthwaite Crag?&nbsp; Art sure thou
+art not lying?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why should I?&rdquo; said Tom, and leant his head against
+the post.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And how got ye up there?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I came over from the Place;&rdquo; and Tom was so tired and
+desperate he had no heart or time to think of a story, so he told all
+the truth in a few words.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Bless thy little heart!&nbsp; And thou hast not been stealing,
+then?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Bless thy little heart! and I&rsquo;ll warrant not.&nbsp;
+Why, God&rsquo;s guided the bairn, because he was innocent!&nbsp; Away
+from the Place, and over Harthover Fell, and down Lewthwaite Crag!&nbsp;
+Who ever heard the like, if God hadn&rsquo;t led him?&nbsp; Why dost
+not eat thy bread?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s good enough, for I made it myself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Tom, and he laid his head on his
+knees, and then asked -</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is it Sunday?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, then; why should it be?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I hear the church-bells ringing so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Bless thy pretty heart!&nbsp; The bairn&rsquo;s sick.&nbsp;
+Come wi&rsquo; me, and I&rsquo;ll hap thee up somewhere.&nbsp; If thou
+wert a bit cleaner I&rsquo;d put thee in my own bed, for the Lord&rsquo;s
+sake.&nbsp; But come along here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired and giddy that she
+had to help him and lead him.</p>
+<p>She put him in an outhouse upon soft sweet hay and an old rug, and
+bade him sleep off his walk, and she would come to him when school was
+over, in an hour&rsquo;s time.</p>
+<p>And so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall fast asleep at once.</p>
+<p>But Tom did not fall asleep.</p>
+<p>Instead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about in the strangest
+way, and felt so hot all over that he longed to get into the river and
+cool himself; and then he fell half asleep, and dreamt that he heard
+the little white lady crying to him, &ldquo;Oh, you&rsquo;re so dirty;
+go and be washed;&rdquo; and then that he heard the Irishwoman saying,
+&ldquo;Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And then he heard the church-bells ring so loud, close to him too, that
+he was sure it must be Sunday, in spite of what the old dame had said;
+and he would go to church, and see what a church was like inside, for
+he had never been in one, poor little fellow, in all his life.&nbsp;
+But the people would never let him come in, all over soot and dirt like
+that.&nbsp; He must go to the river and wash first.&nbsp; And he said
+out loud again and again, though being half asleep he did not know it,
+&ldquo;I must be clean, I must be clean.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And all of a sudden he found himself, not in the outhouse on the
+hay, but in the middle of a meadow, over the road, with the stream just
+before him, saying continually, &ldquo;I must be clean, I must be clean.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+He had got there on his own legs, between sleep and awake, as children
+will often get out of bed, and go about the room, when they are not
+quite well.&nbsp; But he was not a bit surprised, and went on to the
+bank of the brook, and lay down on the grass, and looked into the clear,
+clear limestone water, with every pebble at the bottom bright and clean,
+while the little silver trout dashed about in fright at the sight of
+his black face; and he dipped his hand in and found it so cool, cool,
+cool; and he said, &ldquo;I will be a fish; I will swim in the water;
+I must be clean, I must be clean.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So he pulled off all his clothes in such haste that he tore some
+of them, which was easy enough with such ragged old things.&nbsp; And
+he put his poor hot sore feet into the water; and then his legs; and
+the farther he went in, the more the church-bells rang in his head.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;I must be quick and wash myself;
+the bells are ringing quite loud now; and they will stop soon, and then
+the door will be shut, and I shall never be able to get in at all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom was mistaken: for in England the church doors are left open all
+service time, for everybody who likes to come in, Churchman or Dissenter;
+ay, even if he were a Turk or a Heathen; and if any man dared to turn
+him out, as long as he behaved quietly, the good old English law would
+punish that man, as he deserved, for ordering any peaceable person out
+of God&rsquo;s house, which belongs to all alike.&nbsp; But Tom did
+not know that, any more than he knew a great deal more which people
+ought to know.</p>
+<p>And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman, not behind him this
+time, but before.</p>
+<p>For just before he came to the river side, she had stept down into
+the cool clear water; and her shawl and her petticoat floated off her,
+and the green water-weeds floated round her sides, and the white water-lilies
+floated round her head, and the fairies of the stream came up from the
+bottom and bore her away and down upon their arms; for she was the Queen
+of them all; and perhaps of more besides.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where have you been?&rdquo; they asked her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have been smoothing sick folks&rsquo; pillows, and whispering
+sweet dreams into their ears; opening cottage casements, to let out
+the stifling air; coaxing little children away from gutters, and foul
+pools where fever breeds; turning women from the gin-shop door, and
+staying men&rsquo;s hands as they were going to strike their wives;
+doing all I can to help those who will not help themselves: and little
+enough that is, and weary work for me.&nbsp; But I have brought you
+a new little brother, and watched him safe all the way here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought that they had
+a little brother coming.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But mind, maidens, he must not see you, or know that you are
+here.&nbsp; He is but a savage now, and like the beasts which perish;
+and from the beasts which perish he must learn.&nbsp; So you must not
+play with him, or speak to him, or let him see you: but only keep him
+from being harmed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then the fairies were sad, because they could not play with their
+new brother, but they always did what they were told.</p>
+<p>And their Queen floated away down the river; and whither she went,
+thither she came.&nbsp; But all this Tom, of course, never saw or heard:
+and perhaps if he had it would have made little difference in the story;
+for was so hot and thirsty, and longed so to be clean for once, that
+he tumbled himself as quick as he could into the clear cool stream.</p>
+<p>And he had not been in it two minutes before he fell fast asleep,
+into the quietest, sunniest, cosiest sleep that ever he had in his life;
+and he dreamt about the green meadows by which he had walked that morning,
+and the tall elm-trees, and the sleeping cows; and after that he dreamt
+of nothing at all.</p>
+<p>The reason of his falling into such a delightful sleep is very simple;
+and yet hardly any one has found it out.&nbsp; It was merely that the
+fairies took him.</p>
+<p>Some people think that there are no fairies.&nbsp; Cousin Cramchild
+tells little folks so in his Conversations.&nbsp; Well, perhaps there
+are none&mdash;in Boston, U.S., where he was raised.&nbsp; There are
+only a clumsy lot of spirits there, who can&rsquo;t make people hear
+without thumping on the table: but they get their living thereby, and
+I suppose that is all they want.&nbsp; And Aunt Agitate, in her Arguments
+on political economy, says there are none.&nbsp; Well, perhaps there
+are none&mdash;in her political economy.&nbsp; But it is a wide world,
+my little man&mdash;and thank Heaven for it, for else, between crinolines
+and theories, some of us would get squashed&mdash;and plenty of room
+in it for fairies, without people seeing them; unless, of course, they
+look in the right place.&nbsp; The most wonderful and the strongest
+things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can
+see.&nbsp; There is life in you; and it is the life in you which makes
+you grow, and move, and think: and yet you can&rsquo;t see it.&nbsp;
+And there is steam in a steam-engine; and that is what makes it move:
+and yet you can&rsquo;t see it; and so there may be fairies in the world,
+and they may be just what makes the world go round to the old tune of</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;C&rsquo;est l&rsquo;amour, l&rsquo;amour, l&rsquo;amour<br />Qui
+fait la monde &agrave; la ronde:&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>and yet no one may be able to see them except those whose hearts
+are going round to that same tune.&nbsp; At all events, we will make
+believe that there are fairies in the world.&nbsp; It will not be the
+last time by many a one that we shall have to make believe.&nbsp; And
+yet, after all, there is no need for that.&nbsp; There must be fairies;
+for this is a fairy tale: and how can one have a fairy tale if there
+are no fairies?</p>
+<p>You don&rsquo;t see the logic of that?&nbsp; Perhaps not.&nbsp; Then
+please not to see the logic of a great many arguments exactly like it,
+which you will hear before your beard is gray.</p>
+<p>The kind old dame came back at twelve, when school was over, to look
+at Tom: but there was no Tom there.&nbsp; She looked about for his footprints;
+but the ground was so hard that there was no slot, as they say in dear
+old North Devon.&nbsp; And if you grow up to be a brave healthy man,
+you may know some day what no slot means, and know too, I hope, what
+a slot does mean&mdash;a broad slot, with blunt claws, which makes a
+man put out his cigar, and set his teeth, and tighten his girths, when
+he sees it; and what his rights mean, if he has them, brow, bay, tray,
+and points; and see something worth seeing between Haddon Wood and Countisbury
+Cliff, with good Mr. Palk Collyns to show you the way, and mend your
+bones as fast as you smash them.&nbsp; Only when that jolly day comes,
+please don&rsquo;t break your neck; stogged in a mire you never will
+be, I trust; for you are a heath-cropper bred and born.</p>
+<p>So the old dame went in again quite sulky, thinking that little Tom
+had tricked her with a false story, and shammed ill, and then run away
+again.</p>
+<p>But she altered her mind the next day.&nbsp; For, when Sir John and
+the rest of them had run themselves out of breath, and lost Tom, they
+went back again, looking very foolish.</p>
+<p>And they looked more foolish still when Sir John heard more of the
+story from the nurse; and more foolish still, again, when they heard
+the whole story from Miss Ellie, the little lady in white.&nbsp; All
+she had seen was a poor little black chimney-sweep, crying and sobbing,
+and going to get up the chimney again.&nbsp; Of course, she was very
+much frightened: and no wonder.&nbsp; But that was all.&nbsp; The boy
+had taken nothing in the room; by the mark of his little sooty feet,
+they could see that he had never been off the hearthrug till the nurse
+caught hold of him.&nbsp; It was all a mistake.</p>
+<p>So Sir John told Grimes to go home, and promised him five shillings
+if he would bring the boy quietly up to him, without beating him, that
+he might be sure of the truth.&nbsp; For he took for granted, and Grimes
+too, that Tom had made his way home.</p>
+<p>But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that evening; and he went to the
+police-office, to tell them to look out for the boy.&nbsp; But no Tom
+was heard of.&nbsp; As for his having gone over those great fells to
+Vendale, they no more dreamed of that than of his having gone to the
+moon.</p>
+<p>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&rsquo; hall all day, and
+drink strong ale to wash away his sorrows; and they were washed away
+long before Sir John came back.</p>
+<p>For good Sir John had slept very badly that night; and he said to
+his lady, &ldquo;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.&nbsp; But I know what I will do.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So, at five the next morning up he got, and into his bath, and into
+his shooting-jacket and gaiters, and into the stableyard, like a fine
+old English gentleman, with a face as red as a rose, and a hand as hard
+as a table, and a back as broad as a bullock&rsquo;s; and bade them
+bring his shooting pony, and the keeper to come on his pony, and the
+huntsman, and the first whip, and the second whip, and the under-keeper
+with the bloodhound in a leash&mdash;a great dog as tall as a calf,
+of the colour of a gravel-walk, with mahogany ears and nose, and a throat
+like a church-bell.&nbsp; They took him up to the place where Tom had
+gone into the wood; and there the hound lifted up his mighty voice,
+and told them all he knew.</p>
+<p>Then he took them to the place where Tom had climbed the wall; and
+they shoved it down, and all got through.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; But that was why cunning
+old Sir John started at five in the morning.</p>
+<p>And at last he came to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and there he bayed,
+and looked up in their faces, as much as to say, &ldquo;I tell you he
+is gone down here!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They could hardly believe that Tom would have gone so far; and when
+they looked at that awful cliff, they could never believe that he would
+have dared to face it.&nbsp; But if the dog said so, it must be true.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Heaven forgive us!&rdquo; said Sir John.&nbsp; &ldquo;If we
+find him at all, we shall find him lying at the bottom.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And he slapped his great hand upon his great thigh, and said -</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, and see if that boy
+is alive?&nbsp; Oh that I were twenty years younger, and I would go
+down myself!&rdquo;&nbsp; And so he would have done, as well as any
+sweep in the county.&nbsp; Then he said -</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Twenty pounds to the man who brings me that boy alive!&rdquo;
+and as was his way, what he said he meant.</p>
+<p>Now among the lot was a little groom-boy, a very little groom indeed;
+and he was the same who had ridden up the court, and told Tom to come
+to the Hall; and he said -</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Twenty pounds or none, I will go down over Lewthwaite Crag,
+if it&rsquo;s only for the poor boy&rsquo;s sake.&nbsp; For he was as
+civil a spoken little chap as ever climbed a flue.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So down over Lewthwaite Crag he went: a very smart groom he was at
+the top, and a very shabby one at the bottom; for he tore his gaiters,
+and he tore his breeches, and he tore his jacket, and he burst his braces,
+and he burst his boots, and he lost his hat, and what was worst of all,
+he lost his shirt pin, which he prized very much, for it was gold, and
+he had won it in a raffle at Malton, and there was a figure at the top
+of it, of t&rsquo;ould mare, noble old Beeswing herself, as natural
+as life; so it was a really severe loss: but he never saw anything of
+Tom.</p>
+<p>And all the while Sir John and the rest were riding round, full three
+miles to the right, and back again, to get into Vendale, and to the
+foot of the crag.</p>
+<p>When they came to the old dame&rsquo;s school, all the children came
+out to see.&nbsp; And the old dame came out too; and when she saw Sir
+John, she curtsied very low, for she was a tenant of his.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, dame, and how are you?&rdquo; said Sir John.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Blessings on you as broad as your back, Harthover,&rdquo;
+says she&mdash;she didn&rsquo;t call him Sir John, but only Harthover,
+for that is the fashion in the North country&mdash;&ldquo;and welcome
+into Vendale: but you&rsquo;re no hunting the fox this time of the year?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am hunting, and strange game too,&rdquo; said he.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Blessings on your heart, and what makes you look so sad the
+morn?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep, that
+is run away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Harthover, Harthover,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;ye were
+always a just man and a merciful; and ye&rsquo;ll no harm the poor little
+lad if I give you tidings of him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not I, not I, dame.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m afraid we hunted him out
+of the house all on a miserable mistake, and the hound has brought him
+to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Whereat the old dame broke out crying, without letting him finish
+his story.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So he told me the truth after all, poor little dear!&nbsp;
+Ah, first thoughts are best, and a body&rsquo;s heart&rsquo;ll guide
+them right, if they will but hearken to it.&rdquo;&nbsp; And then she
+told Sir John all.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Bring the dog here, and lay him on,&rdquo; said Sir John,
+without another word, and he set his teeth very hard.</p>
+<p>And the dog opened at once; and went away at the back of the cottage,
+over the road, and over the meadow, and through a bit of alder copse;
+and there, upon an alder stump, they saw Tom&rsquo;s clothes lying.&nbsp;
+And then they knew as much about it all as there was any need to know.</p>
+<p>And Tom?</p>
+<p>Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this wonderful story.&nbsp;
+Tom, when he woke, for of course he woke&mdash;children always wake
+after they have slept exactly as long as is good for them&mdash;found
+himself swimming about in the stream, being about four inches, or&mdash;that
+I may be accurate&mdash;3.87902 inches long and having round the parotid
+region of his fauces a set of external gills (I hope you understand
+all the big words) just like those of a sucking eft, which he mistook
+for a lace frill, till he pulled at them, found he hurt himself, and
+made up his mind that they were part of himself, and best left alone.</p>
+<p>In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.</p>
+<p>A water-baby?&nbsp; You never heard of a water-baby.&nbsp; Perhaps
+not.&nbsp; That is the very reason why this story was written.&nbsp;
+There are a great many things in the world which you never heard of;
+and a great many more which nobody ever heard of; and a great many things,
+too, which nobody will ever hear of, at least until the coming of the
+Cocqcigrues, when man shall be the measure of all things.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But there are no such things as water-babies.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>How do you know that?&nbsp; Have you been there to see?&nbsp; And
+if you had been there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove
+that there were none.&nbsp; If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley
+Wood&mdash;as folks sometimes fear he never will&mdash;that does not
+prove that there are no such things as foxes.&nbsp; And as is Eversley
+Wood to all the woods in England, so are the waters we know to all the
+waters in the world.&nbsp; And no one has a right to say that no water-babies
+exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; which is quite
+a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and a thing which
+nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But surely if there were water-babies, somebody would have
+caught one at least?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Well.&nbsp; How do you know that somebody has not?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But they would have put it into spirits, or into the <i>Illustrated
+News</i>, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing,
+and sent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see
+what they would each say about it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Ah, my dear little man! that does not follow at all, as you will
+see before the end of the story.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But a water-baby is contrary to nature.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Well, but, my dear little man, you must learn to talk about such
+things, when you grow older, in a very different way from that.&nbsp;
+You must not talk about &ldquo;ain&rsquo;t&rdquo; and &ldquo;can&rsquo;t&rdquo;
+when you speak of this great wonderful world round you, of which the
+wisest man knows only the very smallest corner, and is, as the great
+Sir Isaac Newton said, only a child picking up pebbles on the shore
+of a boundless ocean.</p>
+<p>You must not say that this cannot be, or that that is contrary to
+nature.&nbsp; You do not know what Nature is, or what she can do; and
+nobody knows; not even Sir Roderick Murchison, or Professor Owen, or
+Professor Sedgwick, or Professor Huxley, or Mr. Darwin, or Professor
+Faraday, or Mr. Grove, or any other of the great men whom good boys
+are taught to respect.&nbsp; They are very wise men; and you must listen
+respectfully to all they say: but even if they should say, which I am
+sure they never would, &ldquo;That cannot exist.&nbsp; That is contrary
+to nature,&rdquo; you must wait a little, and see; for perhaps even
+they may be wrong.&nbsp; It is only children who read Aunt Agitate&rsquo;s
+Arguments, or Cousin Cramchild&rsquo;s Conversations; or lads who go
+to popular lectures, and see a man pointing at a few big ugly pictures
+on the wall, or making nasty smells with bottles and squirts, for an
+hour or two, and calling that anatomy or chemistry&mdash;who talk about
+&ldquo;cannot exist,&rdquo; and &ldquo;contrary to nature.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Wise men are afraid to say that there is anything contrary to nature,
+except what is contrary to mathematical truth; for two and two cannot
+make five, and two straight lines cannot join twice, and a part cannot
+be as great as the whole, and so on (at least, so it seems at present):
+but the wiser men are, the less they talk about &ldquo;cannot.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+That is a very rash, dangerous word, that &ldquo;cannot&rdquo;; and
+if people use it too often, the Queen of all the Fairies, who makes
+the clouds thunder and the fleas bite, and takes just as much trouble
+about one as about the other, is apt to astonish them suddenly by showing
+them, that though they say she cannot, yet she can, and what is more,
+will, whether they approve or not.</p>
+<p>And therefore it is, that there are dozens and hundreds of things
+in the world which we should certainly have said were contrary to nature,
+if we did not see them going on under our eyes all day long.&nbsp; If
+people had never seen little seeds grow into great plants and trees,
+of quite different shape from themselves, and these trees again produce
+fresh seeds, to grow into fresh trees, they would have said, &ldquo;The
+thing cannot be; it is contrary to nature.&rdquo;&nbsp; And they would
+have been quite as right in saying so, as in saying that most other
+things cannot be.</p>
+<p>Or suppose again, that you had come, like M. Du Chaillu, a traveller
+from unknown parts; and that no human being had ever seen or heard of
+an elephant.&nbsp; And suppose that you described him to people, and
+said, &ldquo;This is the shape, and plan, and anatomy of the beast,
+and of his feet, and of his trunk, and of his grinders, and of his tusks,
+though they are not tusks at all, but two fore teeth run mad; and this
+is the section of his skull, more like a mushroom than a reasonable
+skull of a reasonable or unreasonable beast; and so forth, and so forth;
+and though the beast (which I assure you I have seen and shot) is first
+cousin to the little hairy coney of Scripture, second cousin to a pig,
+and (I suspect) thirteenth or fourteenth cousin to a rabbit, yet he
+is the wisest of all beasts, and can do everything save read, write,
+and cast accounts.&rdquo;&nbsp; People would surely have said, &ldquo;Nonsense;
+your elephant is contrary to nature;&rdquo; and have thought you were
+telling stories&mdash;as the French thought of Le Vaillant when he came
+back to Paris and said that he had shot a giraffe; and as the king of
+the Cannibal Islands thought of the English sailor, when he said that
+in his country water turned to marble, and rain fell as feathers.&nbsp;
+They would tell you, the more they knew of science, &ldquo;Your elephant
+is an impossible monster, contrary to the laws of comparative anatomy,
+as far as yet known.&rdquo;&nbsp; To which you would answer the less,
+the more you thought.</p>
+<p>Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last twenty-five
+years, that a flying dragon was an impossible monster?&nbsp; And do
+we not now know that there are hundreds of them found fossil up and
+down the world?&nbsp; People call them Pterodactyles: but that is only
+because they are ashamed to call them flying dragons, after denying
+so long that flying dragons could exist.</p>
+<p>The truth is, that folks&rsquo; fancy that such and such things cannot
+be, simply because they have not seen them, is worth no more than a
+savage&rsquo;s fancy that there cannot be such a thing as a locomotive,
+because he never saw one running wild in the forest.&nbsp; Wise men
+know that their business is to examine what is, and not to settle what
+is not.&nbsp; They know that there are elephants; they know that there
+have been flying dragons; and the wiser they are, the less inclined
+they will be to say positively that there are no water-babies.</p>
+<p>No water-babies, indeed?&nbsp; Why, wise men of old said that everything
+on earth had its double in the water; and you may see that that is,
+if not quite true, still quite as true as most other theories which
+you are likely to hear for many a day.&nbsp; There are land-babies&mdash;then
+why not water-babies?&nbsp; <i>Are there not water-rats, water-flies,
+water-crickets, water-crabs, water-tortoises, water-scorpions, water-tigers
+and water-hogs, water-cats and water-dogs, sea-lions and sea-bears,
+sea-horses and sea-elephants, sea-mice and sea-urchins, sea-razors and
+sea-pens, sea-combs and sea-fans; and of plants, are there not water-grass,
+and water-crowfoot, water-milfoil, and so on, without end</i>?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But all these things are only nicknames; the water things
+are not really akin to the land things.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>That&rsquo;s not always true.&nbsp; They are, in millions of cases,
+not only of the same family, but actually the same individual creatures.&nbsp;
+Do not even you know that a green drake, and an alder-fly, and a dragon-fly,
+live under water till they change their skins, just as Tom changed his?&nbsp;
+And if a water animal can continually change into a land animal, why
+should not a land animal sometimes change into a water animal?&nbsp;
+Don&rsquo;t be put down by any of Cousin Cramchild&rsquo;s arguments,
+but stand up to him like a man, and answer him (quite respectfully,
+of course) thus:-</p>
+<p>If Cousin Cramchild says, that if there are water-babies, they must
+grow into water-men, ask him how he knows that they do not? and then,
+how he knows that they must, any more than the Proteus of the Adelsberg
+caverns grows into a perfect newt.</p>
+<p>If he says that it is too strange a transformation for a land-baby
+to turn into a water-baby, ask him if he ever heard of the transformation
+of Syllis, or the Distomas, or the common jelly-fish, of which M. Quatrefages
+says excellently well&mdash;&ldquo;Who would not exclaim that a miracle
+had come to pass, if he saw a reptile come out of the egg dropped by
+the hen in his poultry-yard, and the reptile give birth at once to an
+indefinite number of fishes and birds?&nbsp; Yet the history of the
+jelly-fish is quite as wonderful as that would be.&rdquo;&nbsp; Ask
+him if he knows about all this; and if he does not, tell him to go and
+look for himself; and advise him (very respectfully, of course) to settle
+no more what strange things cannot happen, till he has seen what strange
+things do happen every day.</p>
+<p>If he says that things cannot degrade, that is, change downwards
+into lower forms, ask him, who told him that water-babies were lower
+than land-babies?&nbsp; But even if they were, does he know about the
+strange degradation of the common goose-barnacles, which one finds sticking
+on ships&rsquo; bottoms; or the still stranger degradation of some cousins
+of theirs, of which one hardly likes to talk, so shocking and ugly it
+is?</p>
+<p>And, lastly, if he says (as he most certainly will) that these transformations
+only take place in the lower animals, and not in the higher, say that
+that seems to little boys, and to some grown people, a very strange
+fancy.&nbsp; For if the changes of the lower animals are so wonderful,
+and so difficult to discover, why should not there be changes in the
+higher animals far more wonderful, and far more difficult to discover?&nbsp;
+And may not man, the crown and flower of all things, undergo some change
+as much more wonderful than all the rest, as the Great Exhibition is
+more wonderful than a rabbit-burrow?&nbsp; Let him answer that.&nbsp;
+And if he says (as he will) that not having seen such a change in his
+experience, he is not bound to believe it, ask him respectfully, where
+his microscope has been?&nbsp; Does not each of us, in coming into this
+world, go through a transformation just as wonderful as that of a sea-egg,
+or a butterfly? and do not reason and analogy, as well as Scripture,
+tell us that that transformation is not the last? and that, though what
+we shall be, we know not, yet we are here but as the crawling caterpillar,
+and shall be hereafter as the perfect fly.&nbsp; The old Greeks, heathens
+as they were, saw as much as that two thousand years ago; and I care
+very little for Cousin Cramchild, if he sees even less than they.&nbsp;
+And so forth, and so forth, till he is quite cross.&nbsp; And then tell
+him that if there are no water-babies, at least there ought to be; and
+that, at least, he cannot answer.</p>
+<p>And meanwhile, my dear little man, till you know a great deal more
+about nature than Professor Owen and Professor Huxley put together,
+don&rsquo;t tell me about what cannot be, or fancy that anything is
+too wonderful to be true.&nbsp; &ldquo;We are fearfully and wonderfully
+made,&rdquo; said old David; and so we are; and so is everything around
+us, down to the very deal table.&nbsp; Yes; much more fearfully and
+wonderfully made, already, is the table, as it stands now, nothing but
+a piece of dead deal wood, than if, as foxes say, and geese believe,
+spirits could make it dance, or talk to you by rapping on it.</p>
+<p>Am I in earnest?&nbsp; Oh dear no!&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you know that
+this is a fairy tale, and all fun and pretence; and that you are not
+to believe one word of it, even if it is true?</p>
+<p>But at all events, so it happened to Tom.&nbsp; And, therefore, the
+keeper, and the groom, and Sir John made a great mistake, and were very
+unhappy (Sir John at least) without any reason, when they found a black
+thing in the water, and said it was Tom&rsquo;s body, and that he had
+been drowned.&nbsp; They were utterly mistaken.&nbsp; Tom was quite
+alive; and cleaner, and merrier, than he ever had been.&nbsp; The fairies
+had washed him, you see, in the swift river, so thoroughly, that not
+only his dirt, but his whole husk and shell had been washed quite off
+him, and the pretty little real Tom was washed out of the inside of
+it, and swam away, as a caddis does when its case of stones and silk
+is bored through, and away it goes on its back, paddling to the shore,
+there to split its skin, and fly away as a caperer, on four fawn-coloured
+wings, with long legs and horns.&nbsp; They are foolish fellows, the
+caperers, and fly into the candle at night, if you leave the door open.&nbsp;
+We will hope Tom will be wiser, now he has got safe out of his sooty
+old shell.</p>
+<p>But good Sir John did not understand all this, not being a fellow
+of the Linnaean Society; and he took it into his head that Tom was drowned.&nbsp;
+When they looked into the empty pockets of his shell, and found no jewels
+there, nor money&mdash;nothing but three marbles, and a brass button
+with a string to it&mdash;then Sir John did something as like crying
+as ever he did in his life, and blamed himself more bitterly than he
+need have done.&nbsp; So he cried, and the groom-boy cried, and the
+huntsman cried, and the dame cried, and the little girl cried, and the
+dairymaid cried, and the old nurse cried (for it was somewhat her fault),
+and my lady cried, for though people have wigs, that is no reason why
+they should not have hearts; but the keeper did not cry, though he had
+been so good-natured to Tom the morning before; for he was so dried
+up with running after poachers, that you could no more get tears out
+of him than milk out of leather: and Grimes did not cry, for Sir John
+gave him ten pounds, and he drank it all in a week.&nbsp; Sir John sent,
+far and wide, to find Tom&rsquo;s father and mother: but he might have
+looked till Doomsday for them, for one was dead, and the other was in
+Botany Bay.&nbsp; And the little girl would not play with her dolls
+for a whole week, and never forgot poor little Tom.&nbsp; And soon my
+lady put a pretty little tombstone over Tom&rsquo;s shell in the little
+churchyard in Vendale, where the old dalesmen all sleep side by side
+between the lime-stone crags.&nbsp; And the dame decked it with garlands
+every Sunday, till she grew so old that she could not stir abroad; then
+the little children decked it, for her.&nbsp; And always she sang an
+old old song, as she sat spinning what she called her wedding-dress.&nbsp;
+The children could not understand it, but they liked it none the less
+for that; for it was very sweet, and very sad; and that was enough for
+them.&nbsp; And these are the words of it:-</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When all the world is young, lad,<br />And all the trees are green;<br />And
+every goose a swan, lad,<br />And every lass a queen;<br />Then hey
+for boot and horse, lad,<br />And round the world away;<br />Young blood
+must have its course, lad,<br />And every dog his day.</p>
+<p>When all the world is old, lad,<br />And all the trees are brown;<br />And
+all the sport is stale, lad,<br />And all the wheels run down;<br />Creep
+home, and take your place there,<br />The spent and maimed among:<br />God
+grant you find one face there,<br />You loved when all was young.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Those are the words: but they are only the body of it: the soul of
+the song was the dear old woman&rsquo;s sweet face, and sweet voice,
+and the sweet old air to which she sang; and that, alas! one cannot
+put on paper.&nbsp; And at last she grew so stiff and lame, that the
+angels were forced to carry her; and they helped her on with her wedding-dress,
+and carried her up over Harthover Fells, and a long way beyond that
+too; and there was a new schoolmistress in Vendale, and we will hope
+that she was not certificated.</p>
+<p>And all the while Tom was swimming about in the river, with a pretty
+little lace-collar of gills about his neck, as lively as a grig, and
+as clean as a fresh-run salmon.</p>
+<p>Now if you don&rsquo;t like my story, then go to the schoolroom and
+learn your multiplication-table, and see if you like that better.&nbsp;
+Some people, no doubt, would do so.&nbsp; So much the better for us,
+if not for them.&nbsp; It takes all sorts, they say, to make a world.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;He prayeth well who loveth well<br />Both men and bird and
+beast;<br />He prayeth best who loveth best<br />All things both great
+and small:<br />For the dear God who loveth us,<br />He made and loveth
+all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>COLERIDGE.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Tom was now quite amphibious.&nbsp; You do not know what that means?&nbsp;
+You had better, then, ask the nearest Government pupil-teacher, who
+may possibly answer you smartly enough, thus -</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Amphibious.&nbsp; Adjective, derived from two Greek words,
+<i>amphi</i>, a fish, and <i>bios</i>, a beast.&nbsp; An animal supposed
+by our ignorant ancestors to be compounded of a fish and a beast; which
+therefore, like the hippopotamus, can&rsquo;t live on the land, and
+dies in the water.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>However that may be, Tom was amphibious: and what is better still,
+he was clean.&nbsp; For the first time in his life, he felt how comfortable
+it was to have nothing on him but himself.&nbsp; But he only enjoyed
+it: he did not know it, or think about it; just as you enjoy life and
+health, and yet never think about being alive and healthy; and may it
+be long before you have to think about it!</p>
+<p>He did not remember having ever been dirty.&nbsp; Indeed, he did
+not remember any of his old troubles, being tired, or hungry, or beaten,
+or sent up dark chimneys.&nbsp; Since that sweet sleep, he had forgotten
+all about his master, and Harthover Place, and the little white girl,
+and in a word, all that had happened to him when he lived before; and
+what was best of all, he had forgotten all the bad words which he had
+learned from Grimes, and the rude boys with whom he used to play.</p>
+<p>That is not strange: for you know, when you came into this world,
+and became a land-baby, you remembered nothing.&nbsp; So why should
+he, when he became a water-baby?</p>
+<p>Then have you lived before?</p>
+<p>My dear child, who can tell?&nbsp; One can only tell that, by remembering
+something which happened where we lived before; and as we remember nothing,
+we know nothing about it; and no book, and no man, can ever tell us
+certainly.</p>
+<p>There was a wise man once, a very wise man, and a very good man,
+who wrote a poem about the feelings which some children have about having
+lived before; and this is what he said -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;<br />The soul that
+rises with us, our life&rsquo;s star,<br />Hath elsewhere had its setting,<br />And
+cometh from afar:<br />Not in entire forgetfulness,<br />And not in
+utter nakedness,<br />But trailing clouds of glory, do we come<br />From
+God, who is our home.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>There, you can know no more than that.&nbsp; But if I was you, I
+would believe that.&nbsp; For then the great fairy Science, who is likely
+to be queen of all the fairies for many a year to come, can only do
+you good, and never do you harm; and instead of fancying with some people,
+that your body makes your soul, as if a steam-engine could make its
+own coke; or, with some people, that your soul has nothing to do with
+your body, but is only stuck into it like a pin into a pincushion, to
+fall out with the first shake;&mdash;you will believe the one true,</p>
+<pre>orthodox,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; inductive,
+rational,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; deductive,
+philosophical, seductive,
+logical,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  productive,
+irrefragable,&nbsp; salutary,
+nominalistic,&nbsp; comfortable,
+realistic,
+and on-all-accounts-to-be-received</pre>
+<p>doctrine of this wonderful fairy tale; which is, that your soul makes
+your body, just as a snail makes his shell.&nbsp; For the rest, it is
+enough for us to be sure that whether or not we lived before, we shall
+live again; though not, I hope, as poor little heathen Tom did.&nbsp;
+For he went downward into the water: but we, I hope, shall go upward
+to a very different place.</p>
+<p>But Tom was very happy in the water.&nbsp; He had been sadly overworked
+in the land-world; and so now, to make up for that, he had nothing but
+holidays in the water-world for a long, long time to come.&nbsp; He
+had nothing to do now but enjoy himself, and look at all the pretty
+things which are to be seen in the cool clear water-world, where the
+sun is never too hot, and the frost is never too cold.</p>
+<p>And what did he live on?&nbsp; Water-cresses, perhaps; or perhaps
+water-gruel, and water-milk; too many land-babies do so likewise.&nbsp;
+But we do not know what one-tenth of the water-things eat; so we are
+not answerable for the water-babies.</p>
+<p>Sometimes he went along the smooth gravel water-ways, looking at
+the crickets which ran in and out among the stones, as rabbits do on
+land; or he climbed over the ledges of rock, and saw the sand-pipes
+hanging in thousands, with every one of them a pretty little head and
+legs peeping out; or he went into a still corner, and watched the caddises
+eating dead sticks as greedily as you would eat plum-pudding, and building
+their houses with silk and glue.&nbsp; Very fanciful ladies they were;
+none of them would keep to the same materials for a day.&nbsp; One would
+begin with some pebbles; then she would stick on a piece of green wood;
+then she found a shell, and stuck it on too; and the poor shell was
+alive, and did not like at all being taken to build houses with: but
+the caddis did not let him have any voice in the matter, being rude
+and selfish, as vain people are apt to be; then she stuck on a piece
+of rotten wood, then a very smart pink stone, and so on, till she was
+patched all over like an Irishman&rsquo;s coat.&nbsp; Then she found
+a long straw, five times as long as herself, and said, &ldquo;Hurrah!
+my sister has a tail, and I&rsquo;ll have one too;&rdquo; and she stuck
+it on her back, and marched about with it quite proud, though it was
+very inconvenient indeed.&nbsp; And, at that, tails became all the fashion
+among the caddis-baits in that pool, as they were at the end of the
+Long Pond last May, and they all toddled about with long straws sticking
+out behind, getting between each other&rsquo;s legs, and tumbling over
+each other, and looking so ridiculous, that Tom laughed at them till
+he cried, as we did.&nbsp; But they were quite right, you know; for
+people must always follow the fashion, even if it be spoon-bonnets.</p>
+<p>Then sometimes he came to a deep still reach; and there he saw the
+water-forests.&nbsp; They would have looked to you only little weeds:
+but Tom, you must remember, was so little that everything looked a hundred
+times as big to him as it does to you, just as things do to a minnow,
+who sees and catches the little water-creatures which you can only see
+in a microscope.</p>
+<p>And in the water-forest he saw the water-monkeys and water-squirrels
+(they had all six legs, though; everything almost has six legs in the
+water, except efts and water-babies); and nimbly enough they ran among
+the branches.&nbsp; There were water-flowers there too, in thousands;
+and Tom tried to pick them: but as soon as he touched them, they drew
+themselves in and turned into knots of jelly; and then Tom saw that
+they were all alive&mdash;bells, and stars, and wheels, and flowers,
+of all beautiful shapes and colours; and all alive and busy, just as
+Tom was.&nbsp; So now he found that there was a great deal more in the
+world than he had fancied at first sight.</p>
+<p>There was one wonderful little fellow, too, who peeped out of the
+top of a house built of round bricks.&nbsp; He had two big wheels, and
+one little one, all over teeth, spinning round and round like the wheels
+in a thrashing-machine; and Tom stood and stared at him, to see what
+he was going to make with his machinery.&nbsp; And what do you think
+he was doing?&nbsp; Brick-making.&nbsp; With his two big wheels he swept
+together all the mud which floated in the water: all that was nice in
+it he put into his stomach and ate; and all the mud he put into the
+little wheel on his breast, which really was a round hole set with teeth;
+and there he spun it into a neat hard round brick; and then he took
+it and stuck it on the top of his house-wall, and set to work to make
+another. Now was not he a clever little fellow?</p>
+<p>Tom thought so: but when he wanted to talk to him the brick-maker
+was much too busy and proud of his work to take notice of him.</p>
+<p>Now you must know that all the things under the water talk; only
+not such a language as ours; but such as horses, and dogs, and cows,
+and birds talk to each other; and Tom soon learned to understand them
+and talk to them; so that he might have had very pleasant company if
+he had only been a good boy.&nbsp; But I am sorry to say, he was too
+like some other little boys, very fond of hunting and tormenting creatures
+for mere sport.&nbsp; Some people say that boys cannot help it; that
+it is nature, and only a proof that we are all originally descended
+from beasts of prey.&nbsp; But whether it is nature or not, little boys
+can help it, and must help it.&nbsp; For if they have naughty, low,
+mischievous tricks in their nature, as monkeys have, that is no reason
+why they should give way to those tricks like monkeys, who know no better.&nbsp;
+And therefore they must not torment dumb creatures; for if they do,
+a certain old lady who is coming will surely give them exactly what
+they deserve.</p>
+<p>But Tom did not know that; and he pecked and howked the poor water-things
+about sadly, till they were all afraid of him, and got out of his way,
+or crept into their shells; so he had no one to speak to or play with.</p>
+<p>The water-fairies, of course, were very sorry to see him so unhappy,
+and longed to take him, and tell him how naughty he was, and teach him
+to be good, and to play and romp with him too: but they had been forbidden
+to do that.&nbsp; Tom had to learn his lesson for himself by sound and
+sharp experience, as many another foolish person has to do, though there
+may be many a kind heart yearning over them all the while, and longing
+to teach them what they can only teach themselves.</p>
+<p>At last one day he found a caddis, and wanted it to peep out of its
+house: but its house-door was shut.&nbsp; He had never seen a caddis
+with a house-door before: so what must he do, the meddlesome little
+fellow, but pull it open, to see what the poor lady was doing inside.&nbsp;
+What a shame!&nbsp; How should you like to have any one breaking your
+bedroom-door in, to see how you looked when you where in bed?&nbsp;
+So Tom broke to pieces the door, which was the prettiest little grating
+of silk, stuck all over with shining bits of crystal; and when he looked
+in, the caddis poked out her head, and it had turned into just the shape
+of a bird&rsquo;s.&nbsp; But when Tom spoke to her she could not answer;
+for her mouth and face were tight tied up in a new night-cap of neat
+pink skin.&nbsp; However, if she didn&rsquo;t answer, all the other
+caddises did; for they held up their hands and shrieked like the cats
+in Struwelpeter: &ldquo;Oh, you nasty horrid boy; there you are at it
+again!&nbsp; And she had just laid herself up for a fortnight&rsquo;s
+sleep, and then she would have come out with such beautiful wings, and
+flown about, and laid such lots of eggs: and now you have broken her
+door, and she can&rsquo;t mend it because her mouth is tied up for a
+fortnight, and she will die.&nbsp; Who sent you here to worry us out
+of our lives?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So Tom swam away.&nbsp; He was very much ashamed of himself, and
+felt all the naughtier; as little boys do when they have done wrong
+and won&rsquo;t say so.</p>
+<p>Then he came to a pool full of little trout, and began tormenting
+them, and trying to catch them: but they slipped through his fingers,
+and jumped clean out of water in their fright.&nbsp; But as Tom chased
+them, he came close to a great dark hover under an alder root, and out
+floushed a huge old brown trout ten times as big as he was, and ran
+right against him, and knocked all the breath out of his body; and I
+don&rsquo;t know which was the more frightened of the two.</p>
+<p>Then he went on sulky and lonely, as he deserved to be; and under
+a bank he saw a very ugly dirty creature sitting, about half as big
+as himself; which had six legs, and a big stomach, and a most ridiculous
+head with two great eyes and a face just like a donkey&rsquo;s.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;you are an ugly fellow to be sure!&rdquo;
+and he began making faces at him; and put his nose close to him, and
+halloed at him, like a very rude boy.</p>
+<p>When, hey presto; all the thing&rsquo;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.&nbsp; It did not hurt him much; but
+it held him quite tight.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yah, ah!&nbsp; Oh, let me go!&rdquo; cried Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then let me go,&rdquo; said the creature.&nbsp; &ldquo;I want
+to be quiet.&nbsp; I want to split.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom promised to let him alone, and he let go.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why do you want to split?&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because my brothers and sisters have all split, and turned
+into beautiful creatures with wings; and I want to split too.&nbsp;
+Don&rsquo;t speak to me.&nbsp; I am sure I shall split.&nbsp; I will
+split!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom stood still, and watched him.&nbsp; And he swelled himself, and
+puffed, and stretched himself out stiff, and at last&mdash;crack, puff,
+bang&mdash;he opened all down his back, and then up to the top of his
+head.</p>
+<p>And out of his inside came the most slender, elegant, soft creature,
+as soft and smooth as Tom: but very pale and weak, like a little child
+who has been ill a long time in a dark room.&nbsp; It moved its legs
+very feebly; and looked about it half ashamed, like a girl when she
+goes for the first time into a ballroom; and then it began walking slowly
+up a grass stem to the top of the water.</p>
+<p>Tom was so astonished that he never said a word but he stared with
+all his eyes.&nbsp; And he went up to the top of the water too, and
+peeped out to see what would happen.</p>
+<p>And as the creature sat in the warm bright sun, a wonderful change
+came over it.&nbsp; It grew strong and firm; the most lovely colours
+began to show on its body, blue and yellow and black, spots and bars
+and rings; out of its back rose four great wings of bright brown gauze;
+and its eyes grew so large that they filled all its head, and shone
+like ten thousand diamonds.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you beautiful creature!&rdquo; said Tom; and he put out
+his hand to catch it.</p>
+<p>But the thing whirred up into the air, and hung poised on its wings
+a moment, and then settled down again by Tom quite fearless.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No!&rdquo; it said, &ldquo;you cannot catch me.&nbsp; I am
+a dragon-fly now, the king of all the flies; and I shall dance in the
+sunshine, and hawk over the river, and catch gnats, and have a beautiful
+wife like myself.&nbsp; I know what I shall do.&nbsp; Hurrah!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And he flew away into the air, and began catching gnats.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! come back, come back,&rdquo; cried Tom, &ldquo;you beautiful
+creature.&nbsp; I have no one to play with, and I am so lonely here.&nbsp;
+If you will but come back I will never try to catch you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care whether you do or not,&rdquo; said the
+dragon-fly; &ldquo;for you can&rsquo;t.&nbsp; But when I have had my
+dinner, and looked a little about this pretty place, I will come back,
+and have a little chat about all I have seen in my travels.&nbsp; Why,
+what a huge tree this is! and what huge leaves on it!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It was only a big dock: but you know the dragon-fly had never seen
+any but little water-trees; starwort, and milfoil, and water-crowfoot,
+and such like; so it did look very big to him.&nbsp; Besides, he was
+very short-sighted, as all dragon-flies are; and never could see a yard
+before his nose; any more than a great many other folks, who are not
+half as handsome as he.</p>
+<p>The dragon-fly did come back, and chatted away with Tom.&nbsp; He
+was a little conceited about his fine colours and his large wings; but
+you know, he had been a poor dirty ugly creature all his life before;
+so there were great excuses for him.&nbsp; He was very fond of talking
+about all the wonderful things he saw in the trees and the meadows;
+and Tom liked to listen to him, for he had forgotten all about them.&nbsp;
+So in a little while they became great friends.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; And then
+the caddises grew quite tame, and used to tell him strange stories about
+the way they built their houses, and changed their skins, and turned
+at last into winged flies; till Tom began to long to change his skin,
+and have wings like them some day.</p>
+<p>And the trout and he made it up (for trout very soon forget if they
+have been frightened and hurt).&nbsp; So Tom used to play with them
+at hare and hounds, and great fun they had; and he used to try to leap
+out of the water, head over heels, as they did before a shower came
+on; but somehow he never could manage it.&nbsp; He liked most, though,
+to see them rising at the flies, as they sailed round and round under
+the shadow of the great oak, where the beetles fell flop into the water,
+and the green caterpillars let themselves down from the boughs by silk
+ropes for no reason at all; and then changed their foolish minds for
+no reason at all either; and hauled themselves up again into the tree,
+rolling up the rope in a ball between their paws; which is a very clever
+rope-dancer&rsquo;s trick, and neither Blondin nor Leotard could do
+it: but why they should take so much trouble about it no one can tell;
+for they cannot get their living, as Blondin and Leotard do, by trying
+to break their necks on a string.</p>
+<p>And very often Tom caught them just as they touched the water; and
+caught the alder-flies, and the caperers, and the cock-tailed duns and
+spinners, yellow, and brown, and claret, and gray, and gave them to
+his friends the trout.&nbsp; Perhaps he was not quite kind to the flies;
+but one must do a good turn to one&rsquo;s friends when one can.</p>
+<p>And at last he gave up catching even the flies; for he made acquaintance
+with one by accident and found him a very merry little fellow.&nbsp;
+And this was the way it happened; and it is all quite true.</p>
+<p>He was basking at the top of the water one hot day in July, catching
+duns and feeding the trout, when he saw a new sort, a dark gray little
+fellow with a brown head.&nbsp; He was a very little fellow indeed:
+but he made the most of himself, as people ought to do.&nbsp; He cocked
+up his head, and he cocked up his wings, and he cocked up his tail,
+and he cocked up the two whisks at his tail-end, and, in short, he looked
+the cockiest little man of all little men.&nbsp; And so he proved to
+be; for instead of getting away, he hopped upon Tom&rsquo;s finger,
+and sat there as bold as nine tailors; and he cried out in the tiniest,
+shrillest, squeakiest little voice you ever heard,</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Much obliged to you, indeed; but I don&rsquo;t want it yet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Want what?&rdquo; said Tom, quite taken aback by his impudence.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your leg, which you are kind enough to hold out for me to
+sit on.&nbsp; I must just go and see after my wife for a few minutes.&nbsp;
+Dear me! what a troublesome business a family is!&rdquo; (though the
+idle little rogue did nothing at all, but left his poor wife to lay
+all the eggs by herself).&nbsp; &ldquo;When I come back, I shall be
+glad of it, if you&rsquo;ll be so good as to keep it sticking out just
+so;&rdquo; and off he flew.</p>
+<p>Tom thought him a very cool sort of personage; and still more so,
+when, in five minutes he came back, and said&mdash;&ldquo;Ah, you were
+tired waiting?&nbsp; Well, your other leg will do as well.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And he popped himself down on Tom&rsquo;s knee, and began chatting
+away in his squeaking voice.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So you live under the water?&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a low place.&nbsp;
+I lived there for some time; and was very shabby and dirty.&nbsp; But
+I didn&rsquo;t choose that that should last.&nbsp; So I turned respectable,
+and came up to the top, and put on this gray suit.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s
+a very business-like suit, you think, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very neat and quiet indeed,&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, one must be quiet and neat and respectable, and all that
+sort of thing for a little, when one becomes a family man.&nbsp; But
+I&rsquo;m tired of it, that&rsquo;s the truth.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve done
+quite enough business, I consider, in the last week, to last me my life.&nbsp;
+So I shall put on a ball dress, and go out and be a smart man, and see
+the gay world, and have a dance or two.&nbsp; Why shouldn&rsquo;t one
+be jolly if one can?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what will become of your wife?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! she is a very plain stupid creature, and that&rsquo;s
+the truth; and thinks about nothing but eggs.&nbsp; If she chooses to
+come, why she may; and if not, why I go without her;&mdash;and here
+I go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And, as he spoke, he turned quite pale, and then quite white.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, you&rsquo;re ill!&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp; But he did not
+answer.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re dead,&rdquo; said Tom, looking at him as he stood
+on his knee as white as a ghost.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I ain&rsquo;t!&rdquo; answered a little squeaking voice
+over his head.&nbsp; &ldquo;This is me up here, in my ball-dress; and
+that&rsquo;s my skin.&nbsp; Ha, ha! you could not do such a trick as
+that!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And no more Tom could, nor Houdin, nor Robin, nor Frikell, nor all
+the conjurors in the world.&nbsp; For the little rogue had jumped clean
+out of his own skin, and left it standing on Tom&rsquo;s knee, eyes,
+wings, legs, tail, exactly as if it had been alive.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ha, ha!&rdquo; he said, and he jerked and skipped up and down,
+never stopping an instant, just as if he had St. Vitus&rsquo;s dance.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Ain&rsquo;t I a pretty fellow now?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And so he was; for his body was white, and his tail orange, and his
+eyes all the colours of a peacock&rsquo;s tail.&nbsp; And what was the
+oddest of all, the whisks at the end of his tail had grown five times
+as long as they were before.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;now I will see the gay world.&nbsp;
+My living, won&rsquo;t cost me much, for I have no mouth, you see, and
+no inside; so I can never be hungry nor have the stomach-ache neither.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>No more he had.&nbsp; He had grown as dry and hard and empty as a
+quill, as such silly shallow-hearted fellows deserve to grow.</p>
+<p>But, instead of being ashamed of his emptiness, he was quite proud
+of it, as a good many fine gentlemen are, and began flirting and flipping
+up and down, and singing -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;My wife shall dance, and I shall sing,<br />So merrily pass
+the day;<br />For I hold it for quite the wisest thing,<br />To drive
+dull care away.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>And he danced up and down for three days and three nights, till he
+grew so tired, that he tumbled into the water, and floated down.&nbsp;
+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 -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;To drive dull care away-ay-ay!&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>And if he did not care, why nobody else cared either.</p>
+<p>But one day Tom had a new adventure.&nbsp; He was sitting on a water-lily
+leaf, he and his friend the dragon-fly, watching the gnats dance.&nbsp;
+The dragon-fly had eaten as many as he wanted, and was sitting quite
+still and sleepy, for it was very hot and bright.&nbsp; The gnats (who
+did not care the least for their poor brothers&rsquo; death) danced
+a foot over his head quite happily, and a large black fly settled within
+an inch of his nose, and began washing his own face and combing his
+hair with his paws: but the dragon-fly never stirred, and kept on chatting
+to Tom about the times when he lived under the water.</p>
+<p>Suddenly, Tom heard the strangest noise up the stream; cooing, and
+grunting, and whining, and squeaking, as if you had put into a bag two
+stock-doves, nine mice, three guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy, and left
+them there to settle themselves and make music.</p>
+<p>He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as the
+noise; a great ball rolling over and over down the stream, seeming one
+moment of soft brown fur, and the next of shining glass: and yet it
+was not a ball; for sometimes it broke up and streamed away in pieces,
+and then it joined again; and all the while the noise came out of it
+louder and louder.</p>
+<p>Tom asked the dragon-fly what it could be: but, of course, with his
+short sight, he could not even see it, though it was not ten yards away.&nbsp;
+So he took the neatest little header into the water, and started off
+to see for himself; and, when he came near, the ball turned out to be
+four or five beautiful creatures, many times larger than Tom, who were
+swimming about, and rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling,
+and cuddling, and kissing and biting, and scratching, in the most charming
+fashion that ever was seen.&nbsp; And if you don&rsquo;t believe me,
+you may go to the Zoological Gardens (for I am afraid that you won&rsquo;t
+see it nearer, unless, perhaps, you get up at five in the morning, and
+go down to Cordery&rsquo;s Moor, and watch by the great withy pollard
+which hangs over the backwater, where the otters breed sometimes), and
+then say, if otters at play in the water are not the merriest, lithest,
+gracefullest creatures you ever saw.</p>
+<p>But, when the biggest of them saw Tom, she darted out from the rest,
+and cried in the water-language sharply enough, &ldquo;Quick, children,
+here is something to eat, indeed!&rdquo; and came at poor Tom, showing
+such a wicked pair of eyes, and such a set of sharp teeth in a grinning
+mouth, that Tom, who had thought her very handsome, said to himself,
+<i>Handsome is that</i> <i>handsome does</i>, and slipped in between
+the water-lily roots as fast as he could, and then turned round and
+made faces at her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come out,&rdquo; said the wicked old otter, &ldquo;or it will
+be worse for you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But Tom looked at her from between two thick roots, and shook them
+with all his might, making horrible faces all the while, just as he
+used to grin through the railings at the old women, when he lived before.&nbsp;
+It was not quite well bred, no doubt; but you know, Tom had not finished
+his education yet.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come, away, children,&rdquo; said the otter in disgust, &ldquo;it
+is not worth eating, after all.&nbsp; It is only a nasty eft, which
+nothing eats, not even those vulgar pike in the pond.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am not an eft!&rdquo; said Tom; &ldquo;efts have tails.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are an eft,&rdquo; said the otter, very positively; &ldquo;I
+see your two hands quite plain, and I know you have a tail.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I tell you I have not,&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Look
+here!&rdquo; and he turned his pretty little self quite round; and,
+sure enough, he had no more tail than you.</p>
+<p>The otter might have got out of it by saying that Tom was a frog:
+but, like a great many other people, when she had once said a thing,
+she stood to it, right or wrong; so she answered:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I say you are an eft, and therefore you are, and not fit food
+for gentlefolk like me and my children.&nbsp; You may stay there till
+the salmon eat you (she knew the salmon would not, but she wanted to
+frighten poor Tom).&nbsp; Ha! ha! they will eat you, and we will eat
+them;&rdquo; and the otter laughed such a wicked cruel laugh&mdash;as
+you may hear them do sometimes; and the first time that you hear it
+you will probably think it is bogies.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are salmon?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Fish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat.&nbsp; They are
+the lords of the fish, and we are lords of the salmon;&rdquo; and she
+laughed again.&nbsp; &ldquo;We hunt them up and down the pools, and
+drive them up into a corner, the silly things; they are so proud, and
+bully the little trout, and the minnows, till they see us coming, and
+then they are so meek all at once, and we catch them, but we disdain
+to eat them all; we just bite out their soft throats and suck their
+sweet juice&mdash;Oh, so good!&rdquo;&mdash;(and she licked her wicked
+lips)&mdash;&ldquo;and then throw them away, and go and catch another.&nbsp;
+They are coming soon, children, coming soon; I can smell the rain coming
+up off the sea, and then hurrah for a fresh, and salmon, and plenty
+of eating all day long.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And the otter grew so proud that she turned head over heels twice,
+and then stood upright half out of the water, grinning like a Cheshire
+cat.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And where do they come from?&rdquo; asked Tom, who kept himself
+very close, for he was considerably frightened.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Out of the sea, eft, the great wide sea, where they might
+stay and be safe if they liked.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; And there
+we fish for the bass and the pollock, and have jolly days along the
+shore, and toss and roll in the breakers, and sleep snug in the warm
+dry crags.&nbsp; Ah, that is a merry life too, children, if it were
+not for those horrid men.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are men?&rdquo; asked Tom; but somehow he seemed to know
+before he asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Two-legged things, eft: and, now I come to look at you, they
+are actually something like you, if you had not a tail&rdquo; (she was
+determined that Tom should have a tail), &ldquo;only a great deal bigger,
+worse luck for us; and they catch the fish with hooks and lines, which
+get into our feet sometimes, and set pots along the rocks to catch lobsters.&nbsp;
+They speared my poor dear husband as he went out to find something for
+me to eat.&nbsp; I was laid up among the crags then, and we were very
+low in the world, for the sea was so rough that no fish would come in
+shore.&nbsp; But they speared him, poor fellow, and I saw them carrying
+him away upon a pole.&nbsp; All, he lost his life for your sakes, my
+children, poor dear obedient creature that he was.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And the otter grew so sentimental (for otters can be very sentimental
+when they choose, like a good many people who are both cruel and greedy,
+and no good to anybody at all) that she sailed solemnly away down the
+burn, and Tom saw her no more for that time.&nbsp; And lucky it was
+for her that she did so; for no sooner was she gone, than down the bank
+came seven little rough terrier doors, snuffing and yapping, and grubbing
+and splashing, in full cry after the otter.&nbsp; Tom hid among the
+water-lilies till they were gone; for he could not guess that they were
+the water-fairies come to help him.</p>
+<p>But he could not help thinking of what the otter had said about the
+great river and the broad sea.&nbsp; And, as he thought, he longed to
+go and see them.&nbsp; He could not tell why; but the more he thought,
+the more he grew discontented with the narrow little stream in which
+he lived, and all his companions there; and wanted to get out into the
+wide wide world, and enjoy all the wonderful sights of which he was
+sure it was full.</p>
+<p>And once he set off to go down the stream.&nbsp; But the stream was
+very low; and when he came to the shallows he could not keep under water,
+for there was no water left to keep under.&nbsp; So the sun burned his
+back and made him sick; and he went back again and lay quiet in the
+pool for a whole week more.</p>
+<p>And then, on the evening of a very hot day, he saw a sight.</p>
+<p>He had been very stupid all day, and so had the trout; for they would
+not move an inch to take a fly, though there were thousands on the water,
+but lay dozing at the bottom under the shade of the stones; and Tom
+lay dozing too, and was glad to cuddle their smooth cool sides, for
+the water was quite warm and unpleasant.</p>
+<p>But toward evening it grew suddenly dark, and Tom looked up and saw
+a blanket of black clouds lying right across the valley above his head,
+resting on the crags right and left.&nbsp; He felt not quite frightened,
+but very still; for everything was still.&nbsp; There was not a whisper
+of wind, nor a chirp of a bird to be heard; and next a few great drops
+of rain fell plop into the water, and one hit Tom on the nose, and made
+him pop his head down quickly enough.</p>
+<p>And then the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed, and leapt
+across Vendale and back again, from cloud to cloud, and cliff to cliff,
+till the very rocks in the stream seemed to shake: and Tom looked up
+at it through the water, and thought it the finest thing he ever saw
+in his life.</p>
+<p>But out of the water he dared not put his head; for the rain came
+down by bucketsful, and the hail hammered like shot on the stream, and
+churned it into foam; and soon the stream rose, and rushed down, higher
+and higher, and fouler and fouler, full of beetles, and sticks; and
+straws, and worms, and addle-eggs, and wood-lice, and leeches, and odds
+and ends, and omnium-gatherums, and this, that, and the other, enough
+to fill nine museums.</p>
+<p>Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and hid behind a rock.&nbsp;
+But the trout did not; for out they rushed from among the stones, and
+began gobbling the beetles and leeches in the most greedy and quarrelsome
+way, and swimming about with great worms hanging out of their mouths,
+tugging and kicking to get them away from each other.</p>
+<p>And now, by the flashes of the lightning, Tom saw a new sight&mdash;all
+the bottom of the stream alive with great eels, turning and twisting
+along, all down stream and away.&nbsp; They had been hiding for weeks
+past in the cracks of the rocks, and in burrows in the mud; and Tom
+had hardly ever seen them, except now and then at night: but now they
+were all out, and went hurrying past him so fiercely and wildly that
+he was quite frightened.&nbsp; And as they hurried past he could hear
+them say to each other, &ldquo;We must run, we must run.&nbsp; What
+a jolly thunderstorm!&nbsp; Down to the sea, down to the sea!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And then the otter came by with all her brood, twining and sweeping
+along as fast as the eels themselves; and she spied Tom as she came
+by, and said &ldquo;Now is your time, eft, if you want to see the world.&nbsp;
+Come along, children, never mind those nasty eels: we shall breakfast
+on salmon to-morrow.&nbsp; Down to the sea, down to the sea!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then came a flash brighter than all the rest, and by the light of
+it&mdash;in the thousandth part of a second they were gone again&mdash;but
+he had seen them, he was certain of it&mdash;Three beautiful little
+white girls, with their arms twined round each other&rsquo;s necks,
+floating down the torrent, as they sang, &ldquo;Down to the sea, down
+to the sea!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh stay!&nbsp; Wait for me!&rdquo; cried Tom; but they were
+gone: yet he could hear their voices clear and sweet through the roar
+of thunder and water and wind, singing as they died away, &ldquo;Down
+to the sea!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Down to the sea?&rdquo; said Tom; &ldquo;everything is going
+to the sea, and I will go too.&nbsp; Good-bye, trout.&rdquo;&nbsp; But
+the trout were so busy gobbling worms that they never turned to answer
+him; so that Tom was spared the pain of bidding them farewell.</p>
+<p>And now, down the rushing stream, guided by the bright flashes of
+the storm; past tall birch-fringed rocks, which shone out one moment
+as clear as day, and the next were dark as night; past dark hovers under
+swirling banks, from which great trout rushed out on Tom, thinking him
+to be good to eat, and turned back sulkily, for the fairies sent them
+home again with a tremendous scolding, for daring to meddle with a water-baby;
+on through narrow strids and roaring cataracts, where Tom was deafened
+and blinded for a moment by the rushing waters; along deep reaches,
+where the white water-lilies tossed and flapped beneath the wind and
+hail; past sleeping villages; under dark bridge-arches, and away and
+away to the sea.&nbsp; And Tom could not stop, and did not care to stop;
+he would see the great world below, and the salmon, and the breakers,
+and the wide wide sea.</p>
+<p>And when the daylight came, Tom found himself out in the salmon river.</p>
+<p>And what sort of a river was it?&nbsp; Was it like an Irish stream,
+winding through the brown bogs, where the wild ducks squatter up from
+among the white water-lilies, and the curlews flit to and fro, crying
+&ldquo;Tullie-wheep, mind your sheep;&rdquo; and Dennis tells you strange
+stories of the Peishtamore, the great bogy-snake which lies in the black
+peat pools, among the old pine-stems, and puts his head out at night
+to snap at the cattle as they come down to drink?&mdash;But you must
+not believe all that Dennis tells you, mind; for if you ask him:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is there a salmon here, do you think, Dennis?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is it salmon, thin, your honour manes?&nbsp; Salmon?&nbsp;
+Cartloads it is of thim, thin, an&rsquo; ridgmens, shouldthering ache
+out of water, av&rsquo; ye&rsquo;d but the luck to see thim.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then you fish the pool all over, and never get a rise.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But there can&rsquo;t be a salmon here, Dennis! and, if you&rsquo;ll
+but think, if one had come up last tide, he&rsquo;d be gone to the higher
+pools by now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shure thin, and your honour&rsquo;s the thrue fisherman, and
+understands it all like a book.&nbsp; Why, ye spake as if ye&rsquo;d
+known the wather a thousand years!&nbsp; As I said, how could there
+be a fish here at all, just now?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you said just now they were shouldering each other out
+of water?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And then Dennis will look up at you with his handsome, sly, soft,
+sleepy, good-natured, untrustable, Irish gray eye, and answer with the
+prettiest smile:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shure, and didn&rsquo;t I think your honour would like a pleasant
+answer?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So you must not trust Dennis, because he is in the habit of giving
+pleasant answers: but, instead of being angry with him, you must remember
+that he is a poor Paddy, and knows no better; so you must just burst
+out laughing; and then he will burst out laughing too, and slave for
+you, and trot about after you, and show you good sport if he can&mdash;for
+he is an affectionate fellow, and as fond of sport as you are&mdash;and
+if he can&rsquo;t, tell you fibs instead, a hundred an hour; and wonder
+all the while why poor ould Ireland does not prosper like England and
+Scotland, and some other places, where folk have taken up a ridiculous
+fancy that honesty is the best policy.</p>
+<p>Or was it like a Welsh salmon river, which is remarkable chiefly
+(at least, till this last year) for containing no salmon, as they have
+been all poached out by the enlightened peasantry, to prevent the <i>Cythrawl
+Sassenach</i> (which means you, my little dear, your kith and kin, and
+signifies much the same as the Chinese <i>Fan Quei</i>) from coming
+bothering into Wales, with good tackle, and ready money, and civilisation,
+and common honesty, and other like things of which the Cymry stand in
+no need whatsoever?</p>
+<p>Or was it such a salmon stream as I trust you will see among the
+Hampshire water-meadows before your hairs are gray, under the wise new
+fishing-laws?&mdash;when Winchester apprentices shall covenant, as they
+did three hundred years ago, not to be made to eat salmon more than
+three days a week; and fresh-run fish shall be as plentiful under Salisbury
+spire as they are in Holly-hole at Christchurch; in the good time coming,
+when folks shall see that, of all Heaven&rsquo;s gifts of food, the
+one to be protected most carefully is that worthy gentleman salmon,
+who is generous enough to go down to the sea weighing five ounces, and
+to come back next year weighing five pounds, without having cost the
+soil or the state one farthing?</p>
+<p>Or was it like a Scotch stream, such as Arthur Clough drew in his
+&ldquo;Bothie&rdquo;:-</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Where over a ledge of granite<br />Into a granite bason the
+amber torrent descended. . . . .<br />Beautiful there for the colour
+derived from green rocks under;<br />Beautiful most of all, where beads
+of foam uprising<br />Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate
+hue of the stillness. . . .<br />Cliff over cliff for its sides, with
+rowan and pendant birch boughs.&rdquo; . . .</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Ah, my little man, when you are a big man, and fish such a stream
+as that, you will hardly care, I think, whether she be roaring down
+in full spate, like coffee covered with scald cream, while the fish
+are swirling at your fly as an oar-blade swirls in a boat-race, or flashing
+up the cataract like silver arrows, out of the fiercest of the foam;
+or whether the fall be dwindled to a single thread, and the shingle
+below be as white and dusty as a turnpike road, while the salmon huddle
+together in one dark cloud in the clear amber pool, sleeping away their
+time till the rain creeps back again off the sea.&nbsp; You will not
+care much, if you have eyes and brains; for you will lay down your rod
+contentedly, and drink in at your eyes the beauty of that glorious place;
+and listen to the water-ouzel piping on the stones, and watch the yellow
+roes come down to drink and look up at you with their great soft trustful
+eyes, as much as to say, &ldquo;You could not have the heart to shoot
+at us?&rdquo;&nbsp; And then, if you have sense, you will turn and talk
+to the great giant of a gilly who lies basking on the stone beside you.&nbsp;
+He will tell you no fibs, my little man; for he is a Scotchman, and
+fears God, and not the priest; and, as you talk with him, you will be
+surprised more and more at his knowledge, his sense, his humour, his
+courtesy; and you will find out&mdash;unless you have found it out before&mdash;that
+a man may learn from his Bible to be a more thorough gentleman than
+if he had been brought up in all the drawing-rooms in London.</p>
+<p>No.&nbsp; It was none of these, the salmon stream at Harthover.&nbsp;
+It was such a stream as you see in dear old Bewick; Bewick, who was
+born and bred upon them.&nbsp; A full hundred yards broad it was, sliding
+on from broad pool to broad shallow, and broad shallow to broad pool,
+over great fields of shingle, under oak and ash coverts, past low cliffs
+of sandstone, past green meadows, and fair parks, and a great house
+of gray stone, and brown moors above, and here and there against the
+sky the smoking chimney of a colliery.&nbsp; You must look at Bewick
+to see just what it was like, for he has drawn it a hundred times with
+the care and the love of a true north countryman; and, even if you do
+not care about the salmon river, you ought, like all good boys, to know
+your Bewick.</p>
+<p>At least, so old Sir John used to say, and very sensibly he put it
+too, as he was wont to do:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If they want to describe a finished young gentleman in France,
+I hear, they say of him, &lsquo;<i>Il sait son</i> <i>Rabelais</i>.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+But if I want to describe one in England, I say, &lsquo;<i>He knows
+his Bewick</i>.&rsquo;&nbsp; And I think that is the higher compliment.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But Tom thought nothing about what the river was like.&nbsp; All
+his fancy was, to get down to the wide wide sea.</p>
+<p>And after a while he came to a place where the river spread out into
+broad still shallow reaches, so wide that little Tom, as he put his
+head out of the water, could hardly see across.</p>
+<p>And there he stopped.&nbsp; He got a little frightened.&nbsp; &ldquo;This
+must be the sea,&rdquo; he thought.&nbsp; &ldquo;What a wide place it
+is!&nbsp; If I go on into it I shall surely lose my way, or some strange
+thing will bite me.&nbsp; I will stop here and look out for the otter,
+or the eels, or some one to tell me where I shall go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So he went back a little way, and crept into a crack of the rock,
+just where the river opened out into the wide shallows, and watched
+for some one to tell him his way: but the otter and the eels were gone
+on miles and miles down the stream.</p>
+<p>There he waited, and slept too, for he was quite tired with his night&rsquo;s
+journey; and, when he woke, the stream was clearing to a beautiful amber
+hue, though it was still very high.&nbsp; And after a while he saw a
+sight which made him jump up; for he knew in a moment it was one of
+the things which he had come to look for.</p>
+<p>Such a fish! ten times as big as the biggest trout, and a hundred
+times as big as Tom, sculling up the stream past him, as easily as Tom
+had sculled down.</p>
+<p>Such a fish! shining silver from head to tail, and here and there
+a crimson dot; with a grand hooked nose and grand curling lip, and a
+grand bright eye, looking round him as proudly as a king, and surveying
+the water right and left as if all belonged to him.&nbsp; Surely he
+must be the salmon, the king of all the fish.</p>
+<p>Tom was so frightened that he longed to creep into a hole; but he
+need not have been; for salmon are all true gentlemen, and, like true
+gentlemen, they look noble and proud enough, and yet, like true gentlemen,
+they never harm or quarrel with any one, but go about their own business,
+and leave rude fellows to themselves.</p>
+<p>The salmon looked at him full in the face, and then went on without
+minding him, with a swish or two of his tail which made the stream boil
+again. And in a few minutes came another, and then four or five, and
+so on; and all passed Tom, rushing and plunging up the cataract with
+strong strokes of their silver tails, now and then leaping clean out
+of water and up over a rock, shining gloriously for a moment in the
+bright sun; while Tom was so delighted that he could have watched them
+all day long.</p>
+<p>And at last one came up bigger than all the rest; but he came slowly,
+and stopped, and looked back, and seemed very anxious and busy.&nbsp;
+And Tom saw that he was helping another salmon, an especially handsome
+one, who had not a single spot upon it, but was clothed in pure silver
+from nose to tail.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; said the great fish to his companion, &ldquo;you
+really look dreadfully tired, and you must not over-exert yourself at
+first.&nbsp; Do rest yourself behind this rock;&rdquo; and he shoved
+her gently with his nose, to the rock where Tom sat.</p>
+<p>You must know that this was the salmon&rsquo;s wife.&nbsp; For salmon,
+like other true gentlemen, always choose their lady, and love her, and
+are true to her, and take care of her and work for her, and fight for
+her, as every true gentleman ought; and are not like vulgar chub and
+roach and pike, who have no high feelings, and take no care of their
+wives.</p>
+<p>Then he saw Tom, and looked at him very fiercely one moment, as if
+he was going to bite him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you want here?&rdquo; he said, very fiercely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t hurt me!&rdquo; cried Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+only want to look at you; you are so handsome.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah?&rdquo; said the salmon, very stately but very civilly.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I really beg your pardon; I see what you are, my little dear.&nbsp;
+I have met one or two creatures like you before, and found them very
+agreeable and well-behaved.&nbsp; Indeed, one of them showed me a great
+kindness lately, which I hope to be able to repay.&nbsp; I hope we shall
+not be in your way here.&nbsp; As soon as this lady is rested, we shall
+proceed on our journey.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>What a well-bred old salmon he was!</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So you have seen things like me before?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Several times, my dear.&nbsp; Indeed, it was only last night
+that one at the river&rsquo;s mouth came and warned me and my wife of
+some new stake-nets which had got into the stream, I cannot tell how,
+since last winter, and showed us the way round them, in the most charmingly
+obliging way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So there are babies in the sea?&rdquo; cried Tom, and clapped
+his little hands.&nbsp; &ldquo;Then I shall have some one to play with
+there?&nbsp; How delightful!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Were there no babies up this stream?&rdquo; asked the lady
+salmon.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No! and I grew so lonely.&nbsp; I thought I saw three last
+night; but they were gone in an instant, down to the sea.&nbsp; So I
+went too; for I had nothing to play with but caddises and dragon-flies
+and trout.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ugh!&rdquo; cried the lady, &ldquo;what low company!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear, if he has been in low company, he has certainly not
+learnt their low manners,&rdquo; said the salmon.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, indeed, poor little dear: but how sad for him to live
+among such people as caddises, who have actually six legs, the nasty
+things; and dragon-flies, too! why they are not even good to eat; for
+I tried them once, and they are all hard and empty; and, as for trout,
+every one knows what they are.&rdquo;&nbsp; Whereon she curled up her
+lip, and looked dreadfully scornful, while her husband curled up his
+too, till he looked as proud as Alcibiades.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why do you dislike the trout so?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear, we do not even mention them, if we can help it; for
+I am sorry to say they are relations of ours who do us no credit.&nbsp;
+A great many years ago they were just like us: but they were so lazy,
+and cowardly, and greedy, that instead of going down to the sea every
+year to see the world and grow strong and fat, they chose to stay and
+poke about in the little streams and eat worms and grubs; and they are
+very properly punished for it; for they have grown ugly and brown and
+spotted and small; and are actually so degraded in their tastes, that
+they will eat our children.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And then they pretend to scrape acquaintance with us again,&rdquo;
+said the lady.&nbsp; &ldquo;Why, I have actually known one of them propose
+to a lady salmon, the little impudent little creature.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should hope,&rdquo; said the gentleman, &ldquo;that there
+are very few ladies of our race who would degrade themselves by listening
+to such a creature for an instant.&nbsp; If I saw such a thing happen,
+I should consider it my duty to put them both to death upon the spot.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+So the old salmon said, like an old blue-blooded hidalgo of Spain; and
+what is more, he would have done it too.&nbsp; For you must know, no
+enemies are so bitter against each other as those who are of the same
+race; and a salmon looks on a trout, as some great folks look on some
+little folks, as something just too much like himself to be tolerated.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;<br />Our meddling intellect<br />Mis-shapes
+the beauteous forms of things<br />We murder to dissect.</p>
+<p>Enough of science and of art:<br />Close up these barren leaves;<br />Come
+forth, and bring with you a heart<br />That watches and receives.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>WORDSWORTH.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>So the salmon went up, after Tom had warned them of the wicked old
+otter; and Tom went down, but slowly and cautiously, coasting along
+shore.&nbsp; He was many days about it, for it was many miles down to
+the sea; and perhaps he would never have found his way, if the fairies
+had not guided him, without his seeing their fair faces, or feeling
+their gentle hands.</p>
+<p>And, as he went, he had a very strange adventure.&nbsp; It was a
+clear still September night, and the moon shone so brightly down through
+the water, that he could not sleep, though he shut his eyes as tight
+as possible.&nbsp; So at last he came up to the top, and sat upon a
+little point of rock, and looked up at the broad yellow moon, and wondered
+what she was, and thought that she looked at him.&nbsp; And he watched
+the moonlight on the rippling river, and the black heads of the firs,
+and the silver-frosted lawns, and listened to the owl&rsquo;s hoot,
+and the snipe&rsquo;s bleat, and the fox&rsquo;s bark, and the otter&rsquo;s
+laugh; and smelt the soft perfume of the birches, and the wafts of heather
+honey off the grouse moor far above; and felt very happy, though he
+could not well tell why.&nbsp; You, of course, would have been very
+cold sitting there on a September night, without the least bit of clothes
+on your wet back; but Tom was a water-baby, and therefore felt cold
+no more than a fish.</p>
+<p>Suddenly, he saw a beautiful sight.&nbsp; A bright red light moved
+along the river-side, and threw down into the water a long tap-root
+of flame.&nbsp; Tom, curious little rogue that he was, must needs go
+and see what it was; so he swam to the shore, and met the light as it
+stopped over a shallow run at the edge of a low rock.</p>
+<p>And there, underneath the light, lay five or six great salmon, looking
+up at the flame with their great goggle eyes, and wagging their tails,
+as if they were very much pleased at it.</p>
+<p>Tom came to the top, to look at this wonderful light nearer, and
+made a splash.</p>
+<p>And he heard a voice say:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There was a fish rose.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He did not know what the words meant: but he seemed to know the sound
+of them, and to know the voice which spoke them; and he saw on the bank
+three great two-legged creatures, one of whom held the light, flaring
+and sputtering, and another a long pole.&nbsp; And he knew that they
+were men, and was frightened, and crept into a hole in the rock, from
+which he could see what went on.</p>
+<p>The man with the torch bent down over the water, and looked earnestly
+in; and then he said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tak&rsquo; that muckle fellow, lad; he&rsquo;s ower fifteen
+punds; and haud your hand steady.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom felt that there was some danger coming, and longed to warn the
+foolish salmon, who kept staring up at the light as if he was bewitched.&nbsp;
+But before he could make up his mind, down came the pole through the
+water; there was a fearful splash and struggle, and Tom saw that the
+poor salmon was speared right through, and was lifted out of the water.</p>
+<p>And then, from behind, there sprang on these three men three other
+men; and there were shouts, and blows, and words which Tom recollected
+to have heard before; and he shuddered and turned sick at them now,
+for he felt somehow that they were strange, and ugly, and wrong, and
+horrible.&nbsp; And it all began to come back to him.&nbsp; They were
+men; and they were fighting; savage, desperate, up-and-down fighting,
+such as Tom had seen too many times before.</p>
+<p>And he stopped his little ears, and longed to swim away; and was
+very glad that he was a water-baby, and had nothing to do any more with
+horrid dirty men, with foul clothes on their backs, and foul words on
+their lips; but he dared not stir out of his hole: while the rock shook
+over his head with the trampling and struggling of the keepers and the
+poachers.</p>
+<p>All of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, and a frightful flash,
+and a hissing, and all was still.</p>
+<p>For into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the men; he who held
+the light in his hand.&nbsp; Into the swift river he sank, and rolled
+over and over in the current.&nbsp; Tom heard the men above run along
+seemingly looking for him; but he drifted down into the deep hole below,
+and there lay quite still, and they could not find him.</p>
+<p>Tom waited a long time, till all was quiet; and then he peeped out,
+and saw the man lying.&nbsp; At last he screwed up his courage and swam
+down to him.&nbsp; &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;the water
+has made him fall asleep, as it did me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then he went nearer.&nbsp; He grew more and more curious, he could
+not tell why.&nbsp; He must go and look at him.&nbsp; He would go very
+quietly, of course; so he swam round and round him, closer and closer;
+and, as he did not stir, at last he came quite close and looked him
+in the face.</p>
+<p>The moon shone so bright that Tom could see every feature; and, as
+he saw, he recollected, bit by bit, it was his old master, Grimes.</p>
+<p>Tom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he could.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh dear me!&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;now he will turn into
+a water-baby.&nbsp; What a nasty troublesome one he will be!&nbsp; And
+perhaps he will find me out, and beat me again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So he went up the river again a little way, and lay there the rest
+of the night under an alder root; but, when morning came, he longed
+to go down again to the big pool, and see whether Mr. Grimes had turned
+into a water-baby yet.</p>
+<p>So he went very carefully, peeping round all the rocks, and hiding
+under all the roots.&nbsp; Mr. Grimes lay there still; he had not turned
+into a water-baby.&nbsp; In the afternoon Tom went back again.&nbsp;
+He could not rest till he had found out what had become of Mr. Grimes.&nbsp;
+But this time Mr. Grimes was gone; and Tom made up his mind that he
+was turned into a water-baby.</p>
+<p>He might have made himself easy, poor little man; Mr. Grimes did
+not turn into a water-baby, or anything like one at all.&nbsp; But he
+did not make himself easy; and a long time he was fearful lest he should
+meet Grimes suddenly in some deep pool.&nbsp; He could not know that
+the fairies had carried him away, and put him, where they put everything
+which falls into the water, exactly where it ought to be.&nbsp; But,
+do you know, what had happened to Mr. Grimes had such an effect on him
+that he never poached salmon any more.&nbsp; And it is quite certain
+that, when a man becomes a confirmed poacher, the only way to cure him
+is to put him under water for twenty-four hours, like Grimes.&nbsp;
+So when you grow to be a big man, do you behave as all honest fellows
+should; and never touch a fish or a head of game which belongs to another
+man without his express leave; and then people will call you a gentleman,
+and treat you like one; and perhaps give you good sport: instead of
+hitting you into the river, or calling you a poaching snob.</p>
+<p>Then Tom went on down, for he was afraid of staying near Grimes:
+and as he went, all the vale looked sad.&nbsp; The red and yellow leaves
+showered down into the river; the flies and beetles were all dead and
+gone; the chill autumn fog lay low upon the hills, and sometimes spread
+itself so thickly on the river that he could not see his way.&nbsp;
+But he felt his way instead, following the flow of the stream, day after
+day, past great bridges, past boats and barges, past the great town,
+with its wharfs, and mills, and tall smoking chimneys, and ships which
+rode at anchor in the stream; and now and then he ran against their
+hawsers, and wondered what they were, and peeped out, and saw the sailors
+lounging on board smoking their pipes; and ducked under again, for he
+was terribly afraid of being caught by man and turned into a chimney-sweep
+once more.&nbsp; He did not know that the fairies were close to him
+always, shutting the sailors&rsquo; eyes lest they should see him, and
+turning him aside from millraces, and sewer-mouths, and all foul and
+dangerous things.&nbsp; Poor little fellow, it was a dreary journey
+for him; and more than once he longed to be back in Vendale, playing
+with the trout in the bright summer sun.&nbsp; But it could not be.&nbsp;
+What has been once can never come over again.&nbsp; And people can be
+little babies, even water-babies, only once in their lives.</p>
+<p>Besides, people who make up their minds to go and see the world,
+as Tom did, must needs find it a weary journey.&nbsp; Lucky for them
+if they do not lose heart and stop half-way, instead of going on bravely
+to the end as Tom did.&nbsp; For then they will remain neither boys
+nor men, neither fish, flesh, nor good red-herring: having learnt a
+great deal too much, and yet not enough; and sown their wild oats, without
+having the advantage of reaping them.</p>
+<p>But Tom was always a brave, determined, little English bull-dog,
+who never knew when he was beaten; and on and on he held, till he saw
+a long way off the red buoy through the fog.&nbsp; And then he found
+to his surprise, the stream turned round, and running up inland.</p>
+<p>It was the tide, of course: but Tom knew nothing of the tide.&nbsp;
+He only knew that in a minute more the water, which had been fresh,
+turned salt all round him.&nbsp; And then there came a change over him.&nbsp;
+He felt as strong, and light, and fresh, as if his veins had run champagne;
+and gave, he did not know why, three skips out of the water, a yard
+high, and head over heels, just as the salmon do when they first touch
+the noble rich salt water, which, as some wise men tell us, is the mother
+of all living things.</p>
+<p>He did not care now for the tide being against him.&nbsp; The red
+buoy was in sight, dancing in the open sea; and to the buoy he would
+go, and to it he went.&nbsp; He passed great shoals of bass and mullet,
+leaping and rushing in after the shrimps, but he never heeded them,
+or they him; and once he passed a great black shining seal, who was
+coming in after the mullet.&nbsp; The seal put his head and shoulders
+out of water, and stared at him, looking exactly like a fat old greasy
+negro with a gray pate.&nbsp; And Tom, instead of being frightened,
+said, &ldquo;How d&rsquo;ye do, sir; what a beautiful place the sea
+is!&rdquo;&nbsp; And the old seal, instead of trying to bite him, looked
+at him with his soft sleepy winking eyes, and said, &ldquo;Good tide
+to you, my little man; are you looking for your brothers and sisters?&nbsp;
+I passed them all at play outside.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, then,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;I shall have playfellows
+at last,&rdquo; and he swam on to the buoy, and got upon it (for he
+was quite out of breath) and sat there, and looked round for water-babies:
+but there were none to be seen.</p>
+<p>The sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and blew the fog away;
+and the little waves danced for joy around the buoy, and the old buoy
+danced with them.&nbsp; The shadows of the clouds ran races over the
+bright blue bay, and yet never caught each other up; and the breakers
+plunged merrily upon the wide white sands, and jumped up over the rocks,
+to see what the green fields inside were like, and tumbled down and
+broke themselves all to pieces, and never minded it a bit, but mended
+themselves and jumped up again.&nbsp; And the terns hovered over Tom
+like huge white dragon-flies with black heads, and the gulls laughed
+like girls at play, and the sea-pies, with their red bills and legs,
+flew to and fro from shore to shore, and whistled sweet and wild.&nbsp;
+And Tom looked and looked, and listened; and he would have been very
+happy, if he could only have seen the water-babies.&nbsp; Then when
+the tide turned, he left the buoy, and swam round and round in search
+of them: but in vain.&nbsp; Sometimes he thought he heard them laughing:
+but it was only the laughter of the ripples.&nbsp; And sometimes he
+thought he saw them at the bottom: but it was only white and pink shells.&nbsp;
+And once he was sure he had found one, for he saw two bright eyes peeping
+out of the sand.&nbsp; So he dived down, and began scraping the sand
+away, and cried, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t hide; I do want some one to play
+with so much!&rdquo;&nbsp; And out jumped a great turbot with his ugly
+eyes and mouth all awry, and flopped away along the bottom, knocking
+poor Tom over.&nbsp; And he sat down at the bottom of the sea, and cried
+salt tears from sheer disappointment.</p>
+<p>To have come all this way, and faced so many dangers, and yet to
+find no water-babies!&nbsp; How hard!&nbsp; Well, it did seem hard:
+but people, even little babies, cannot have all they want without waiting
+for it, and working for it too, my little man, as you will find out
+some day.</p>
+<p>And Tom sat upon the buoy long days, long weeks, looking out to sea,
+and wondering when the water-babies would come back; and yet they never
+came.</p>
+<p>Then he began to ask all the strange things which came in out of
+the sea if they had seen any; and some said &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; and some
+said nothing at all.</p>
+<p>He asked the bass and the pollock; but they were so greedy after
+the shrimps that they did not care to answer him a word.</p>
+<p>Then there came in a whole fleet of purple sea-snails, floating along,
+each on a sponge full of foam, and Tom said, &ldquo;Where do you come
+from, you pretty creatures? and have you seen the water-babies?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And the sea-snails answered, &ldquo;Whence we come we know not; and
+whither we are going, who can tell?&nbsp; We float out our life in the
+mid-ocean, with the warm sunshine above our heads, and the warm gulf-stream
+below; and that is enough for us.&nbsp; Yes; perhaps we have seen the
+water-babies.&nbsp; We have seen many strange things as we sailed along.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And they floated away, the happy stupid things, and all went ashore
+upon the sands.</p>
+<p>Then there came in a great lazy sunfish, as big as a fat pig cut
+in half; and he seemed to have been cut in half too, and squeezed in
+a clothes-press till he was flat; but to all his big body and big fins
+he had only a little rabbit&rsquo;s mouth, no bigger than Tom&rsquo;s;
+and, when Tom questioned him, he answered in a little squeaky feeble
+voice:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure I don&rsquo;t know; I&rsquo;ve lost my way.&nbsp;
+I meant to go to the Chesapeake, and I&rsquo;m afraid I&rsquo;ve got
+wrong somehow.&nbsp; Dear me! it was all by following that pleasant
+warm water.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m sure I&rsquo;ve lost my way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And, when Tom asked him again, he could only answer, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve
+lost my way.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t talk to me; I want to think.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But, like a good many other people, the more he tried to think the
+less he could think; and Tom saw him blundering about all day, till
+the coast-guardsmen saw his big fin above the water, and rowed out,
+and struck a boat-hook into him, and took him away.&nbsp; They took
+him up to the town and showed him for a penny a head, and made a good
+day&rsquo;s work of it.&nbsp; But of course Tom did not know that.</p>
+<p>Then there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling as they went&mdash;papas,
+and mammas, and little children&mdash;and all quite smooth and shiny,
+because the fairies French-polish them every morning; and they sighed
+so softly as they came by, that Tom took courage to speak to them: but
+all they answered was, &ldquo;Hush, hush, hush;&rdquo; for that was
+all they had learnt to say.</p>
+<p>And then there came a shoal of basking sharks&rsquo; some of them
+as long as a boat, and Tom was frightened at them.&nbsp; But they were
+very lazy good-natured fellows, not greedy tyrants, like white sharks
+and blue sharks and ground sharks and hammer-heads, who eat men, or
+saw-fish and threshers and ice-sharks, who hunt the poor old whales.&nbsp;
+They came and rubbed their great sides against the buoy, and lay basking
+in the sun with their backfins out of water; and winked at Tom: but
+he never could get them to speak.&nbsp; They had eaten so many herrings
+that they were quite stupid; and Tom was glad when a collier brig came
+by and frightened them all away; for they did smell most horribly, certainly,
+and he had to hold his nose tight as long as they were there.</p>
+<p>And then there came by a beautiful creature, like a ribbon of pure
+silver with a sharp head and very long teeth; but it seemed very sick
+and sad.&nbsp; Sometimes it rolled helpless on its side; and then it
+dashed away glittering like white fire; and then it lay sick again and
+motionless.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where do you come from?&rdquo; asked Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;And
+why are <i>you</i> so sick and sad?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I come from the warm Carolinas, and the sandbanks fringed
+with pines; where the great owl-rays leap and flap, like giant bats,
+upon the tide.&nbsp; But I wandered north and north, upon the treacherous
+warm gulf-stream, till I met with the cold icebergs, afloat in the mid
+ocean.&nbsp; So I got tangled among the icebergs, and chilled with their
+frozen breath.&nbsp; But the water-babies helped me from among them,
+and set me free again.&nbsp; And now I am mending every day; but I am
+very sick and sad; and perhaps I shall never get home again to play
+with the owl-rays any more.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; cried Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;And you have seen water-babies?&nbsp;
+Have you seen any near here?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes; they helped me again last night, or I should have been
+eaten by a great black porpoise.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>How vexatious!&nbsp; The water-babies close to him, and yet he could
+not find one.</p>
+<p>And then he left the buoy, and used to go along the sands and round
+the rocks, and come out in the night&mdash;like the forsaken Merman
+in Mr. Arnold&rsquo;s beautiful, beautiful poem, which you must learn
+by heart some day&mdash;and sit upon a point of rock, among the shining
+sea-weeds, in the low October tides, and cry and call for the water-babies;
+but he never heard a voice call in return.&nbsp; And at last, with his
+fretting and crying, he grew quite lean and thin.</p>
+<p>But one day among the rocks he found a playfellow.&nbsp; It was not
+a water-baby, alas! but it was a lobster; and a very distinguished lobster
+he was; for he had live barnacles on his claws, which is a great mark
+of distinction in lobsterdom, and no more to be bought for money than
+a good conscience or the Victoria Cross.</p>
+<p>Tom had never seen a lobster before; and he was mightily taken with
+this one; for he thought him the most curious, odd, ridiculous creature
+he had ever seen; and there he was not far wrong; for all the ingenious
+men, and all the scientific men, and all the fanciful men, in the world,
+with all the old German bogy-painters into the bargain, could never
+invent, if all their wits were boiled into one, anything so curious,
+and so ridiculous, as a lobster.</p>
+<p>He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and Tom delighted in
+watching him hold on to the seaweed with his knobbed claw, while he
+cut up salads with his jagged one, and then put them into his mouth,
+after smelling at them, like a monkey.&nbsp; And always the little barnacles
+threw out their casting-nets and swept the water, and came in for their
+share of whatever there was for dinner.</p>
+<p>But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired himself off&mdash;snap!
+like the leap-frogs which you make out of a goose&rsquo;s breast-bone.&nbsp;
+Certainly he took the most wonderful shots, and backwards, too.&nbsp;
+For, if he wanted to go into a narrow crack ten yards off, what do you
+think he did?&nbsp; If he had gone in head foremost, of course he could
+not have turned round.&nbsp; So he used to turn his tail to it, and
+lay his long horns, which carry his sixth sense in their tips (and nobody
+knows what that sixth sense is), straight down his back to guide him,
+and twist his eyes back till they almost came out of their sockets,
+and then made ready, present, fire, snap!&mdash;and away he went, pop
+into the hole; and peeped out and twiddled his whiskers, as much as
+to say, &ldquo;You couldn&rsquo;t do that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom asked him about water-babies.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp;
+He had seen them often.&nbsp; But he did not think much of them.&nbsp;
+They were meddlesome little creatures, that went about helping fish
+and shells which got into scrapes.&nbsp; Well, for his part, he should
+be ashamed to be helped by little soft creatures that had not even a
+shell on their backs.&nbsp; He had lived quite long enough in the world
+to take care of himself.</p>
+<p>He was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not very civil to
+Tom; and you will hear how he had to alter his mind before he was done,
+as conceited people generally have.&nbsp; But he was so funny, and Tom
+so lonely, that he could not quarrel with him; and they used to sit
+in holes in the rocks, and chat for hours.</p>
+<p>And about this time there happened to Tom a very strange and important
+adventure&mdash;so important, indeed, that he was very near never finding
+the water-babies at all; and I am sure you would have been sorry for
+that.</p>
+<p>I hope that you have not forgotten the little white lady all this
+while.&nbsp; At least, here she comes, looking like a clean white good
+little darling, as she always was, and always will be.&nbsp; For it
+befell in the pleasant short December days, when the wind always blows
+from the south-west, till Old Father Christmas comes and spreads the
+great white table-cloth, ready for little boys and girls to give the
+birds their Christmas dinner of crumbs&mdash;it befell (to go on) in
+the pleasant December days, that Sir John was so busy hunting that nobody
+at home could get a word out of him.&nbsp; Four days a week he hunted,
+and very good sport he had; and the other two he went to the bench and
+the board of guardians, and very good justice he did; and, when he got
+home in time, he dined at five; for he hated this absurd new fashion
+of dining at eight in the hunting season, which forces a man to make
+interest with the footman for cold beef and beer as soon as he comes
+in, and so spoil his appetite, and then sleep in an arm-chair in his
+bedroom, all stiff and tired, for two or three hours before he can get
+his dinner like a gentleman.&nbsp; And do you be like Sir John, my dear
+little man, when you are your own master; and, if you want either to
+read hard or ride hard, stick to the good old Cambridge hours of breakfast
+at eight and dinner at five; by which you may get two days&rsquo; work
+out of one.&nbsp; But, of course, if you find a fox at three in the
+afternoon and run him till dark, and leave off twenty miles from home,
+why you must wait for your dinner till you can get it, as better men
+than you have done.&nbsp; Only see that, if you go hungry, your horse
+does not; but give him his warm gruel and beer, and take him gently
+home, remembering that good horses don&rsquo;t grow on the hedge like
+blackberries.</p>
+<p>It befell (to go on a second time) that Sir John, hunting all day,
+and dining at five, fell asleep every evening, and snored so terribly
+that all the windows in Harthover shook, and the soot fell down the
+chimneys.&nbsp; Whereon My Lady, being no more able to get conversation
+out of him than a song out of a dead nightingale, determined to go off
+and leave him, and the doctor, and Captain Swinger the agent, to snore
+in concert every evening to their hearts&rsquo; content.&nbsp; So she
+started for the seaside with all the children, in order to put herself
+and them into condition by mild applications of iodine.&nbsp; She might
+as well have stayed at home and used Parry&rsquo;s liquid horse-blister,
+for there was plenty of it in the stables; and then she would have saved
+her money, and saved the chance, also, of making all the children ill
+instead of well (as hundreds are made), by taking them to some nasty
+smelling undrained lodging, and then wondering how they caught scarlatina
+and diphtheria: but people won&rsquo;t be wise enough to understand
+that till they are dead of bad smells, and then it will be too late;
+besides you see, Sir John did certainly snore very loud.</p>
+<p>But where she went to nobody must know, for fear young ladies should
+begin to fancy that there are water-babies there! and so hunt and howk
+after them (besides raising the price of lodgings), and keep them in
+aquariums, as the ladies at Pompeii (as you may see by the paintings)
+used to keep Cupids in cages.&nbsp; But nobody ever heard that they
+starved the Cupids, or let them die of dirt and neglect, as English
+young ladies do by the poor sea-beasts.&nbsp; So nobody must know where
+My Lady went.&nbsp; Letting water-babies die is as bad as taking singing
+birds&rsquo; eggs; for, though there are thousands, ay, millions, of
+both of them in the world, yet there is not one too many.</p>
+<p>Now it befell that, on the very shore, and over the very rocks, where
+Tom was sitting with his friend the lobster, there walked one day the
+little white lady, Ellie herself, and with her a very wise man indeed&mdash;Professor
+Ptthmllnsprts.</p>
+<p>His mother was a Dutchwoman, and therefore he was born at Cura&ccedil;ao
+(of course you have learnt your geography, and therefore know why);
+and his father a Pole, and therefore he was brought up at Petropaulowski
+(of course you have learnt your modern politics, and therefore know
+why): but for all that he was as thorough an Englishman as ever coveted
+his neighbour&rsquo;s goods.&nbsp; And his name, as I said, was Professor
+Ptthmllnsprts, which is a very ancient and noble Polish name.</p>
+<p>He was, as I said, a very great naturalist, and chief professor of
+Necrobioneopalaeonthydrochthonanthropopithekology in the new university
+which the king of the Cannibal Islands had founded; and, being a member
+of the Acclimatisation Society, he had come here to collect all the
+nasty things which he could find on the coast of England, and turn them
+loose round the Cannibal Islands, because they had not nasty things
+enough there to eat what they left.</p>
+<p>But he was a very worthy kind good-natured little old gentleman;
+and very fond of children (for he was not the least a cannibal himself);
+and very good to all the world as long as it was good to him.&nbsp;
+Only one fault he had, which cock-robins have likewise, as you may see
+if you look out of the nursery window&mdash;that, when any one else
+found a curious worm, he would hop round them, and peck them, and set
+up his tail, and bristle up his feathers, just as a cock-robin would;
+and declare that he found the worm first; and that it was his worm;
+and, if not, that then it was not a worm at all.</p>
+<p>He had met Sir John at Scarborough, or Fleetwood, or somewhere or
+other (if you don&rsquo;t care where, nobody else does), and had made
+acquaintance with him, and become very fond of his children.&nbsp; Now,
+Sir John knew nothing about sea-cockyolybirds, and cared less, provided
+the fishmonger sent him good fish for dinner; and My Lady knew as little:
+but she thought it proper that the children should know something.&nbsp;
+For in the stupid old times, you must understand, children were taught
+to know one thing, and to know it well; but in these enlightened new
+times they are taught to know a little about everything, and to know
+it all ill; which is a great deal pleasanter and easier, and therefore
+quite right.</p>
+<p>So Ellie and he were walking on the rocks, and he was showing her
+about one in ten thousand of all the beautiful and curious things which
+are to be seen there.&nbsp; But little Ellie was not satisfied with
+them at all.&nbsp; She liked much better to play with live children,
+or even with dolls, which she could pretend were alive; and at last
+she said honestly, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care about all these things,
+because they can&rsquo;t play with me, or talk to me.&nbsp; If there
+were little children now in the water, as there used to be, and I could
+see them, I should like that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Children in the water, you strange little duck?&rdquo; said
+the professor.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Ellie.&nbsp; &ldquo;I know there used to
+be children in the water, and mermaids too, and mermen.&nbsp; I saw
+them all in a picture at home, of a beautiful lady sailing in a car
+drawn by dolphins, and babies flying round her, and one sitting in her
+lap; and the mermaids swimming and playing, and the mermen trumpeting
+on conch-shells; and it is called &lsquo;The Triumph of Galatea;&rsquo;
+and there is a burning mountain in the picture behind.&nbsp; It hangs
+on the great staircase, and I have looked at it ever since I was a baby,
+and dreamt about it a hundred times; and it is so beautiful, that it
+must be true.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But the professor had not the least notion of allowing that things
+were true, merely because people thought them beautiful.&nbsp; For at
+that rate, he said, the Baltas would be quite right in thinking it a
+fine thing to eat their grandpapas, because they thought it an ugly
+thing to put them underground.&nbsp; The professor, indeed, went further,
+and held that no man was forced to believe anything to be true, but
+what he could see, hear, taste, or handle.</p>
+<p>He held very strange theories about a good many things.&nbsp; He
+had even got up once at the British Association, and declared that apes
+had hippopotamus majors in their brains just as men have.&nbsp; Which
+was a shocking thing to say; for, if it were so, what would become of
+the faith, hope, and charity of immortal millions?&nbsp; You may think
+that there are other more important differences between you and an ape,
+such as being able to speak, and make machines, and know right from
+wrong, and say your prayers, and other little matters of that kind;
+but that is a child&rsquo;s fancy, my dear.&nbsp; Nothing is to be depended
+on but the great hippopotamus test.&nbsp; If you have a hippopotamus
+major in your brain, you are no ape, though you had four hands, no feet,
+and were more apish than the apes of all aperies.&nbsp; But if a hippopotamus
+major is ever discovered in one single ape&rsquo;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.&nbsp; No, my dear little man; always remember
+that the one true, certain, final, and all-important difference between
+you and an ape is, that you have a hippopotamus major in your brain,
+and it has none; and that, therefore, to discover one in its brain will
+be a very wrong and dangerous thing, at which every one will be very
+much shocked, as we may suppose they were at the professor.&mdash;Though
+really, after all, it don&rsquo;t much matter; because&mdash;as Lord
+Dundreary and others would put it&mdash;nobody but men have hippopotamuses
+in their brains; so, if a hippopotamus was discovered in an ape&rsquo;s
+brain, why it would not be one, you know, but something else.</p>
+<p>But the professor had gone, I am sorry to say, even further than
+that; for he had read at the British Association at Melbourne, Australia,
+in the year 1999, a paper which assured every one who found himself
+the better or wiser for the news, that there were not, never had been,
+and could not be, any rational or half-rational beings except men, anywhere,
+anywhen, or anyhow; that <i>nymphs, satyrs, fauns, inui, dwarfs, trolls,
+elves, gnomes, fairies, brownies, nixes, wills, kobolds, leprechaunes,
+cluricaunes, banshees, will-o&rsquo;-the-wisps, follets, lutins, magots,
+goblins, afrits, marids, jinns, ghouls, peris, deevs, angels, archangels,
+imps, bogies</i>, or worse, were nothing at all, and pure bosh and wind.&nbsp;
+And he had to get up very early in the morning to prove that, and to
+eat his breakfast overnight; but he did it, at least to his own satisfaction.&nbsp;
+Whereon a certain great divine, and a very clever divine was he, called
+him a regular Sadducee; and probably he was quite right.&nbsp; Whereon
+the professor, in return, called him a regular Pharisee; and probably
+he was quite right too.&nbsp; But they did not quarrel in the least;
+for, when men are men of the world, hard words run off them like water
+off a duck&rsquo;s back.&nbsp; So the professor and the divine met at
+dinner that evening, and sat together on the sofa afterwards for an
+hour, and talked over the state of female labour on the antarctic continent
+(for nobody talks shop after his claret), and each vowed that the other
+was the best company he ever met in his life.&nbsp; What an advantage
+it is to be men of the world!</p>
+<p>From all which you may guess that the professor was not the least
+of little Ellie&rsquo;s opinion.&nbsp; So he gave her a succinct compendium
+of his famous paper at the British Association, in a form suited for
+the youthful mind.&nbsp; But, as we have gone over his arguments against
+water-babies once already, which is once too often, we will not repeat
+them here.</p>
+<p>Now little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; for, instead
+of being convinced by Professor Ptthmllnsprts&rsquo; arguments, she
+only asked the same question over again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But why are there not water-babies?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at that moment
+on the edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt one of his corns sadly,
+that he answered quite sharply, forgetting that he was a scientific
+man, and therefore ought to have known that he couldn&rsquo;t know;
+and that he was a logician, and therefore ought to have known that he
+could not prove a universal negative&mdash;I say, I trust and hope it
+was because the mussel hurt his corn, that the professor answered quite
+sharply:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because there ain&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Which was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as you
+must know from Aunt Agitate&rsquo;s Arguments, the professor ought to
+have said, if he was so angry as to say anything of the kind&mdash;Because
+there are not: or are none: or are none of them; or (if he had been
+reading Aunt Agitate too) because they do not exist.</p>
+<p>And he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, that, as
+it befell, he caught poor little Tom.</p>
+<p>He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly, with Tom all
+entangled in the meshes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear me!&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;What a large pink Holothurian;
+with hands, too!&nbsp; It must be connected with Synapta.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And he took him out.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It has actually eyes!&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Why, it
+must be a Cephalopod!&nbsp; This is most extraordinary!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I ain&rsquo;t!&rdquo; cried Tom, as loud as he could;
+for he did not like to be called bad names.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is a water-baby!&rdquo; cried Ellie; and of course it was.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!&rdquo; said the professor; and
+he turned away sharply.</p>
+<p>There was no denying it.&nbsp; It was a water-baby: and he had said
+a moment ago that there were none.&nbsp; What was he to do?</p>
+<p>He would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom home in a bucket.&nbsp;
+He would not have put him in spirits.&nbsp; Of course not.&nbsp; He
+would have kept him alive, and petted him (for he was a very kind old
+gentleman), and written a book about him, and given him two long names,
+of which the first would have said a little about Tom, and the second
+all about himself; for of course he would have called him Hydrotecnon
+Ptthmllnsprtsianum, or some other long name like that; for they are
+forced to call everything by long names now, because they have used
+up all the short ones, ever since they took to making nine species out
+of one.&nbsp; But&mdash;what would all the learned men say to him after
+his speech at the British Association?&nbsp; And what would Ellie say,
+after what he had just told her?</p>
+<p>There was a wise old heathen once, who said, &ldquo;Maxima debetur
+pueris reverentia&rdquo;&mdash;The greatest reverence is due to children;
+that is, that grown people should never say or do anything wrong before
+children, lest they should set them a bad example.&mdash;Cousin Cramchild
+says it means, &ldquo;The greatest respectfulness is expected from little
+boys.&rdquo;&nbsp; But he was raised in a country where little boys
+are not expected to be respectful, because all of them are as good as
+the President:- Well, every one knows his own concerns best; so perhaps
+they are.&nbsp; But poor Cousin Cramchild, to do him justice, not being
+of that opinion, and having a moral mission, and being no scholar to
+speak of, and hard up for an authority&mdash;why, it was a very great
+temptation for him.&nbsp; But some people, and I am afraid the professor
+was one of them, interpret that in a more strange, curious, one-sided,
+left-handed, topsy-turvy, inside-out, behind-before fashion than even
+Cousin Cramchild; for they make it mean, that you must show your respect
+for children, by never confessing yourself in the wrong to them, even
+if you know that you are so, lest they should lose confidence in their
+elders.</p>
+<p>Now, if the professor had said to Ellie, &ldquo;Yes, my darling,
+it is a water-baby, and a very wonderful thing it is; and it shows how
+little I know of the wonders of nature, in spite of forty years&rsquo;
+honest labour.&nbsp; I was just telling you that there could be no such
+creatures; and, behold! here is one come to confound my conceit and
+show me that Nature can do, and has done, beyond all that man&rsquo;s
+poor fancy can imagine.&nbsp; So, let us thank the Maker, and Inspirer,
+and Lord of Nature for all His wonderful and glorious works, and try
+and find out something about this one;&rdquo;&mdash;I think that, if
+the professor had said that, little Ellie would have believed him more
+firmly, and respected him more deeply, and loved him better, than ever
+she had done before.&nbsp; But he was of a different opinion.&nbsp;
+He hesitated a moment.&nbsp; He longed to keep Tom, and yet he half
+wished he never had caught him; and at last he quite longed to get rid
+of him.&nbsp; So he turned away and poked Tom with his finger, for want
+of anything better to do; and said carelessly, &ldquo;My dear little
+maid, you must have dreamt of water-babies last night, your head is
+so full of them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable fright all
+the while; and had kept as quiet as he could, though he was called a
+Holothurian and a Cephalopod; for it was fixed in his little head that
+if a man with clothes on caught him, he might put clothes on him too,
+and make a dirty black chimney-sweep of him again.&nbsp; But, when the
+professor poked him, it was more than he could bear; and, between fright
+and rage, he turned to bay as valiantly as a mouse in a corner, and
+bit the professor&rsquo;s finger till it bled.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! ah! yah!&rdquo; cried he; and glad of an excuse to be
+rid of Tom, dropped him on to the seaweed, and thence he dived into
+the water and was gone in a moment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak!&rdquo; cried
+Ellie.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ah, it is gone!&rdquo;&nbsp; And she jumped down
+off the rock, to try and catch Tom before he slipped into the sea.</p>
+<p>Too late! and what was worse, as she sprang down, she slipped, and
+fell some six feet, with her head on a sharp rock, and lay quite still.</p>
+<p>The professor picked her up, and tried to waken her, and called to
+her, and cried over her, for he loved her very much: but she would not
+waken at all.&nbsp; So he took her up in his arms and carried her to
+her governess, and they all went home; and little Ellie was put to bed,
+and lay there quite still; only now and then she woke up and called
+out about the water-baby: but no one knew what she meant, and the professor
+did not tell, for he was ashamed to tell.</p>
+<p>And, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies came flying in
+at the window and brought her such a pretty pair of wings that she could
+not help putting them on; and she flew with them out of the window,
+and over the land, and over the sea, and up through the clouds, and
+nobody heard or saw anything of her for a very long while.</p>
+<p>And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a water-baby.&nbsp;
+For my part, I believe that the naturalists get dozens of them when
+they are out dredging; but they say nothing about them, and throw them
+overboard again, for fear of spoiling their theories.&nbsp; But, you
+see the professor was found out, as every one is in due time.&nbsp;
+A very terrible old fairy found the professor out; she felt his bumps,
+and cast his nativity, and took the lunars of him carefully inside and
+out; and so she knew what he would do as well as if she had seen it
+in a print book, as they say in the dear old west country; and he did
+it; and so he was found out beforehand, as everybody always is; and
+the old fairy will find out the naturalists some day, and put them in
+the <i>Times</i>, and then on whose side will the laugh be?</p>
+<p>So the old fairy took him in hand very severely there and then.&nbsp;
+But she says she is always most severe with the best people, because
+there is most chance of curing them, and therefore they are the patients
+who pay her best; for she has to work on the same salary as the Emperor
+of China&rsquo;s physicians (it is a pity that all do not), no cure,
+no pay.</p>
+<p>So she took the poor professor in hand: and because he was not content
+with things as they are, she filled his head with things as they are
+not, to try if he would like them better; and because he did not choose
+to believe in a water-baby when he saw it, she made him believe in worse
+things than water-babies&mdash;in <i>unicorns, fire-drakes, manticoras,
+basilisks, amphisbaenas, griffins, phoenixes, rocs, orcs, dog-headed
+men, three-headed dogs, three-bodied geryons</i>, and other pleasant
+creatures, which folks think never existed yet, and which folks hope
+never will exist, though they know nothing about the matter, and never
+will; and these creatures so upset, terrified, flustered, aggravated,
+confused, astounded, horrified, and totally flabbergasted the poor professor
+that the doctors said that he was out of his wits for three months;
+and perhaps they were right, as they are now and then.</p>
+<p>So all the doctors in the county were called in to make a report
+on his case; and of course every one of them flatly contradicted the
+other: else what use is there in being men of science?&nbsp; But at
+last the majority agreed on a report in the true medical language, one
+half bad Latin, the other half worse Greek, and the rest what might
+have been English, if they had only learnt to write it.&nbsp; And this
+is the beginning thereof -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;The subanhypaposupernal anastomoses of peritomic diacellurite
+in the encephalo digital region of the distinguished individual of whose
+symptomatic phoenomena we had the melancholy honour (subsequently to
+a preliminary diagnostic inspection) of making an inspectorial diagnosis,
+presenting the interexclusively quadrilateral and antinomian diathesis
+known as Bumpsterhausen&rsquo;s blue follicles, we proceeded&rdquo;
+-</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>But what they proceeded to do My Lady never knew; for she was so
+frightened at the long words that she ran for her life, and locked herself
+into her bedroom, for fear of being squashed by the words and strangled
+by the sentence.&nbsp; A boa constrictor, she said, was bad company
+enough: but what was a boa constrictor made of paving stones?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was quite shocking!&nbsp; What can they think is the matter
+with him?&rdquo; said she to the old nurse.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That his wit&rsquo;s just addled; may be wi&rsquo; unbelief
+and heathenry,&rdquo; quoth she.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then why can&rsquo;t they say so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And the heaven, and the sea, and the rocks, and the vales re-echoed&mdash;&ldquo;Why
+indeed?&rdquo;&nbsp; But the doctors never heard them.</p>
+<p>So she made Sir John write to the <i>Times</i> to command the Chancellor
+of the Exchequer for the time being to put a tax on long words; -</p>
+<p>A light tax on words over three syllables, which are necessary evils,
+like rats: but, like them, must be kept down judiciously.</p>
+<p>A heavy tax on words over four syllables, as <i>heterodoxy, spontaneity,
+spiritualism, spuriosity, etc.</i></p>
+<p>And on words over five syllables (of which I hope no one will wish
+to see any examples), a totally prohibitory tax.</p>
+<p>And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from three or more
+languages at once; words derived from two languages having become so
+common that there was no more hope of rooting out them than of rooting
+out peth-winds.</p>
+<p>The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and a man of sense,
+jumped at the notion; for he saw in it the one and only plan for abolishing
+Schedule D: but when he brought in his bill, most of the Irish members,
+and (I am sorry to say) some of the Scotch likewise, opposed it most
+strongly, on the ground that in a free country no man was bound either
+to understand himself or to let others understand him.&nbsp; So the
+bill fell through on the first reading; and the Chancellor, being a
+philosopher, comforted himself with the thought that it was not the
+first time that a woman had hit off a grand idea and the men turned
+up their stupid noses thereat.</p>
+<p>Now the doctors had it all their own way; and to work they went in
+earnest, and they gave the poor professor divers and sundry medicines,
+as prescribed by the ancients and moderns, from Hippocrates to Feuchtersleben,
+as below, viz.-</p>
+<p>1.&nbsp; Hellebore, to wit -</p>
+<p>Hellebore of AEta.<br />Hellebore of Galatia.<br />Hellebore of Sicily.</p>
+<p>And all other Hellebores, after the method of the Helleborising Helleborists
+of the Helleboric era.&nbsp; But that would not do.&nbsp; Bumpsterhausen&rsquo;s
+blue follicles would not stir an inch out of his encephalo digital region.</p>
+<p>2.&nbsp; Trying to find out what was the matter with him, after the
+method of</p>
+<p>Hippocrates,<br />Aretaeus,<br />Celsus,<br />Coelius Aurelianus,<br />And
+Galen.</p>
+<p>But they found that a great deal too much trouble, as most people
+have since; and so had recourse to -</p>
+<p>3.&nbsp; Borage.<br />Cauteries.</p>
+<p>Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says Gordonius)
+&ldquo;will, without doubt, do much good.&rdquo;&nbsp; But it didn&rsquo;t.</p>
+<p>Bezoar stone.<br />Diamargaritum.<br />A ram&rsquo;s brain boiled
+in spice.<br />Oil of wormwood.<br />Water of Nile.<br />Capers.<br />Good
+wine (but there was none to be got).<br />The water of a smith&rsquo;s
+forge.<br />Ambergris.<br />Mandrake pillows.<br />Dormouse fat.<br />Hares&rsquo;
+ears.<br />Starvation.<br />Camphor.<br />Salts and senna.<br />Musk.<br />Opium.<br />Strait-waistcoats.<br />Bullyings.<br />Bumpings.<br />Bleedings.<br />Bucketings
+with cold water.<br />Knockings down.<br />Kneeling on his chest till
+they broke it in, etc. etc.; after the medieval or monkish method: but
+that would not do.&nbsp; Bumpsterhausen&rsquo;s blue follicles stuck
+there still.</p>
+<p>Then -</p>
+<p>4.&nbsp; Coaxing.<br />Kissing.<br />Champagne and turtle.<br />Red
+herrings and soda water.<br />Good advice.<br />Gardening.<br />Croquet.<br />Musical
+soirees.<br />Aunt Salty.<br />Mild tobacco.<br />The Saturday Review.<br />A
+carriage with outriders, etc. etc.</p>
+<p>After the modern method.&nbsp; But that would not do.</p>
+<p>And if he had but been a convict lunatic, and had shot at the Queen,
+killed all his creditors to avoid paying them, or indulged in any other
+little amiable eccentricity of that kind, they would have given him
+in addition -</p>
+<p>The healthiest situation in England, on Easthampstead Plain.</p>
+<p>Free run of Windsor Forest.</p>
+<p>The <i>Times</i> every morning.</p>
+<p>A double-barrelled gun and pointers, and leave to shoot three Wellington
+College boys a week (not more) in case black game was scarce.</p>
+<p>But as he was neither mad enough nor bad enough to be allowed such
+luxuries, they grew desperate, and fell into bad ways, viz. -</p>
+<p>5.&nbsp; Suffumigations of sulphur.<br />Herrwiggius his &ldquo;Incomparable
+drink for madmen:&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Only they could not find out what it was.</p>
+<p>Suffumigation of the liver of the fish * * *</p>
+<p>Only they had forgotten its name, so Dr. Gray could not well procure
+them a specimen.</p>
+<p>Metallic tractors.<br />Holloway&rsquo;s Ointment.<br />Electro-biology.<br />Valentine
+Greatrakes his Stroking Cure.<br />Spirit-rapping.<br />Holloway&rsquo;s
+Pills.<br />Table-turning.<br />Morison&rsquo;s Pills.<br />Homoeopathy.<br />Parr&rsquo;s
+Life Pills.<br />Mesmerism.<br />Pure Bosh.<br />Exorcisms, for which
+the read Maleus Maleficarum, Nideri Formicarium, Delrio, Wierus, etc.</p>
+<p>But could not get one that mentioned water-babies.</p>
+<p>Hydropathy.<br />Madame Rachel&rsquo;s Elixir of Youth.<br />The
+Poughkeepsie Seer his Prophecies.<br />The distilled liquor of addle
+eggs.<br />Pyropathy.</p>
+<p>As successfully employed by the old inquisitors to cure the malady
+of thought, and now by the Persian Mollahs to cure that of rheumatism.</p>
+<p>Geopathy, or burying him.<br />Atmopathy, or steaming him.<br />Sympathy,
+after the method of Basil Valentine his Triumph of Antimony, and Kenelm
+Digby his Weapon-salve, which some call a hair of the dog that bit him.<br />Hermopathy,
+or pouring mercury down his throat to move the animal spirits.<br />Meteoropathy,
+or going up to the moon to look for his lost wits, as Ruggiero did for
+Orlando Furioso&rsquo;s: only, having no hippogriff, they were forced
+to use a balloon; and, falling into the North Sea, were picked up by
+a Yarmouth herring-boat, and came home much the wiser, and all over
+scales.</p>
+<p>Antipathy, or using him like &ldquo;a man and a brother.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Apathy, or doing nothing at all.</p>
+<p>With all other ipathies and opathies which Noodle has invented, and
+Foodle tried, since black-fellows chipped flints at Abb&eacute;ville&mdash;which
+is a considerable time ago, to judge by the Great Exhibition.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>But nothing would do; for he screamed and cried all day for a water-baby,
+to come and drive away the monsters; and of course they did not try
+to find one, because they did not believe in them, and were thinking
+of nothing but Bumpsterhausen&rsquo;s blue follicles; having, as usual,
+set the cart before the horse, and taken the effect for the cause.</p>
+<p>So they were forced at last to let the poor professor ease his mind
+by writing a great book, exactly contrary to all his old opinions; in
+which he proved that the moon was made of green cheese, and that all
+the mites in it (which you may see sometimes quite plain through a telescope,
+if you will only keep the lens dirty enough, as Mr. Weekes kept his
+voltaic battery) are nothing in the world but little babies, who are
+hatching and swarming up there in millions, ready to come down into
+this world whenever children want a new little brother or sister.</p>
+<p>Which must be a mistake, for this one reason: that, there being no
+atmosphere round the moon (though some one or other says there is, at
+least on the other side, and that he has been round at the back of it
+to see, and found that the moon was just the shape of a Bath bun, and
+so wet that the man in the moon went about on Midsummer-day in Macintoshes
+and Cording&rsquo;s boots, spearing eels and sneezing); that, therefore,
+I say, there being no atmosphere, there can be no evaporation; and therefore
+the dew-point can never fall below 71.5 degrees below zero of Fahrenheit:
+and, therefore, it cannot be cold enough there about four o&rsquo;clock
+in the morning to condense the babies&rsquo; mesenteric apophthegms
+into their left ventricles; and, therefore, they can never catch the
+hooping-cough; and if they do not have hooping-cough, they cannot be
+babies at all; and, therefore, there are no babies in the moon.&mdash;Q.E.D.</p>
+<p>Which may seem a roundabout reason; and so, perhaps, it is: but you
+will have heard worse ones in your time, and from better men than you
+are.</p>
+<p>But one thing is certain; that, when the good old doctor got his
+book written, he felt considerably relieved from Bumpsterhausen&rsquo;s
+blue follicles, and a few things infinitely worse; to wit, from pride
+and vain-glory, and from blindness and hardness of heart; which are
+the true causes of Bumpsterhausen&rsquo;s blue follicles, and of a good
+many other ugly things besides.&nbsp; Whereon the foul flood-water in
+his brains ran down, and cleared to a fine coffee colour, such as fish
+like to rise in, till very fine clean fresh-run fish did begin to rise
+in his brains; and he caught two or three of them (which is exceedingly
+fine sport, for brain rivers), and anatomised them carefully, and never
+mentioned what he found out from them, except to little children; and
+became ever after a sadder and a wiser man; which is a very good thing
+to become, my dear little boy, even though one has to pay a heavy price
+for the blessing.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear<br />The Godhead&rsquo;s
+most benignant grace;<br />Nor know we anything so fair<br />As is the
+smile upon thy face:<br />Flowers laugh before thee on their beds<br />And
+fragrance in thy footing treads;<br />Thou dost preserve the stars from
+wrong;<br />And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and
+strong.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>WORDSWORTH, Ode to Duty.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>What became of little Tom?</p>
+<p>He slipped away off the rocks into the water, as I said before.&nbsp;
+But he could not help thinking of little Ellie.&nbsp; He did not remember
+who she was; but he knew that she was a little girl, though she was
+a hundred times as big as he.&nbsp; That is not surprising: size has
+nothing to do with kindred.&nbsp; A tiny weed may be first cousin to
+a great tree; and a little dog like Vick knows that Lioness is a dog
+too, though she is twenty times larger than herself.&nbsp; So Tom knew
+that Ellie was a little girl, and thought about her all that day, and
+longed to have had her to play with; but he had very soon to think of
+something else.&nbsp; And here is the account of what happened to him,
+as it was published next morning, in the Water-proof Gazette, on the
+finest watered paper, for the use of the great fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid,
+who reads the news very carefully every morning, and especially the
+police cases, as you will hear very soon.</p>
+<p>He was going along the rocks in three-fathom water, watching the
+pollock catch prawns, and the wrasses nibble barnacles off the rocks,
+shells and all, when he saw a round cage of green withes; and inside
+it, looking very much ashamed of himself, sat his friend the lobster,
+twiddling his horns, instead of thumbs.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What, have you been naughty, and have they put you in the
+lock-up?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>The lobster felt a little indignant at such a notion, but he was
+too much depressed in spirits to argue; so he only said, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t
+get out.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why did you get in?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;After that nasty piece of dead fish.&rdquo;&nbsp; He had thought
+it looked and smelt very nice when he was outside, and so it did, for
+a lobster: but now he turned round and abused it because he was angry
+with himself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where did you get in?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Through that round hole at the top.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then why don&rsquo;t you get out through it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I can&rsquo;t:&rdquo; and the lobster twiddled his
+horns more fiercely than ever, but he was forced to confess.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have jumped upwards, downwards, backwards, and sideways,
+at least four thousand times; and I can&rsquo;t get out: I always get
+up underneath there, and can&rsquo;t find the hole.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom looked at the trap, and having more wit than the lobster, he
+saw plainly enough what was the matter; as you may if you will look
+at a lobster-pot.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Stop a bit,&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Turn your tail up
+to me, and I&rsquo;ll pull you through hindforemost, and then you won&rsquo;t
+stick in the spikes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he couldn&rsquo;t hit
+the hole.&nbsp; Like a great many fox-hunters, he was very sharp as
+long as he was in his own country; but as soon as they get out of it
+they lose their heads; and so the lobster, so to speak, lost his tail.</p>
+<p>Tom reached and clawed down the hole after him, till he caught hold
+of him; and then, as was to be expected, the clumsy lobster pulled him
+in head foremost.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hullo! here is a pretty business,&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Now
+take your great claws, and break the points off those spikes, and then
+we shall both get out easily.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear me, I never thought of that,&rdquo; said the lobster;
+&ldquo;and after all the experience of life that I have had!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>You see, experience is of very little good unless a man, or a lobster,
+has wit enough to make use of it.&nbsp; For a good many people, like
+old Polonius, have seen all the world, and yet remain little better
+than children after all.</p>
+<p>But they had not got half the spikes away when they saw a great dark
+cloud over them: and lo, and behold, it was the otter.</p>
+<p>How she did grin and grin when she saw Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yar!&rdquo;
+said she, &ldquo;you little meddlesome wretch, I have you now!&nbsp;
+I will serve you out for telling the salmon where I was!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And she crawled all over the pot to get in.</p>
+<p>Tom was horribly frightened, and still more frightened when she found
+the hole in the top, and squeezed herself right down through it, all
+eyes and teeth.&nbsp; But no sooner was her head inside than valiant
+Mr. Lobster caught her by the nose and held on.</p>
+<p>And there they were all three in the pot, rolling over and over,
+and very tight packing it was.&nbsp; And the lobster tore at the otter,
+and the otter tore at the lobster, and both squeezed and thumped poor
+Tom till he had no breath left in his body; and I don&rsquo;t know what
+would have happened to him if he had not at last got on the otter&rsquo;s
+back, and safe out of the hole.</p>
+<p>He was right glad when he got out: but he would not desert his friend
+who had saved him; and the first time he saw his tail uppermost he caught
+hold of it, and pulled with all his might.</p>
+<p>But the lobster would not let go.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come along,&rdquo; said Tom; &ldquo;don&rsquo;t you see she
+is dead?&rdquo;&nbsp; And so she was, quite drowned and dead.</p>
+<p>And that was the end of the wicked otter.</p>
+<p>But the lobster would not let go.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come along, you stupid old stick-in-the-mud,&rdquo; cried
+Tom, &ldquo;or the fisherman will catch you!&rdquo;&nbsp; And that was
+true, for Tom felt some one above beginning to haul up the pot.</p>
+<p>But the lobster would not let go.&nbsp; Tom saw the fisherman haul
+him up to the boat-side, and thought it was all up with him.&nbsp; But
+when Mr. Lobster saw the fisherman, he gave such a furious and tremendous
+snap, that he snapped out of his hand, and out of the pot, and safe
+into the sea.&nbsp; But he left his knobbed claw behind him; for it
+never came into his stupid head to let go after all, so he just shook
+his claw off as the easier method.&nbsp; It was something of a bull,
+that; but you must know the lobster was an Irish lobster, and was hatched
+off Island Magee at the mouth of Belfast Lough.</p>
+<p>Tom asked the lobster why he never thought of letting go.&nbsp; He
+said very determinedly that it was a point of honour among lobsters.&nbsp;
+And so it is, as the Mayor of Plymouth found out once to his cost&mdash;eight
+or nine hundred years ago, of course; for if it had happened lately
+it would be personal to mention it.</p>
+<p>For one day he was so tired with sitting on a hard chair, in a grand
+furred gown, with a gold chain round his neck, hearing one policeman
+after another come in and sing, &ldquo;What shall we do with the drunken
+sailor, so early in the morning?&rdquo; and answering them each exactly
+alike:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Put him in the round house till he gets sober, so early in
+the morning&rdquo; -</p>
+<p>That, when it was over, he jumped up, and played leap-frog with the
+town-clerk till he burst his buttons, and then had his luncheon, and
+burst some more buttons, and then said: &ldquo;It is a low spring-tide;
+I shall go out this afternoon and cut my capers.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Now he did not mean to cut such capers as you eat with boiled mutton.&nbsp;
+It was the commandant of artillery at Valetta who used to amuse himself
+with cutting them, and who stuck upon one of the bastions a notice,
+&ldquo;No one allowed to cut capers here but me,&rdquo; which greatly
+edified the midshipmen in port, and the Maltese on the Nix Mangiare
+stairs.&nbsp; But all that the mayor meant was that he would go and
+have an afternoon&rsquo;s fun, like any schoolboy, and catch lobsters
+with an iron hook.</p>
+<p>So to the Mewstone he went, and for lobsters he looked.&nbsp; And
+when he came to a certain crack in the rocks he was so excited that,
+instead of putting in his hook, he put in his hand; and Mr. Lobster
+was at home, and caught him by the finger, and held on.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yah!&rdquo; said the mayor, and pulled as hard as he dared:
+but the more he pulled, the more the lobster pinched, till he was forced
+to be quiet.</p>
+<p>Then he tried to get his hook in with his other hand; but the hole
+was too narrow.</p>
+<p>Then he pulled again; but he could not stand the pain.</p>
+<p>Then he shouted and bawled for help: but there was no one nearer
+him than the men-of-war inside the breakwater.</p>
+<p>Then he began to turn a little pale; for the tide flowed, and still
+the lobster held on.</p>
+<p>Then he turned quite white; for the tide was up to his knees, and
+still the lobster held on.</p>
+<p>Then he thought of cutting off his finger; but he wanted two things
+to do it with&mdash;courage and a knife; and he had got neither.</p>
+<p>Then he turned quite yellow; for the tide was up to his waist, and
+still the lobster held on.</p>
+<p>Then he thought over all the naughty things he ever had done; all
+the sand which he had put in the sugar, and the sloe-leaves in the tea,
+and the water in the treacle, and the salt in the tobacco (because his
+brother was a brewer, and a man must help his own kin).</p>
+<p>Then he turned quite blue; for the tide was up to his breast, and
+still the lobster held on.</p>
+<p>Then, I have no doubt, he repented fully of all the said naughty
+things which he had done, and promised to mend his life, as too many
+do when they think they have no life left to mend.&nbsp; Whereby, as
+they fancy, they make a very cheap bargain.&nbsp; But the old fairy
+with the birch rod soon undeceives them.</p>
+<p>And then he grew all colours at once, and turned up his eyes like
+a duck in thunder; for the water was up to his chin, and still the lobster
+held on.</p>
+<p>And then came a man-of-war&rsquo;s boat round the Mewstone, and saw
+his head sticking up out of the water.&nbsp; One said it was a keg of
+brandy, and another that it was a cocoa-nut, and another that it was
+a buoy loose, and another that it was a black diver, and wanted to fire
+at it, which would not have been pleasant for the mayor: but just then
+such a yell came out of a great hole in the middle of it that the midshipman
+in charge guessed what it was, and bade pull up to it as fast as they
+could.&nbsp; So somehow or other the Jack-tars got the lobster out,
+and set the mayor free, and put him ashore at the Barbican.&nbsp; He
+never went lobster-catching again; and we will hope he put no more salt
+in the tobacco, not even to sell his brother&rsquo;s beer.</p>
+<p>And that is the story of the Mayor of Plymouth, which has two advantages&mdash;first,
+that of being quite true; and second, that of having (as folks say all
+good stories ought to have) no moral whatsoever: no more, indeed, has
+any part of this book, because it is a fairy tale, you know.</p>
+<p>And now happened to Tom a most wonderful thing; for he had not left
+the lobster five minutes before he came upon a water-baby.</p>
+<p>A real live water-baby, sitting on the white sand, very busy about
+a little point of rock.&nbsp; And when it saw Tom it looked up for a
+moment, and then cried, &ldquo;Why, you are not one of us.&nbsp; You
+are a new baby!&nbsp; Oh, how delightful!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And it ran to Tom, and Tom ran to it, and they hugged and kissed
+each other for ever so long, they did not know why.&nbsp; But they did
+not want any introductions there under the water.</p>
+<p>At last Tom said, &ldquo;Oh, where have you been all this while?&nbsp;
+I have been looking for you so long, and I have been so lonely.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We have been here for days and days.&nbsp; There are hundreds
+of us about the rocks.&nbsp; How was it you did not see us, or hear
+us when we sing and romp every evening before we go home?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom looked at the baby again, and then he said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, this is wonderful!&nbsp; I have seen things just like
+you again and again, but I thought you were shells, or sea-creatures.&nbsp;
+I never took you for water-babies like myself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Now, was not that very odd?&nbsp; So odd, indeed, that you will,
+no doubt, want to know how it happened, and why Tom could never find
+a water-baby till after he had got the lobster out of the pot.&nbsp;
+And, if you will read this story nine times over, and then think for
+yourself, you will find out why.&nbsp; It is not good for little boys
+to be told everything, and never to be forced to use their own wits.&nbsp;
+They would learn, then, no more than they do at Dr. Dulcimer&rsquo;s
+famous suburban establishment for the idler members of the youthful
+aristocracy, where the masters learn the lessons and the boys hear them&mdash;which
+saves a great deal of trouble&mdash;for the time being.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said the baby, &ldquo;come and help me, or I shall
+not have finished before my brothers and sisters come, and it is time
+to go home.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What shall I help you at?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At this poor dear little rock; a great clumsy boulder came
+rolling by in the last storm, and knocked all its head off, and rubbed
+off all its flowers.&nbsp; And now I must plant it again with seaweeds,
+and coralline, and anemones, and I will make it the prettiest little
+rock-garden on all the shore.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So they worked away at the rock, and planted it, and smoothed the
+sand down round, it, and capital fun they had till the tide began to
+turn.&nbsp; And then Tom heard all the other babies coming, laughing
+and singing and shouting and romping; and the noise they made was just
+like the noise of the ripple.&nbsp; So he knew that he had been hearing
+and seeing the water-babies all along; only he did not know them, because
+his eyes and ears were not opened.</p>
+<p>And in they came, dozens and dozens of them, some bigger than Tom
+and some smaller, all in the neatest little white bathing dresses; and
+when they found that he was a new baby, they hugged him and kissed him,
+and then put him in the middle and danced round him on the sand, and
+there was no one ever so happy as poor little Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now then,&rdquo; they cried all at once, &ldquo;we must come
+away home, we must come away home, or the tide will leave us dry.&nbsp;
+We have mended all the broken sea-weed, and put all the rock-pools in
+order, and planted all the shells again in the sand, and nobody will
+see where the ugly storm swept in last week.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And this is the reason why the rock-pools are always so neat and
+clean; because the water-babies come inshore after every storm to sweep
+them out, and comb them down, and put them all to rights again.</p>
+<p>Only where men are wasteful and dirty, and let sewers run into the
+sea instead of putting the stuff upon the fields like thrifty reasonable
+souls; or throw herrings&rsquo; heads and dead dog-fish, or any other
+refuse, into the water; or in any way make a mess upon the clean shore&mdash;there
+the water-babies will not come, sometimes not for hundreds of years
+(for they cannot abide anything smelly or foul), but leave the sea-anemones
+and the crabs to clear away everything, till the good tidy sea has covered
+up all the dirt in soft mud and clean sand, where the water-babies can
+plant live cockles and whelks and razor-shells and sea-cucumbers and
+golden-combs, and make a pretty live garden again, after man&rsquo;s
+dirt is cleared away.&nbsp; And that, I suppose, is the reason why there
+are no water-babies at any watering-place which I have ever seen.</p>
+<p>And where is the home of the water-babies?&nbsp; In St. Brandan&rsquo;s
+fairy isle.</p>
+<p>Did you never hear of the blessed St. Brandan, how he preached to
+the wild Irish on the wild, wild Kerry coast, he and five other hermits,
+till they were weary and longed to rest?&nbsp; For the wild Irish would
+not listen to them, or come to confession and to mass, but liked better
+to brew potheen, and dance the pater o&rsquo;pee, and knock each other
+over the head with shillelaghs, and shoot each other from behind turf-dykes,
+and steal each other&rsquo;s cattle, and burn each other&rsquo;s homes;
+till St. Brandan and his friends were weary of them, for they would
+not learn to be peaceable Christians at all.</p>
+<p>So St. Brandan went out to the point of Old Dunmore, and looked over
+the tide-way roaring round the Blasquets, at the end of all the world,
+and away into the ocean, and sighed&mdash;&ldquo;Ah that I had wings
+as a dove!&rdquo;&nbsp; And far away, before the setting sun, he saw
+a blue fairy sea, and golden fairy islands, and he said, &ldquo;Those
+are the islands of the blest.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then he and his friends got
+into a hooker, and sailed away and away to the westward, and were never
+heard of more.&nbsp; But the people who would not hear him were changed
+into gorillas, and gorillas they are until this day.</p>
+<p>And when St. Brandan and the hermits came to that fairy isle they
+found it overgrown with cedars and full of beautiful birds; and he sat
+down under the cedars and preached to all the birds in the air.&nbsp;
+And they liked his sermons so well that they told the fishes in the
+sea; and they came, and St. Brandan preached to them; and the fishes
+told the water-babies, who live in the caves under the isle; and they
+came up by hundreds every Sunday, and St. Brandan got quite a neat little
+Sunday-school.&nbsp; And there he taught the water-babies for a great
+many hundred years, till his eyes grew too dim to see, and his beard
+grew so long that he dared not walk for fear of treading on it, and
+then he might have tumbled down.&nbsp; And at last he and the five hermits
+fell fast asleep under the cedar-shades, and there they sleep unto this
+day.&nbsp; But the fairies took to the water-babies, and taught them
+their lessons themselves.</p>
+<p>And some say that St. Brandan will awake and begin to teach the babies
+once more: but some think that he will sleep on, for better for worse,
+till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.&nbsp; But, on still clear summer
+evenings, when the sun sinks down into the sea, among golden cloud-capes
+and cloud-islands, and locks and friths of azure sky, the sailors fancy
+that they see, away to westward, St. Brandan&rsquo;s fairy isle.</p>
+<p>But whether men can see it or not, St. Brandan&rsquo;s Isle once
+actually stood there; a great land out in the ocean, which has sunk
+and sunk beneath the waves.&nbsp; Old Plato called it Atlantis, and
+told strange tales of the wise men who lived therein, and of the wars
+they fought in the old times.&nbsp; And from off that island came strange
+flowers, which linger still about this land:- the Cornish heath, and
+Cornish moneywort, and the delicate Venus&rsquo;s hair, and the London-pride
+which covers the Kerry mountains, and the little pink butterwort of
+Devon, and the great blue butterwort of Ireland, and the Connemara heath,
+and the bristle-fern of the Turk waterfall, and many a strange plant
+more; all fairy tokens left for wise men and good children from off
+St. Brandan&rsquo;s Isle.</p>
+<p>Now when Tom got there, he found that the isle stood all on pillars,
+and that its roots were full of caves.&nbsp; There were pillars of black
+basalt, like Staffa; and pillars of green and crimson serpentine, like
+Kynance; and pillars ribboned with red and white and yellow sandstone,
+like Livermead; and there were blue grottoes like Capri, and white grottoes
+like Adelsberg; all curtained and draped with seaweeds, purple and crimson,
+green and brown; and strewn with soft white sand, on which the water-babies
+sleep every night.&nbsp; But, to keep the place clean and sweet, the
+crabs picked up all the scraps off the floor and ate them like so many
+monkeys; while the rocks were covered with ten thousand sea-anemones,
+and corals and madrepores, who scavenged the water all day long, and
+kept it nice and pure.&nbsp; But, to make up to them for having to do
+such nasty work, they were not left black and dirty, as poor chimney-sweeps
+and dustmen are.&nbsp; No; the fairies are more considerate and just
+than that, and have dressed them all in the most beautiful colours and
+patterns, till they look like vast flower-beds of gay blossoms.&nbsp;
+If you think I am talking nonsense, I can only say that it is true;
+and that an old gentleman named Fourier used to say that we ought to
+do the same by chimney-sweeps and dustmen, and honour them instead of
+despising them; and he was a very clever old gentleman: but, unfortunately
+for him and the world, as mad as a March hare.</p>
+<p>And, instead of watchmen and policemen to keep out nasty things at
+night, there were thousands and thousands of water-snakes, and most
+wonderful creatures they were.&nbsp; They were all named after the Nereids,
+the sea-fairies who took care of them, Eunice and Polynoe, Phyllodoce
+and Psamathe, and all the rest of the pretty darlings who swim round
+their Queen Amphitrite, and her car of cameo shell.&nbsp; They were
+dressed in green velvet, and black velvet, and purple velvet; and were
+all jointed in rings; and some of them had three hundred brains apiece,
+so that they must have been uncommonly shrewd detectives; and some had
+eyes in their tails; and some had eyes in every joint, so that they
+kept a very sharp look-out; and when they wanted a baby-snake, they
+just grew one at the end of their own tails, and when it was able to
+take care of itself it dropped off; so that they brought up their families
+very cheaply.&nbsp; But if any nasty thing came by, out they rushed
+upon it; and then out of each of their hundreds of feet there sprang
+a whole cutler&rsquo;s shop of</p>
+<pre>Scythes,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Javelins,
+Billhooks,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Lances,
+Pickaxes,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  Halberts,
+Forks,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Gisarines,
+Penknives,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Poleaxes,
+Rapiers,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Fishhooks,
+Sabres,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  Bradawls,
+Yataghans,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Gimblets,
+Creeses,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Corkscrews,
+Ghoorka swords, Pins,
+Tucks,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Needles,
+And so forth,</pre>
+<p>which stabbed, shot, poked, pricked, scratched, ripped, pinked, and
+crimped those naughty beasts so terribly, that they had to run for their
+lives, or else be chopped into small pieces and be eaten afterwards.&nbsp;
+And, if that is not all, every word, true, then there is no faith in
+microscopes, and all is over with the Linnaean Society.</p>
+<p>And there were the water-babies in thousands, more than Tom, or you
+either, could count.&mdash;All the little children whom the good fairies
+take to, because their cruel mothers and fathers will not; all who are
+untaught and brought up heathens, and all who come to grief by ill-usage
+or ignorance or neglect; all the little children who are overlaid, or
+given gin when they are young, or are let to drink out of hot kettles,
+or to fall into the fire; all the little children in alleys and courts,
+and tumble-down cottages, who die by fever, and cholera, and measles,
+and scarlatina, and nasty complaints which no one has any business to
+have, and which no one will have some day, when folks have common sense;
+and all the little children who have been killed by cruel masters and
+wicked soldiers; they were all there, except, of course, the babes of
+Bethlehem who were killed by wicked King Herod; for they were taken
+straight to heaven long ago, as everybody knows, and we call them the
+Holy Innocents.</p>
+<p>But I wish Tom had given up all his naughty tricks, and left off
+tormenting dumb animals now that he had plenty of playfellows to amuse
+him.&nbsp; Instead of that, I am sorry to say, he would meddle with
+the creatures, all but the water-snakes, for they would stand no nonsense.&nbsp;
+So he tickled the madrepores, to make them shut up; and frightened the
+crabs, to make them hide in the sand and peep out at him with the tips
+of their eyes; and put stones into the anemones&rsquo; mouths, to make
+them fancy that their dinner was coming.</p>
+<p>The other children warned him, and said, &ldquo;Take care what you
+are at.&nbsp; Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is coming.&rdquo;&nbsp; But Tom
+never heeded them, being quite riotous with high spirits and good luck,
+till, one Friday morning early, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid came indeed.</p>
+<p>A very tremendous lady she was; and when the children saw her they
+all stood in a row, very upright indeed, and smoothed down their bathing
+dresses, and put their hands behind them, just as if they were going
+to be examined by the inspector.</p>
+<p>And she had on a black bonnet, and a black shawl, and no crinoline
+at all; and a pair of large green spectacles, and a great hooked nose,
+hooked so much that the bridge of it stood quite up above her eyebrows;
+and under her arm she carried a great birch-rod.&nbsp; Indeed, she was
+so ugly that Tom was tempted to make faces at her: but did not; for
+he did not admire the look of the birch-rod under her arm.</p>
+<p>And she looked at the children one by one, and seemed very much pleased
+with them, though she never asked them one question about how they were
+behaving; and then began giving them all sorts of nice sea-things&mdash;sea-cakes,
+sea-apples, sea-oranges, sea-bullseyes, sea-toffee; and to the very
+best of all she gave sea-ices, made out of sea-cows&rsquo; cream, which
+never melt under water.</p>
+<p>And, if you don&rsquo;t quite believe me, then just think&mdash;What
+is more cheap and plentiful than sea-rock?&nbsp; Then why should there
+not be sea-toffee as well?&nbsp; And every one can find sea-lemons (ready
+quartered too) if they will look for them at low tide; and sea-grapes
+too sometimes, hanging in bunches; and, if you will go to Nice, you
+will find the fish-market full of sea-fruit, which they call &ldquo;frutta
+di mare:&rdquo; though I suppose they call them &ldquo;fruits de mer&rdquo;
+now, out of compliment to that most successful, and therefore most immaculate,
+potentate who is seemingly desirous of inheriting the blessing pronounced
+on those who remove their neighbours&rsquo; land-mark.&nbsp; And, perhaps,
+that is the very reason why the place is called Nice, because there
+are so many nice things in the sea there: at least, if it is not, it
+ought to be.</p>
+<p>Now little Tom watched all these sweet things given away, till his
+mouth watered, and his eyes grew as round as an owl&rsquo;s.&nbsp; For
+he hoped that his turn would come at last; and so it did.&nbsp; For
+the lady called him up, and held out her fingers with something in them,
+and popped it into his mouth; and, lo and behold, it was a nasty cold
+hard pebble.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are a very cruel woman,&rdquo; said he, and began to whimper.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you are a very cruel boy; who puts pebbles into the sea-anemones&rsquo;
+mouths, to take them in, and make them fancy that they had caught a
+good dinner!&nbsp; As you did to them, so I must do to you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who told you that?&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You did yourself, this very minute.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom had never opened his lips; so he was very much taken aback indeed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes; every one tells me exactly what they have done wrong;
+and that without knowing it themselves.&nbsp; So there is no use trying
+to hide anything from me.&nbsp; Now go, and be a good boy, and I will
+put no more pebbles in your mouth, if you put none in other creatures&rsquo;.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I did not know there was any harm in it,&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then you know now.&nbsp; People continually say that to me:
+but I tell them, if you don&rsquo;t know that fire burns, that is no
+reason that it should not burn you; and if you don&rsquo;t know that
+dirt breeds fever, that is no reason why the fevers should not kill
+you.&nbsp; The lobster did not know that there was any harm in getting
+into the lobster-pot; but it caught him all the same.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear me,&rdquo; thought Tom, &ldquo;she knows everything!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And so she did, indeed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And so, if you do not know that things are wrong that is no
+reason why you should not be punished for them; though not as much,
+not as much, my little man&rdquo; (and the lady looked very kindly,
+after all), &ldquo;as if you did know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you are a little hard on a poor lad,&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not at all; I am the best friend you ever had in all your
+life.&nbsp; But I will tell you; I cannot help punishing people when
+they do wrong.&nbsp; I like it no more than they do; I am often very,
+very sorry for them, poor things: but I cannot help it.&nbsp; If I tried
+not to do it, I should do it all the same.&nbsp; For I work by machinery,
+just like an engine; and am full of wheels and springs inside; and am
+wound up very carefully, so that I cannot help going.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Was it long ago since they wound you up?&rdquo; asked Tom.&nbsp;
+For he thought, the cunning little fellow, &ldquo;She will run down
+some day: or they may forget to wind her up, as old Grimes used to forget
+to wind up his watch when he came in from the public-house; and then
+I shall be safe.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was wound up once and for all, so long ago, that I forget
+all about it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear me,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;you must have been made a
+long time!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I never was made, my child; and I shall go for ever and ever;
+for I am as old as Eternity, and yet as young as Time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And there came over the lady&rsquo;s face a very curious expression&mdash;very
+solemn, and very sad; and yet very, very sweet.&nbsp; And she looked
+up and away, as if she were gazing through the sea, and through the
+sky, at something far, far off; and as she did so, there came such a
+quiet, tender, patient, hopeful smile over her face that Tom thought
+for the moment that she did not look ugly at all.&nbsp; And no more
+she did; for she was like a great many people who have not a pretty
+feature in their faces, and yet are lovely to behold, and draw little
+children&rsquo;s hearts to them at once because though the house is
+plain enough, yet from the windows a beautiful and good spirit is looking
+forth.</p>
+<p>And Tom smiled in her face, she looked so pleasant for the moment.
+And the strange fairy smiled too, and said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&nbsp; You thought me very ugly just now, did you not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom hung down his head, and got very red about the ears.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And I am very ugly.&nbsp; I am the ugliest fairy in the world;
+and I shall be, till people behave themselves as they ought to do.&nbsp;
+And then I shall grow as handsome as my sister, who is the loveliest
+fairy in the world; and her name is Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.&nbsp;
+So she begins where I end, and I begin where she ends; and those who
+will not listen to her must listen to me, as you will see.&nbsp; Now,
+all of you run away, except Tom; and he may stay and see what I am going
+to do.&nbsp; It will be a very good warning for him to begin with, before
+he goes to school.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now, Tom, every Friday I come down here and call up all who
+have ill-used little children and serve them as they served the children.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And at that Tom was frightened, and crept under a stone; which made
+the two crabs who lived there very angry, and frightened their friend
+the butter-fish into flapping hysterics: but he would not move for them.</p>
+<p>And first she called up all the doctors who give little children
+so much physic (they were most of them old ones; for the young ones
+have learnt better, all but a few army surgeons, who still fancy that
+a baby&rsquo;s inside is much like a Scotch grenadier&rsquo;s), and
+she set them all in a row; and very rueful they looked; for they knew
+what was coming.</p>
+<p>And first she pulled all their teeth out; and then she bled them
+all round: and then she dosed them with calomel, and jalap, and salts
+and senna, and brimstone and treacle; and horrible faces they made;
+and then she gave them a great emetic of mustard and water, and no basons;
+and began all over again; and that was the way she spent the morning.</p>
+<p>And then she called up a whole troop of foolish ladies, who pinch
+up their children&rsquo;s waists and toes; and she laced them all up
+in tight stays, so that they were choked and sick, and their noses grew
+red, and their hands and feet swelled; and then she crammed their poor
+feet into the most dreadfully tight boots, and made them all dance,
+which they did most clumsily indeed; and then she asked them how they
+liked it; and when they said not at all, she let them go: because they
+had only done it out of foolish fashion, fancying it was for their children&rsquo;s
+good, as if wasps&rsquo; waists and pigs&rsquo; toes could be pretty,
+or wholesome, or of any use to anybody.</p>
+<p>Then she called up all the careless nurserymaids, and stuck pins
+into them all over, and wheeled them about in perambulators with tight
+straps across their stomachs and their heads and arms hanging over the
+side, till they were quite sick and stupid, and would have had sun-strokes:
+but, being under the water, they could only have water-strokes; which,
+I assure you, are nearly as bad, as you will find if you try to sit
+under a mill-wheel.&nbsp; And mind&mdash;when you hear a rumbling at
+the bottom of the sea, sailors will tell you that it is a ground-swell:
+but now you know better.&nbsp; It is the old lady wheeling the maids
+about in perambulators.</p>
+<p>And by that time she was so tired, she had to go to luncheon.</p>
+<p>And after luncheon she set to work again, and called up all the cruel
+schoolmasters&mdash;whole regiments and brigades of them; and when she
+saw them, she frowned most terribly, and set to work in earnest, as
+if the best part of the day&rsquo;s work was to come.&nbsp; More than
+half of them were nasty, dirty, frowzy, grubby, smelly old monks, who,
+because they dare not hit a man of their own size, amused themselves
+with beating little children instead; as you may see in the picture
+of old Pope Gregory (good man and true though he was, when he meddled
+with things which he did understand), teaching children to sing their
+fa-fa-mi-fa with a cat-o&rsquo;-nine tails under his chair: but, because
+they never had any children of their own, they took into their heads
+(as some folks do still) that they were the only people in the world
+who knew how to manage children: and they first brought into England,
+in the old Anglo-Saxon times, the fashion of treating free boys, and
+girls too, worse than you would treat a dog or a horse: but Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid
+has caught them all long ago; and given them many a taste of their own
+rods; and much good may it do them.</p>
+<p>And she boxed their ears, and thumped them over the head with rulers,
+and pandied their hands with canes, and told them that they told stories,
+and were this and that bad sort of people; and the more they were very
+indignant, and stood upon their honour, and declared they told the truth,
+the more she declared they were not, and that they were only telling
+lies; and at last she birched them all round soundly with her great
+birch-rod and set them each an imposition of three hundred thousand
+lines of Hebrew to learn by heart before she came back next Friday.&nbsp;
+And at that they all cried and howled so, that their breaths came all
+up through the sea like bubbles out of soda-water; and that is one reason
+of the bubbles in the sea.&nbsp; There are others: but that is the one
+which principally concerns little boys.&nbsp; And by that time she was
+so tired that she was glad to stop; and, indeed, she had done a very
+good day&rsquo;s work.</p>
+<p>Tom did not quite dislike the old lady: but he could not help thinking
+her a little spiteful&mdash;and no wonder if she was, poor old soul;
+for if she has to wait to grow handsome till people do as they would
+be done by, she will have to wait a very long time.</p>
+<p>Poor old Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid! she has a great deal of hard work
+before her, and had better have been born a washerwoman, and stood over
+a tub all day: but, you see, people cannot always choose their own profession.</p>
+<p>But Tom longed to ask her one question; and after all, whenever she
+looked at him, she did not look cross at all; and now and then there
+was a funny smile in her face, and she chuckled to herself in a way
+which gave Tom courage, and at last he said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Pray, ma&rsquo;am, may I ask you a question?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly, my little dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you bring all the bad masters here and serve
+them out too?&nbsp; The butties that knock about the poor collier-boys;
+and the nailers that file off their lads&rsquo; noses and hammer their
+fingers; and all the master sweeps, like my master Grimes?&nbsp; I saw
+him fall into the water long ago; so I surely expected he would have
+been here.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m sure he was bad enough to me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then the old lady looked so very stern that Tom was quite frightened,
+and sorry that he had been so bold.&nbsp; But she was not angry with
+him.&nbsp; She only answered, &ldquo;I look after them all the week
+round; and they are in a very different place from this, because they
+knew that they were doing wrong.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She spoke very quietly; but there was something in her voice which
+made Tom tingle from head to foot, as if he had got into a shoal of
+sea-nettles.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But these people,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;did not know
+that they were doing wrong: they were only stupid and impatient; and
+therefore I only punish them till they become patient, and learn to
+use their common sense like reasonable beings.&nbsp; But as for chimney-sweeps,
+and collier-boys, and nailer lads, my sister has set good people to
+stop all that sort of thing; and very much obliged to her I am; for
+if she could only stop the cruel masters from ill-using poor children,
+I should grow handsome at least a thousand years sooner.&nbsp; And now
+do you be a good boy, and do as you would be done by, which they did
+not; and then, when my sister, MADAME DOASYOUWOULDBEDONEBY, comes on
+Sunday, perhaps she will take notice of you, and teach you how to behave.&nbsp;
+She understands that better than I do.&rdquo;&nbsp; And so she went.</p>
+<p>Tom was very glad to hear that there was no chance of meeting Grimes
+again, though he was a little sorry for him, considering that he used
+sometimes to give him the leavings of the beer: but he determined to
+be a very good boy all Saturday; and he was; for he never frightened
+one crab, nor tickled any live corals, nor put stones into the sea anemones&rsquo;
+mouths, to make them fancy they had got a dinner; and when Sunday morning
+came, sure enough, MRS. DOASYOUWOULDBEDONEBY came too.&nbsp; Whereat
+all the little children began dancing and clapping their hands, and
+Tom danced too with all his might.</p>
+<p>And as for the pretty lady, I cannot tell you what the colour of
+her hair was, or, of her eyes: no more could Tom; for, when any one
+looks at her, all they can think of is, that she has the sweetest, kindest,
+tenderest, funniest, merriest face they ever saw, or want to see.&nbsp;
+But Tom saw that she was a very tall woman, as tall as her sister: but
+instead of being gnarly and horny, and scaly, and prickly, like her,
+she was the most nice, soft, fat, smooth, pussy, cuddly, delicious creature
+who ever nursed a baby; and she understood babies thoroughly, for she
+had plenty of her own, whole rows and regiments of them, and has to
+this day.&nbsp; And all her delight was, whenever she had a spare moment,
+to play with babies, in which she showed herself a woman of sense; for
+babies are the best company, and the pleasantest playfellows, in the
+world; at least, so all the wise people in the world think.&nbsp; And
+therefore when the children saw her, they naturally all caught hold
+of her, and pulled her till she sat down on a stone, and climbed into
+her lap, and clung round her neck, and caught hold of her hands; and
+then they all put their thumbs into their mouths, and began cuddling
+and purring like so many kittens, as they ought to have done.&nbsp;
+While those who could get nowhere else sat down on the sand, and cuddled
+her feet&mdash;for no one, you know, wear shoes in the water, except
+horrid old bathing-women, who are afraid of the water-babies pinching
+their horny toes.&nbsp; And Tom stood staring at them; for he could
+not understand what it was all about.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And who are you, you little darling?&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, that is the new baby!&rdquo; they all cried, pulling their
+thumbs out of their mouths; &ldquo;and he never had any mother,&rdquo;
+and they all put their thumbs back again, for they did not wish to lose
+any time.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I will be his mother, and he shall have the very best
+place; so get out, all of you, this moment.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she took up two great armfuls of babies&mdash;nine hundred under
+one arm, and thirteen hundred under the other&mdash;and threw them away,
+right and left, into the water.&nbsp; But they minded it no more than
+the naughty boys in Struwelpeter minded when St. Nicholas dipped them
+in his inkstand; and did not even take their thumbs out of their mouths,
+but came paddling and wriggling back to her like so many tadpoles, till
+you could see nothing of her from head to foot for the swarm of little
+babies.</p>
+<p>But she took Tom in her arms, and laid him in the softest place of
+all, and kissed him, and patted him, and talked to him, tenderly and
+low, such things as he had never heard before in his life; and Tom looked
+up into her eyes, and loved her, and loved, till he fell fast asleep
+from pure love.</p>
+<p>And when he woke she was telling the children a story.&nbsp; And
+what story did she tell them?&nbsp; One story she told them, which begins
+every Christmas Eve, and yet never ends at all for ever and ever; and,
+as she went on, the children took their thumbs out of their mouths and
+listened quite seriously; but not sadly at all; for she never told them
+anything sad; and Tom listened too, and never grew tired of listening.&nbsp;
+And he listened so long that he fell fast asleep again, and, when he
+woke, the lady was nursing him still.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t go away,&rdquo; said little Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;This
+is so nice.&nbsp; I never had any one to cuddle me before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t go away,&rdquo; said all the children; &ldquo;you
+have not sung us one song.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I have time for only one.&nbsp; So what shall it be?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The doll you lost!&nbsp; The doll you lost!&rdquo; cried all
+the babies at once.</p>
+<p>So the strange fairy sang:-</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I once had a sweet little doll, dears,<br />The prettiest doll in
+the world;<br />Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears,<br />And
+her hair was so charmingly curled.<br />But I lost my poor little doll,
+dears,<br />As I played in the heath one day;<br />And I cried for her
+more than a week, dears,<br />But I never could find where she lay.</p>
+<p>I found my poor little doll, dears,<br />As I played in the heath
+one day:<br />Folks say she is terribly changed, dears,<br />For her
+paint is all washed away,<br />And her arm trodden off by the cows,
+dears,<br />And her hair not the least bit curled:<br />Yet, for old
+sakes&rsquo; sake she is still, dears,<br />The prettiest doll in the
+world.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>What a silly song for a fairy to sing!</p>
+<p>And what silly water-babies to be quite delighted at it!</p>
+<p>Well, but you see they have not the advantage of Aunt Agitate&rsquo;s
+Arguments in the sea-land down below.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said the fairy to Tom, &ldquo;will you be a good
+boy for my sake, and torment no more sea-beasts till I come back?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you will cuddle me again?&rdquo; said poor little Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I will, you little duck.&nbsp; I should like to
+take you with me and cuddle you all the way, only I must not;&rdquo;
+and away she went.</p>
+<p>So Tom really tried to be a good boy, and tormented no sea-beasts
+after that as long as he lived; and he is quite alive, I assure you,
+still.</p>
+<p>Oh, how good little boys ought to be who have kind pussy mammas to
+cuddle them and tell them stories; and how afraid they ought to be of
+growing naughty, and bringing tears into their mammas&rsquo; pretty
+eyes!</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Thou little child, yet glorious in the night<br />Of heaven-born
+freedom on thy Being&rsquo;s height,<br />Why with such earnest pains
+dost thou provoke<br />The Years to bring the inevitable yoke -<br />Thus
+blindly with thy blessedness at strife?<br />Full soon thy soul shall
+have her earthly freight,<br />And custom lie upon thee with a weight<br />Heavy
+as frost, and deep almost as life.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>WORDSWORTH.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I come to the very saddest part of all my story.&nbsp; I know some
+people will only laugh at it, and call it much ado about nothing.&nbsp;
+But I know one man who would not; and he was an officer with a pair
+of gray moustaches as long as your arm, who said once in company that
+two of the most heart-rending sights in the world, which moved him most
+to tears, which he would do anything to prevent or remedy, were a child
+over a broken toy and a child stealing sweets.</p>
+<p>The company did not laugh at him; his moustaches were too long and
+too gray for that: but, after he was gone, they called him sentimental
+and so forth, all but one dear little old Quaker lady with a soul as
+white as her cap, who was not, of course, generally partial to soldiers;
+and she said very quietly, like a Quaker:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Friends, it is borne upon my mind that that is a truly brave
+man.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Now you may fancy that Tom was quite good, when he had everything
+that he could want or wish: but you would be very much mistaken.&nbsp;
+Being quite comfortable is a very good thing; but it does not make people
+good.&nbsp; Indeed, it sometimes makes them naughty, as it has made
+the people in America; and as it made the people in the Bible, who waxed
+fat and kicked, like horses overfed and underworked.&nbsp; And I am
+very sorry to say that this happened to little Tom.&nbsp; For he grew
+so fond of the sea-bullseyes and sea-lollipops that his foolish little
+head could think of nothing else: and he was always longing for more,
+and wondering when the strange lady would come again and give him some,
+and what she would give him, and how much, and whether she would give
+him more than the others.&nbsp; And he thought of nothing but lollipops
+by day, and dreamt of nothing else by night&mdash;and what happened
+then?</p>
+<p>That he began to watch the lady to see where she kept the sweet things:
+and began hiding, and sneaking, and following her about, and pretending
+to be looking the other way, or going after something else, till he
+found out that she kept them in a beautiful mother-of-pearl cabinet
+away in a deep crack of the rocks.</p>
+<p>And he longed to go to the cabinet, and yet he was afraid; and then
+he longed again, and was less afraid; and at last, by continual thinking
+about it, he longed so violently that he was not afraid at all.&nbsp;
+And one night, when all the other children were asleep, and he could
+not sleep for thinking of lollipops, he crept away among the rocks,
+and got to the cabinet, and behold! it was open.</p>
+<p>But, when he saw all the nice things inside, instead of being delighted,
+he was quite frightened, and wished he had never come there.&nbsp; And
+then he would only touch them, and he did; and then he would only taste
+one, and he did; and then he would only eat one, and he did; and then
+he would only eat two, and then three, and so on; and then he was terrified
+lest she should come and catch him, and began gobbling them down so
+fast that he did not taste them, or have any pleasure in them; and then
+he felt sick, and would have only one more; and then only one more again;
+and so on till he had eaten them all up.</p>
+<p>And all the while, close behind him, stood Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.</p>
+<p>Some people may say, But why did she not keep her cupboard locked?&nbsp;
+Well, I know.&mdash;It may seem a very strange thing, but she never
+does keep her cupboard locked; every one may go and taste for themselves,
+and fare accordingly.&nbsp; It is very odd, but so it is; and I am quite
+sure that she knows best.&nbsp; Perhaps she wishes people to keep their
+fingers out of the fire, by having them burned.</p>
+<p>She took off her spectacles, because she did not like to see too
+much; and in her pity she arched up her eyebrows into her very hair,
+and her eyes grew so wide that they would have taken in all the sorrows
+of the world, and filled with great big tears, as they too often do.</p>
+<p>But all she said was:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, you poor little dear! you are just like all the rest.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But she said it to herself, and Tom neither heard nor saw her.&nbsp;
+Now, you must not fancy that she was sentimental at all.&nbsp; If you
+do, and think that she is going to let off you, or me, or any human
+being when we do wrong, because she is too tender-hearted to punish
+us, then you will find yourself very much mistaken, as many a man does
+every year and every day.</p>
+<p>But what did the strange fairy do when she saw all her lollipops
+eaten?</p>
+<p>Did she fly at Tom, catch him by the scruff of the neck, hold him,
+howk him, hump him, hurry him, hit him, poke him, pull him, pinch him,
+pound him, put him in the corner, shake him, slap him, set him on a
+cold stone to reconsider himself, and so forth?</p>
+<p>Not a bit.&nbsp; You may watch her at work if you know where to find
+her.&nbsp; But you will never see her do that.&nbsp; For, if she had,
+she knew quite well Tom would have fought, and kicked, and bit, and
+said bad words, and turned again that moment into a naughty little heathen
+chimney-sweep, with his hand, like Ishmael&rsquo;s of old, against every
+man, and every man&rsquo;s hand against him.</p>
+<p>Did she question him, hurry him, frighten him, threaten him, to make
+him confess?&nbsp; Not a bit.&nbsp; You may see her, as I said, at her
+work often enough if you know where to look for her: but you will never
+see her do that.&nbsp; For, if she had, she would have tempted him to
+tell lies in his fright; and that would have been worse for him, if
+possible, than even becoming a heathen chimney-sweep again.</p>
+<p>No.&nbsp; She leaves that for anxious parents and teachers (lazy
+ones, some call them), who, instead of giving children a fair trial,
+such as they would expect and demand for themselves, force them by fright
+to confess their own faults&mdash;which is so cruel and unfair that
+no judge on the bench dare do it to the wickedest thief or murderer,
+for the good British law forbids it&mdash;ay, and even punish them to
+make them confess, which is so detestable a crime that it is never committed
+now, save by Inquisitors, and Kings of Naples, and a few other wretched
+people of whom the world is weary.&nbsp; And then they say, &ldquo;We
+have trained up the child in the way he should go, and when he grew
+up he has departed from it.&nbsp; Why then did Solomon say that he would
+not depart from it?&rdquo;&nbsp; But perhaps the way of beating, and
+hurrying and frightening, and questioning, was not the way that the
+child should go; for it is not even the way in which a colt should go
+if you want to break it in and make it a quiet serviceable horse.</p>
+<p>Some folks may say, &ldquo;Ah! but the Fairy does not need to do
+that if she knows everything already.&rdquo;&nbsp; True.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>So she just said nothing at all about the matter, not even when Tom
+came next day with the rest for sweet things.&nbsp; He was horribly
+afraid of coming: but he was still more afraid of staying away, lest
+any one should suspect him.&nbsp; He was dreadfully afraid, too, lest
+there should be no sweets&mdash;as was to be expected, he having eaten
+them all&mdash;and lest then the fairy should inquire who had taken
+them.&nbsp; But, behold! she pulled out just as many as ever, which
+astonished Tom, and frightened him still more.</p>
+<p>And, when the fairy looked him full in the face, he shook from head
+to foot: however she gave him his share like the rest, and he thought
+within himself that she could not have found him out.</p>
+<p>But, when he put the sweets into his mouth, he hated the taste of
+them; and they made him so sick that he had to get away as fast as he
+could; and terribly sick he was, and very cross and unhappy, all the
+week after.</p>
+<p>Then, when next week came, he had his share again; and again the
+fairy looked him full in the face; but more sadly than she had ever
+looked.&nbsp; And he could not bear the sweets: but took them again
+in spite of himself.</p>
+<p>And when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, he wanted to be cuddled
+like the rest; but she said very seriously:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should like to cuddle you; but I cannot, you are so horny
+and prickly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And Tom looked at himself: and he was all over prickles, just like
+a sea-egg.</p>
+<p>Which was quite natural; for you must know and believe that people&rsquo;s
+souls make their bodies just as a snail makes its shell (I am not joking,
+my little man; I am in serious, solemn earnest).&nbsp; And therefore,
+when Tom&rsquo;s soul grew all prickly with naughty tempers, his body
+could not help growing prickly, too, so that nobody would cuddle him,
+or play with him, or even like to look at him.</p>
+<p>What could Tom do now but go away and hide in a corner and cry?&nbsp;
+For nobody would play with him, and he knew full well why.</p>
+<p>And he was so miserable all that week that when the ugly fairy came
+and looked at him once more full in the face, more seriously and sadly
+than ever, he could stand it no longer, and thrust the sweetmeats away,
+saying, &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t want any: I can&rsquo;t bear them now,&rdquo;
+and then burst out crying, poor little man, and told Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid
+every word as it happened.</p>
+<p>He was horribly frightened when he had done so; for he expected her
+to punish him very severely.&nbsp; But, instead, she only took him up
+and kissed him, which was not quite pleasant, for her chin was very
+bristly indeed; but he was so lonely-hearted, he thought that rough
+kissing was better than none.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will forgive you, little man,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+always forgive every one the moment they tell me the truth of their
+own accord.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then you will take away all these nasty prickles?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That is a very different matter.&nbsp; You put them there
+yourself, and only you can take them away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But how can I do that?&rdquo; asked Tom, crying afresh.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I think it is time for you to go to school; so I shall
+fetch you a schoolmistress, who will teach you how to get rid of your
+prickles.&rdquo;&nbsp; And so she went away.</p>
+<p>Tom was frightened at the notion of a school-mistress; for he thought
+she would certainly come with a birch-rod or a cane; but he comforted
+himself, at last, that she might be something like the old woman in
+Vendale&mdash;which she was not in the least; for, when the fairy brought
+her, she was the most beautiful little girl that ever was seen, with
+long curls floating behind her like a golden cloud, and long robes floating
+all round her like a silver one.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There he is,&rdquo; said the fairy; &ldquo;and you must teach
+him to be good, whether you like or not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know,&rdquo; said the little girl; but she did not seem
+quite to like, for she put her finger in her mouth, and looked at Tom
+under her brows; and Tom put his finger in his mouth, and looked at
+her under his brows, for he was horribly ashamed of himself.</p>
+<p>The little girl seemed hardly to know how to begin; and perhaps she
+would never have begun at all if poor Tom had not burst out crying,
+and begged her to teach him to be good and help him to cure his prickles;
+and at that she grew so tender-hearted that she began teaching him as
+prettily as ever child was taught in the world.</p>
+<p>And what did the little girl teach Tom?&nbsp; She taught him, first,
+what you have been taught ever since you said your first prayers at
+your mother&rsquo;s knees; but she taught him much more simply.&nbsp;
+For the lessons in that world, my child, have no such hard words in
+them as the lessons in this, and therefore the water-babies like them
+better than you like your lessons, and long to learn them more and more;
+and grown men cannot puzzle nor quarrel over their meaning, as they
+do here on land; for those lessons all rise clear and pure, like the
+Test out of Overton Pool, out of the everlasting ground of all life
+and truth.</p>
+<p>So she taught Tom every day in the week; only on Sundays she always
+went away home, and the kind fairy took her place.&nbsp; And before
+she had taught Tom many Sundays, his prickles had vanished quite away,
+and his skin was smooth and clean again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear me!&rdquo; said the little girl; &ldquo;why, I know you
+now.&nbsp; You are the very same little chimney-sweep who came into
+my bedroom.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear me!&rdquo; cried Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;And I know you, too,
+now.&nbsp; You are the very little white lady whom I saw in bed.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And he jumped at her, and longed to hug and kiss her; but did not, remembering
+that she was a lady born; so he only jumped round and round her till
+he was quite tired.</p>
+<p>And then they began telling each other all their story&mdash;how
+he had got into the water, and she had fallen over the rock; and how
+he had swum down to the sea, and how she had flown out of the window;
+and how this, that, and the other, till it was all talked out: and then
+they both began over again, and I can&rsquo;t say which of the two talked
+fastest.</p>
+<p>And then they set to work at their lessons again, and both liked
+them so well that they went on well till seven full years were past
+and gone.</p>
+<p>You may fancy that Tom was quite content and happy all those seven
+years; but the truth is, he was not.&nbsp; He had always one thing on
+his mind, and that was&mdash;where little Ellie went, when she went
+home on Sundays.</p>
+<p>To a very beautiful place, she said.</p>
+<p>But what was the beautiful place like, and where was it?</p>
+<p>Ah! that is just what she could not say.&nbsp; And it is strange,
+but true, that no one can say; and that those who have been oftenest
+in it, or even nearest to it, can say least about it, and make people
+understand least what it is like.&nbsp; There are a good many folks
+about the Other-end-of-Nowhere (where Tom went afterwards), who pretend
+to know it from north to south as well as if they had been penny postmen
+there; but, as they are safe at the Other-end-of-Nowhere, nine hundred
+and ninety-nine million miles away, what they say cannot concern us.</p>
+<p>But the dear, sweet, loving, wise, good, self-sacrificing people,
+who really go there, can never tell you anything about it, save that
+it is the most beautiful place in all the world; and, if you ask them
+more, they grow modest, and hold their peace, for fear of being laughed
+at; and quite right they are.</p>
+<p>So all that good little Ellie could say was, that it was worth all
+the rest of the world put together.&nbsp; And of course that only made
+Tom the more anxious to go likewise.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Ellie,&rdquo; he said at last, &ldquo;I will know why
+I cannot go with you when you go home on Sundays, or I shall have no
+peace, and give you none either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You must ask the fairies that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So when the fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, came next, Tom asked her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Little boys who are only fit to play with sea-beasts cannot
+go there,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Those who go there must go first
+where they do not like, and do what they do not like, and help somebody
+they do not like.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, did Ellie do that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ask her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And Ellie blushed, and said, &ldquo;Yes, Tom; I did not like coming
+here at first; I was so much happier at home, where it is always Sunday.&nbsp;
+And I was afraid of you, Tom, at first, because&mdash;because&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I was all over prickles?&nbsp; But I am not prickly
+now, am I, Miss Ellie?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Ellie.&nbsp; &ldquo;I like you very much now;
+and I like coming here, too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And perhaps,&rdquo; said the fairy, &ldquo;you will learn
+to like going where you don&rsquo;t like, and helping some one that
+you don&rsquo;t like, as Ellie has.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But Tom put his finger in his mouth, and hung his head down; for
+he did not see that at all.</p>
+<p>So when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, Tom asked her; for he thought
+in his little head, She is not so strict as her sister, and perhaps
+she may let me off more easily.</p>
+<p>Ah, Tom, Tom, silly fellow! and yet I don&rsquo;t know why I should
+blame you, while so many grown people have got the very same notion
+in their heads.</p>
+<p>But, when they try it, they get just the same answer as Tom did.&nbsp;
+For, when he asked the second fairy, she told him just what the first
+did, and in the very same words.</p>
+<p>Tom was very unhappy at that.&nbsp; And, when Ellie went home on
+Sunday, he fretted and cried all day, and did not care to listen to
+the fairy&rsquo;s stories about good children, though they were prettier
+than ever.&nbsp; Indeed, the more he overheard of them, the less he
+liked to listen, because they were all about children who did what they
+did not like, and took trouble for other people, and worked to feed
+their little brothers and sisters instead of caring only for their play.&nbsp;
+And, when she began to tell a story about a holy child in old times,
+who was martyred by the heathen because it would not worship idols,
+Tom could bear no more, and ran away and hid among the rocks.</p>
+<p>And, when Ellie came back, he was shy with her, because he fancied
+she looked down on him, and thought him a coward.&nbsp; And then he
+grew quite cross with her, because she was superior to him, and did
+what he could not do.&nbsp; And poor Ellie was quite surprised and sad;
+and at last Tom burst out crying; but he would not tell her what was
+really in his mind.</p>
+<p>And all the while he was eaten up with curiosity to know where Ellie
+went to; so that he began not to care for his playmates, or for the
+sea-palace or anything else.&nbsp; But perhaps that made matters all
+the easier for him; for he grew so discontented with everything round
+him that he did not care to stay, and did not care where he went.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, at last, &ldquo;I am so miserable here,
+I&rsquo;ll go; if only you will go with me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Ellie, &ldquo;I wish I might; but the worst
+of it is, that the fairy says that you must go alone if you go at all.&nbsp;
+Now don&rsquo;t poke that poor crab about, Tom&rdquo; (for he was feeling
+very naughty and mischievous), &ldquo;or the fairy will have to punish
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom was very nearly saying, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care if she does;&rdquo;
+but he stopped himself in time.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know what she wants me to do,&rdquo; he said, whining most
+dolefully.&nbsp; &ldquo;She wants me to go after that horrid old Grimes.&nbsp;
+I don&rsquo;t like him, that&rsquo;s certain.&nbsp; And if I find him,
+he will turn me into a chimney-sweep again, I know.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s
+what I have been afraid of all along.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, he won&rsquo;t&mdash;I know as much as that.&nbsp; Nobody
+can turn water-babies into sweeps, or hurt them at all, as long as they
+are good.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said naughty Tom, &ldquo;I see what you want; you
+are persuading me all along to go, because you are tired of me, and
+want to get rid of me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Little Ellie opened her eyes very wide at that, and they were all
+brimming over with tears.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Tom, Tom!&rdquo; she said, very mournfully&mdash;and then
+she cried, &ldquo;Oh, Tom! where are you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And Tom cried, &ldquo;Oh, Ellie, where are you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>For neither of them could see each other&mdash;not the least.&nbsp;
+Little Ellie vanished quite away, and Tom heard her voice calling him,
+and growing smaller and smaller, and fainter and fainter, till all was
+silent.</p>
+<p>Who was frightened then but Tom?&nbsp; He swam up and down among
+the rocks, into all the halls and chambers, faster than ever he swam
+before, but could not find her.&nbsp; He shouted after her, but she
+did not answer; he asked all the other children, but they had not seen
+her; and at last he went up to the top of the water and began crying
+and screaming for Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid&mdash;which perhaps was the
+best thing to do&mdash;for she came in a moment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh dear, oh dear!&nbsp;
+I have been naughty to Ellie, and I have killed her&mdash;I know I have
+killed her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not quite that,&rdquo; said the fairy; &ldquo;but I have sent
+her away home, and she will not come back again for I do not know how
+long.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And at that Tom cried so bitterly that the salt sea was swelled with
+his tears, and the tide was .3,954,620,819 of an inch higher than it
+had been the day before: but perhaps that was owing to the waxing of
+the moon.&nbsp; It may have been so; but it is considered right in the
+new philosophy, you know, to give spiritual causes for physical phenomena&mdash;especially
+in parlour-tables; and, of course, physical causes for spiritual ones,
+like thinking, and praying, and knowing right from wrong.&nbsp; And
+so they odds it till it comes even, as folks say down in Berkshire.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How cruel of you to send Ellie away!&rdquo; sobbed Tom.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;However, I will find her again, if I go to the world&rsquo;s
+end to look for her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The fairy did not slap Tom, and tell him to hold his tongue: but
+she took him on her lap very kindly, just as her sister would have done;
+and put him in mind how it was not her fault, because she was wound
+up inside, like watches, and could not help doing things whether she
+liked or not.&nbsp; And then she told him how he had been in the nursery
+long enough, and must go out now and see the world, if he intended ever
+to be a man; and how he must go all alone by himself, as every one else
+that ever was born has to go, and see with his own eyes, and smell with
+his own nose, and make his own bed and lie on it, and burn his own fingers
+if he put them into the fire.&nbsp; And then she told him how many fine
+things there were to be seen in the world, and what an odd, curious,
+pleasant, orderly, respectable, well-managed, and, on the whole, successful
+(as, indeed, might have been expected) sort of a place it was, if people
+would only be tolerably brave and honest and good in it; and then she
+told him not to be afraid of anything he met, for nothing would harm
+him if he remembered all his lessons, and did what he knew was right.&nbsp;
+And at last she comforted poor little Tom so much that he was quite
+eager to go, and wanted to set out that minute.&nbsp; &ldquo;Only,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;if I might see Ellie once before I went!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why do you want that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because&mdash;because I should be so much happier if I thought
+she had forgiven me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And in the twinkling of an eye there stood Ellie, smiling, and looking
+so happy that Tom longed to kiss her; but was still afraid it would
+not be respectful, because she was a lady born.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am going, Ellie!&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am going,
+if it is to the world&rsquo;s end.&nbsp; But I don&rsquo;t like going
+at all, and that&rsquo;s the truth.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Pooh! pooh! pooh!&rdquo; said the fairy.&nbsp; &ldquo;You
+will like it very well indeed, you little rogue, and you know that at
+the bottom of your heart.&nbsp; But if you don&rsquo;t, I will make
+you like it.&nbsp; Come here, and see what happens to people who do
+only what is pleasant.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she took out of one of her cupboards (she had all sorts of mysterious
+cupboards in the cracks of the rocks) the most wonderful waterproof
+book, full of such photographs as never were seen.&nbsp; For she had
+found out photography (and this is a fact) more than 13,598,000 years
+before anybody was born; and, what is more, her photographs did not
+merely represent light and shade, as ours do, but colour also, and all
+colours, as you may see if you look at a black-cock&rsquo;s tail, or
+a butterfly&rsquo;s wing, or indeed most things that are or can be,
+so to speak.&nbsp; And therefore her photographs were very curious and
+famous, and the children looked with great delight for the opening of
+the book.</p>
+<p>And on the title-page was written, &ldquo;The History of the great
+and famous nation of the Doasyoulikes, who came away from the country
+of Hardwork, because they wanted to play on the Jews&rsquo; harp all
+day long.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In the first picture they saw these Doasyoulikes living in the land
+of Readymade, at the foot of the Happy-go-lucky Mountains, where flapdoodle
+grows wild; and if you want to know what that is, you must read Peter
+Simple.</p>
+<p>They lived very much such a life as those jolly old Greeks in Sicily,
+whom you may see painted on the ancient vases, and really there seemed
+to be great excuses for them, for they had no need to work.</p>
+<p>Instead of houses they lived in the beautiful caves of tufa, and
+bathed in the warm springs three times a day; and, as for clothes, it
+was so warm there that the gentlemen walked about in little beside a
+cocked hat and a pair of straps, or some light summer tackle of that
+kind; and the ladies all gathered gossamer in autumn (when they were
+not too lazy) to make their winter dresses.</p>
+<p>They were very fond of music, but it was too much trouble to learn
+the piano or the violin; and as for dancing, that would have been too
+great an exertion.&nbsp; So they sat on ant-hills all day long, and
+played on the Jews&rsquo; harp; and, if the ants bit them, why they
+just got up and went to the next ant-hill, till they were bitten there
+likewise.</p>
+<p>And they sat under the flapdoodle-trees, and let the flapdoodle drop
+into their mouths; and under the vines, and squeezed the grape-juice
+down their throats; and, if any little pigs ran about ready roasted,
+crying, &ldquo;Come and eat me,&rdquo; as was their fashion in that
+country, they waited till the pigs ran against their mouths, and then
+took a bite, and were content, just as so many oysters would have been.</p>
+<p>They needed no weapons, for no enemies ever came near their land;
+and no tools, for everything was readymade to their hand; and the stern
+old fairy Necessity never came near them to hunt them up, and make them
+use their wits, or die.</p>
+<p>And so on, and so on, and so on, till there were never such comfortable,
+easy-going, happy-go-lucky people in the world.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, that is a jolly life,&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You think so?&rdquo; said the fairy.&nbsp; &ldquo;Do you see
+that great peaked mountain there behind,&rdquo; said the fairy, &ldquo;with
+smoke coming out of its top?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And do you see all those ashes, and slag, and cinders lying
+about?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then turn over the next five hundred years, and you will see
+what happens next.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And behold the mountain had blown up like a barrel of gunpowder,
+and then boiled over like a kettle; whereby one-third of the Doasyoulikes
+were blown into the air, and another third were smothered in ashes;
+so that there was only one-third left.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; said the fairy, &ldquo;what comes of living
+on a burning mountain.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, why did you not warn them?&rdquo; said little Ellie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I did warn them all that I could.&nbsp; I let the smoke come
+out of the mountain; and wherever there is smoke there is fire.&nbsp;
+And I laid the ashes and cinders all about; and wherever there are cinders,
+cinders may be again.&nbsp; But they did not like to face facts, my
+dears, as very few people do; and so they invented a cock-and-bull story,
+which, I am sure, I never told them, that the smoke was the breath of
+a giant, whom some gods or other had buried under the mountain; and
+that the cinders were what the dwarfs roasted the little pigs whole
+with; and other nonsense of that kind.&nbsp; And, when folks are in
+that humour, I cannot teach them, save by the good old birch-rod.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And then she turned over the next five hundred years: and there were
+the remnant of the Doasyoulikes, doing as they liked, as before.&nbsp;
+They were too lazy to move away from the mountain; so they said, If
+it has blown up once, that is all the more reason that it should not
+blow up again.&nbsp; And they were few in number: but they only said,
+The more the merrier, but the fewer the better fare.&nbsp; However,
+that was not quite true; for all the flapdoodle-trees were killed by
+the volcano, and they had eaten all the roast pigs, who, of course,
+could not be expected to have little ones.&nbsp; So they had to live
+very hard, on nuts and roots which they scratched out of the ground
+with sticks.&nbsp; Some of them talked of sowing corn, as their ancestors
+used to do, before they came into the land of Readymade; but they had
+forgotten how to make ploughs (they had forgotten even how to make Jews&rsquo;
+harps by this time), and had eaten all the seed-corn which they brought
+out of the land of Hardwork years since; and of course it was too much
+trouble to go away and find more.&nbsp; So they lived miserably on roots
+and nuts, and all the weakly little children had great stomachs, and
+then died.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;they are growing no better than
+savages.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And look how ugly they are all getting,&rdquo; said Ellie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes; when people live on poor vegetables instead of roast
+beef and plum-pudding, their jaws grow large, and their lips grow coarse,
+like the poor Paddies who eat potatoes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she turned over the next five hundred years.&nbsp; And there
+they were all living up in trees, and making nests to keep off the rain.&nbsp;
+And underneath the trees lions were prowling about.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said Ellie, &ldquo;the lions seem to have eaten
+a good many of them, for there are very few left now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the fairy; &ldquo;you see it was only the
+strongest and most active ones who could climb the trees, and so escape.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But what great, hulking, broad-shouldered chaps they are,&rdquo;
+said Tom; &ldquo;they are a rough lot as ever I saw.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, they are getting very strong now; for the ladies will
+not marry any but the very strongest and fiercest gentlemen, who can
+help them up the trees out of the lions&rsquo; way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she turned over the next five hundred years.&nbsp; And in that
+they were fewer still, and stronger, and fiercer; but their feet had
+changed shape very oddly, for they laid hold of the branches with their
+great toes, as if they had been thumbs, just as a Hindoo tailor uses
+his toes to thread his needle.</p>
+<p>The children were very much surprised, and asked the fairy whether
+that was her doing.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, and no,&rdquo; she said, smiling.&nbsp; &ldquo;It was
+only those who could use their feet as well as their hands who could
+get a good living: or, indeed, get married; so that they got the best
+of everything, and starved out all the rest; and those who are left
+keep up a regular breed of toe-thumb-men, as a breed of short-horns,
+or are skye-terriers, or fancy pigeons is kept up.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But there is a hairy one among them,&rdquo; said Ellie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said the fairy, &ldquo;that will be a great man
+in his time, and chief of all the tribe.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And, when she turned over the next five hundred years, it was true.</p>
+<p>For this hairy chief had had hairy children, and they hairier children
+still; and every one wished to marry hairy husbands, and have hairy
+children too; for the climate was growing so damp that none but the
+hairy ones could live: all the rest coughed and sneezed, and had sore
+throats, and went into consumptions, before they could grow up to be
+men and women.</p>
+<p>Then the fairy turned over the next five hundred years.&nbsp; And
+they were fewer still.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, there is one on the ground picking up roots,&rdquo; said
+Ellie, &ldquo;and he cannot walk upright.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>No more he could; for in the same way that the shape of their feet
+had altered, the shape of their backs had altered also.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; cried Tom, &ldquo;I declare they are all apes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Something fearfully like it, poor foolish creatures,&rdquo;
+said the fairy.&nbsp; &ldquo;They are grown so stupid now, that they
+can hardly think: for none of them have used their wits for many hundred
+years.&nbsp; They have almost forgotten, too, how to talk.&nbsp; For
+each stupid child forgot some of the words it heard from its stupid
+parents, and had not wits enough to make fresh words for itself.&nbsp;
+Beside, they are grown so fierce and suspicious and brutal that they
+keep out of each other&rsquo;s way, and mope and sulk in the dark forests,
+never hearing each other&rsquo;s voice, till they have forgotten almost
+what speech is like.&nbsp; I am afraid they will all be apes very soon,
+and all by doing only what they liked.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And in the next five hundred years they were all dead and gone, by
+bad food and wild beasts and hunters; all except one tremendous old
+fellow with jaws like a jack, who stood full seven feet high; and M.
+Du Chaillu came up to him, and shot him, as he stood roaring and thumping
+his breast.&nbsp; And he remembered that his ancestors had once been
+men, and tried to say, &ldquo;Am I not a man and a brother?&rdquo; but
+had forgotten how to use his tongue; and then he had tried to call for
+a doctor, but he had forgotten the word for one.&nbsp; So all he said
+was &ldquo;Ubboboo!&rdquo; and died.</p>
+<p>And that was the end of the great and jolly nation of the Doasyoulikes.&nbsp;
+And, when Tom and Ellie came to the end of the book, they looked very
+sad and solemn; and they had good reason so to do, for they really fancied
+that the men were apes, and never thought, in their simplicity, of asking
+whether the creatures had hippopotamus majors in their brains or not;
+in which case, as you have been told already, they could not possibly
+have been apes, though they were more apish than the apes of all aperies.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But could you not have saved them from becoming apes?&rdquo;
+said little Ellie, at last.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At first, my dear; if only they would have behaved like men,
+and set to work to do what they did not like.&nbsp; But the longer they
+waited, and behaved like the dumb beasts, who only do what they like,
+the stupider and clumsier they grew; till at last they were past all
+cure, for they had thrown their own wits away.&nbsp; It is such things
+as this that help to make me so ugly, that I know not when I shall grow
+fair.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And where are they all now?&rdquo; asked Ellie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Exactly where they ought to be, my dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; said the fairy, solemnly, half to herself, as
+she closed the wonderful book.&nbsp; &ldquo;Folks say now that I can
+make beasts into men, by circumstance, and selection, and competition,
+and so forth.&nbsp; Well, perhaps they are right; and perhaps, again,
+they are wrong.&nbsp; That is one of the seven things which I am forbidden
+to tell, till the coming of the Cocqcigrues; and, at all events, it
+is no concern of theirs.&nbsp; Whatever their ancestors were, men they
+are; and I advise them to behave as such, and act accordingly.&nbsp;
+But let them recollect this, that there are two sides to every question,
+and a downhill as well as an uphill road; and, if I can turn beasts
+into men, I can, by the same laws of circumstance, and selection, and
+competition, turn men into beasts.&nbsp; You were very near being turned
+into a beast once or twice, little Tom.&nbsp; Indeed, if you had not
+made up your mind to go on this journey, and see the world, like an
+Englishman, I am not sure but that you would have ended as an eft in
+a pond.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear me!&rdquo; said Tom; &ldquo;sooner than that, and
+be all over slime, I&rsquo;ll go this minute, if it is to the world&rsquo;s
+end.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;And Nature, the old Nurse, took<br />The child upon her knee,<br />Saying,
+&lsquo;Here is a story book<br />Thy father hath written for thee.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Come wander with me,&rsquo; she said,<br />&lsquo;Into
+regions yet untrod,<br />And read what is still unread<br />In the Manuscripts
+of God.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And he wandered away and away<br />With Nature, the dear old
+Nurse,<br />Who sang to him night and day<br />The rhymes of the universe.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>LONGFELLOW.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;I am ready be off, if it&rsquo;s
+to the world&rsquo;s end.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said the fairy, &ldquo;that is a brave, good boy.&nbsp;
+But you must go farther than the world&rsquo;s end, if you want to find
+Mr. Grimes; for he is at the Other-end-of-Nowhere.&nbsp; You must go
+to Shiny Wall, and through the white gate that never was opened; and
+then you will come to Peacepool, and Mother Carey&rsquo;s Haven, where
+the good whales go when they die.&nbsp; And there Mother Carey will
+tell you the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere, and there you will find
+Mr. Grimes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear!&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;But I do not know
+my way to Shiny Wall, or where it is at all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Little boys must take the trouble to find out things for themselves,
+or they will never grow to be men; so that you must ask all the beasts
+in the sea and the birds in the air, and if you have been good to them,
+some of them will tell you the way to Shiny Wall.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;it will be a long journey, so
+I had better start at once.&nbsp; Good-bye, Miss Ellie; you know I am
+getting a big boy, and I must go out and see the world.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know you must,&rdquo; said Ellie; &ldquo;but you will not
+forget me, Tom.&nbsp; I shall wait here till you come.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And she shook hands with him, and bade him good-bye.&nbsp; Tom longed
+very much again to kiss her; but he thought it would not be respectful,
+considering she was a lady born; so he promised not to forget her: but
+his little whirl-about of a head was so full of the notion of going
+out to see the world, that it forgot her in five minutes: however, though
+his head forgot her, I am glad to say his heart did not.</p>
+<p>So he asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the birds in the air,
+but none of them knew the way to Shiny Wall.&nbsp; For why?&nbsp; He
+was still too far down south.</p>
+<p>Then he met a ship, far larger than he had ever seen&mdash;a gallant
+ocean-steamer, with a long cloud of smoke trailing behind; and he wondered
+how she went on without sails, and swam up to her to see.&nbsp; A school
+of dolphins were running races round and round her, going three feet
+for her one, and Tom asked them the way to Shiny Wall: but they did
+not know.&nbsp; Then he tried to find out how she moved, and at last
+he saw her screw, and was so delighted with it that he played under
+her quarter all day, till he nearly had his nose knocked off by the
+fans, and thought it time to move.&nbsp; Then he watched the sailors
+upon deck, and the ladies, with their bonnets and parasols: but none
+of them could see him, because their eyes were not opened,&mdash;as,
+indeed, most people&rsquo;s eyes are not.</p>
+<p>At last there came out into the quarter-gallery a very pretty lady,
+in deep black widow&rsquo;s weeds, and in her arms a baby.&nbsp; She
+leaned over the quarter-gallery, and looked back and back toward England
+far away; and as she looked she sang:</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Soft soft wind, from out the sweet south sliding,<br />Waft
+thy silver cloud-webs athwart the summer sea;<br />Thin thin threads
+of mist on dewy fingers twining<br />Weave a veil of dappled gauze to
+shade my babe and me.</p>
+<p>II.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Deep deep Love, within thine own abyss abiding,<br />Pour
+Thyself abroad, O Lord, on earth and air and sea;<br />Worn weary hearts
+within Thy holy temple hiding,<br />Shield from sorrow, sin, and shame
+my helpless babe and me.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Her voice was so soft and low, and the music of the air so sweet,
+that Tom could have listened to it all day.&nbsp; But as she held the
+baby over the gallery rail, to show it the dolphins leaping and the
+water gurgling in the ship&rsquo;s wake, lo! and behold, the baby saw
+Tom.</p>
+<p>He was quite sure of that for when their eyes met, the baby smiled
+and held out his hands; and Tom smiled and held out his hands too; and
+the baby kicked and leaped, as if it wanted to jump overboard to him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you see, my darling?&rdquo; said the lady; and her
+eyes followed the baby&rsquo;s till she too caught sight of Tom, swimming
+about among the foam-beads below.</p>
+<p>She gave a little shriek and start; and then she said, quite quietly,
+&ldquo;Babies in the sea?&nbsp; Well, perhaps it is the happiest place
+for them;&rdquo; and waved her hand to Tom, and cried, &ldquo;Wait a
+little, darling, only a little: and perhaps we shall go with you and
+be at rest.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And at that an old nurse, all in black, came out and talked to her,
+and drew her in.&nbsp; And Tom turned away northward, sad and wondering;
+and watched the great steamer slide away into the dusk, and the lights
+on board peep out one by one, and die out again, and the long bar of
+smoke fade away into the evening mist, till all was out of sight.</p>
+<p>And he swam northward again, day after day, till at last he met the
+King of the Herrings, with a curry-comb growing out of his nose, and
+a sprat in his mouth for a cigar, and asked him the way to Shiny Wall;
+so he bolted his sprat head foremost, and said:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I were you, young Gentleman, I should go to the Allalonestone,
+and ask the last of the Gairfowl.&nbsp; She is of a very ancient clan,
+very nearly as ancient as my own; and knows a good deal which these
+modern upstarts don&rsquo;t, as ladies of old houses are likely to do.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom asked his way to her, and the King of the Herrings told him very
+kindly, for he was a courteous old gentleman of the old school, though
+he was horribly ugly, and strangely bedizened too, like the old dandies
+who lounge in the club-house windows.</p>
+<p>But just as Tom had thanked him and set off, he called after him:
+&ldquo;Hi!&nbsp; I say, can you fly?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I never tried,&rdquo; says Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because, if you can, I should advise you to say nothing to
+the old lady about it.&nbsp; There; take a hint.&nbsp; Good-bye.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And away Tom went for seven days and seven nights due north-west,
+till he came to a great codbank, the like of which he never saw before.&nbsp;
+The great cod lay below in tens of thousands, and gobbled shell-fish
+all day long; and the blue sharks roved above in hundreds, and gobbled
+them when they came up.&nbsp; So they ate, and ate, and ate each other,
+as they had done since the making of the world; for no man had come
+here yet to catch them, and find out how rich old Mother Carey is.</p>
+<p>And there he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing up on the Allalonestones
+all alone.&nbsp; And a very grand old lady she was, full three feet
+high, and bolt upright, like some old Highland chieftainess.&nbsp; She
+had on a black velvet gown, and a white pinner and apron, and a very
+high bridge to her nose (which is a sure mark of high breeding), and
+a large pair of white spectacles on it, which made her look rather odd:
+but it was the ancient fashion of her house.</p>
+<p>And instead of wings, she had two little feathery arms, with which
+she fanned herself, and complained of the dreadful heat; and she kept
+on crooning an old song to herself, which she learnt when she was a
+little baby-bird, long ago -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Two little birds they sat on a stone,<br />One swam away,
+and then there was one,<br />With a fal-lal-la-lady.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The other swam after, and then there was none,<br />And so
+the poor stone was left all alone;<br />With a fal-lal-la-lady.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>It was &ldquo;flew&rdquo; away, properly, and not &ldquo;swam&rdquo;
+away: but, as she could not fly, she had a right to alter it.&nbsp;
+However, it was a very fit song for her to sing, because she was a lady
+herself.</p>
+<p>Tom came up to her very humbly, and made his bow; and the first thing
+she said was -</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you wings?&nbsp; Can you fly?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh dear, no, ma&rsquo;am; I should not think of such thing,&rdquo;
+said cunning little Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I shall have great pleasure in talking to you, my dear.&nbsp;
+It is quite refreshing nowadays to see anything without wings.&nbsp;
+They must all have wings, forsooth, now, every new upstart sort of bird,
+and fly.&nbsp; What can they want with flying, and raising themselves
+above their proper station in life?&nbsp; In the days of my ancestors
+no birds ever thought of having wings, and did very well without; and
+now they all laugh at me because I keep to the good old fashion.&nbsp;
+Why, the very marrocks and dovekies have got wings, the vulgar creatures,
+and poor little ones enough they are; and my own cousins too, the razor-bills,
+who are gentlefolk born, and ought to know better than to ape their
+inferiors.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And so she was running on, while Tom tried to get in a word edgeways;
+and at last he did, when the old lady got out of breath, and began fanning
+herself again; and then he asked if she knew the way to Shiny Wall.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shiny Wall?&nbsp; Who should know better than I?&nbsp; We
+all came from Shiny Wall, thousands of years ago, when it was decently
+cold, and the climate was fit for gentlefolk; but now, what with the
+heat, and what with these vulgar-winged things who fly up and down and
+eat everything, so that gentlepeople&rsquo;s hunting is all spoilt,
+and one really cannot get one&rsquo;s living, or hardly venture off
+the rock for fear of being flown against by some creature that would
+not have dared to come within a mile of one a thousand years ago&mdash;what
+was I saying?&nbsp; Why, we have quite gone down in the world, my dear,
+and have nothing left but our honour.&nbsp; And I am the last of my
+family.&nbsp; A friend of mine and I came and settled on this rock when
+we were young, to be out of the way of low people.&nbsp; Once we were
+a great nation, and spread over all the Northern Isles.&nbsp; But men
+shot us so, and knocked us on the head, and took our eggs&mdash;why,
+if you will believe it, they say that on the coast of Labrador the sailors
+used to lay a plank from the rock on board the thing called their ship,
+and drive us along the plank by hundreds, till we tumbled down into
+the ship&rsquo;s waist in heaps; and then, I suppose, they ate us, the
+nasty fellows!&nbsp; Well&mdash;but&mdash;what was I saying?&nbsp; At
+last, there were none of us left, except on the old Gairfowlskerry,
+just off the Iceland coast, up which no man could climb.&nbsp; Even
+there we had no peace; for one day, when I was quite a young girl, the
+land rocked, and the sea boiled, and the sky grew dark, and all the
+air was filled with smoke and dust, and down tumbled the old Gairfowlskerry
+into the sea.&nbsp; The dovekies and marrocks, of course, all flew away;
+but we were too proud to do that.&nbsp; Some of us were dashed to pieces,
+and some drowned; and those who were left got away to Eldey, and the
+dovekies tell me they are all dead now, and that another Gairfowlskerry
+has risen out of the sea close to the old one, but that it is such a
+poor flat place that it is not safe to live on: and so here I am left
+alone.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This was the Gairfowl&rsquo;s story, and, strange as it may seem,
+it is every word of it true.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you only had had wings!&rdquo; said Tom; &ldquo;then you
+might all have flown away too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, young gentleman: and if people are not gentleman and
+ladies, and forget that <i>noblesse oblige</i>, they will find it as
+easy to get on in the world as other people who don&rsquo;t care what
+they do.&nbsp; Why, if I had not recollected that <i>noblesse oblige</i>,
+I should not have been all alone now.&rdquo;&nbsp; And the poor old
+lady sighed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How was that, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, my dear, a gentleman came hither with me, and after we
+had been here some time, he wanted to marry&mdash;in fact, he actually
+proposed to me.&nbsp; Well, I can&rsquo;t blame him; I was young, and
+very handsome then, I don&rsquo;t deny: but you see, I could not hear
+of such a thing, because he was my deceased sister&rsquo;s husband,
+you see?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course not, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said Tom; though, of course,
+he knew nothing about it.&nbsp; &ldquo;She was very much diseased, I
+suppose?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You do not understand me, my dear.&nbsp; I mean, that being
+a lady, and with right and honourable feelings, as our house always
+has had, I felt it my duty to snub him, and howk him, and peck him continually,
+to keep him at his proper distance; and, to tell the truth, I once pecked
+him a little too hard, poor fellow, and he tumbled backwards off the
+rock, and&mdash;really, it was very unfortunate, but it was not my fault&mdash;a
+shark coming by saw him flapping, and snapped him up. And since then
+I have lived all alone -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&lsquo;With a fal-lal-la-lady.&rsquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>And soon I shall be gone, my little dear, and nobody will miss me;
+and then the poor stone will be left all alone.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But, please, which is the way to Shiny Wall?&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you must go, my little dear&mdash;you must go.&nbsp; Let
+me see&mdash;I am sure&mdash;that is&mdash;really, my poor old brains
+are getting quite puzzled.&nbsp; Do you know, my little dear, I am afraid,
+if you want to know, you must ask some of these vulgar birds about,
+for I have quite forgotten.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And the poor old Gairfowl began to cry tears of pure oil; and Tom
+was quite sorry for her; and for himself too, for he was at his wit&rsquo;s
+end whom to ask.</p>
+<p>But by there came a flock of petrels, who are Mother Carey&rsquo;s
+own chickens; and Tom thought them much prettier than Lady Gairfowl,
+and so perhaps they were; for Mother Carey had had a great deal of fresh
+experience between the time that she invented the Gairfowl and the time
+that she invented them.&nbsp; They flitted along like a flock of black
+swallows, and hopped and skipped from wave to wave, lifting up their
+little feet behind them so daintily, and whistling to each other so
+tenderly, that Tom fell in love with them at once, and called them to
+know the way to Shiny Wall.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shiny Wall?&nbsp; Do you want Shiny Wall?&nbsp; Then come
+with us, and we will show you.&nbsp; We are Mother Carey&rsquo;s own
+chickens, and she sends us out over all the seas, to show the good birds
+the way home.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom was delighted, and swam off to them, after he had made his bow
+to the Gairfowl.&nbsp; But she would not return his bow: but held herself
+bolt upright, and wept tears of oil as she sang:</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;And so the poor stone was left all alone;<br />With a fal-lal-la-lady.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>But she was wrong there; for the stone was not left all alone: and
+the next time that Tom goes by it, he will see a sight worth seeing.</p>
+<p>The old Gairfowl is gone already: but there are better things come
+in her place; and when Tom comes he will see the fishing-smacks anchored
+there in hundreds, from Scotland, and from Ireland, and from the Orkneys,
+and the Shetlands, and from all the Northern ports, full of the children
+of the old Norse Vikings, the masters of the sea.&nbsp; And the men
+will be hauling in the great cod by thousands, till their hands are
+sore from the lines; and they will be making cod-liver oil and guano,
+and salting down the fish; and there will be a man-of-war steamer there
+to protect them, and a lighthouse to show them the way; and you and
+I, perhaps, shall go some day to the Allalonestone to the great summer
+sea-fair, and dredge strange creatures such as man never saw before;
+and we shall hear the sailors boast that it is not the worst jewel in
+Queen Victoria&rsquo;s crown, for there are eighty miles of codbank,
+and food for all the poor folk in the land.&nbsp; That is what Tom will
+see, and perhaps you and I shall see it too.&nbsp; And then we shall
+not be sorry because we cannot get a Gairfowl to stuff, much less find
+gairfowl enough to drive them into stone pens and slaughter them, as
+the old Norsemen did, or drive them on board along a plank till the
+ship was victualled with them, as the old English and French rovers
+used to do, of whom dear old Hakluyt tells: but we shall remember what
+Mr. Tennyson says: how</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;The old order changeth, giving place to the new,<br />And
+God fulfils himself in many ways.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>And now Tom was all agog to start for Shiny Wall; but the petrels
+said no.&nbsp; They must go first to Allfowlsness, and wait there for
+the great gathering of all the sea-birds, before they start for their
+summer breeding-places far away in the Northern Isles; and there they
+would be sure to find some birds which were going to Shiny Wall: but
+where Allfowlsness was, he must promise never to tell, lest men should
+go there and shoot the birds, and stuff them, and put them into stupid
+museums, instead of leaving them to play and breed and work in Mother
+Carey&rsquo;s water-garden, where they ought to be.</p>
+<p>So where Allfowlsness is nobody must know; and all that is to be
+said about it is, that Tom waited there many days; and as he waited,
+he saw a very curious sight.&nbsp; On the rabbit burrows on the shore
+there gathered hundreds and hundreds of hoodie-crows, such as you see
+in Cambridgeshire.&nbsp; And they made such a noise, that Tom came on
+shore and went up to see what was the matter.</p>
+<p>And there he found them holding their great caucus, which they hold
+every year in the North; and all their stump-orators were speechifying;
+and for a tribune, the speaker stood on an old sheep&rsquo;s skull.</p>
+<p>And they cawed and cawed, and boasted of all the clever things they
+had done; how many lambs&rsquo; eyes they had picked out, and how many
+dead bullocks they had eaten, and how many young grouse they had swallowed
+whole, and how many grouse-eggs they had flown away with, stuck on the
+point of their bills, which is the hoodie-crow&rsquo;s particularly
+clever feat, of which he is as proud as a gipsy is of doing the hokany-baro;
+and what that is, I won&rsquo;t tell you.</p>
+<p>And at last they brought out the prettiest, neatest young lady-crow
+that ever was seen, and set her in the middle, and all began abusing
+and vilifying, and rating, and bullyragging at her, because she had
+stolen no grouse-eggs, and had actually dared to say that she would
+not steal any.&nbsp; So she was to be tried publicly by their laws (for
+the hoodies always try some offenders in their great yearly parliament).&nbsp;
+And there she stood in the middle, in her black gown and gray hood,
+looking as meek and as neat as a Quakeress, and they all bawled at her
+at once -</p>
+<p>And it was in vain that she pleaded -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>That she did not like grouse-eggs;<br />That she could get her living
+very well without them;<br />That she was afraid to eat them, for fear
+of the gamekeepers;<br />That she had not the heart to eat them, because
+the grouse were such pretty, kind, jolly birds;<br />And a dozen reasons
+more.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>For all the other scaul-crows set upon her, and pecked her to death
+there and then, before Tom could come to help her; and then flew away,
+very proud of what they had done.</p>
+<p>Now, was not this a scandalous transaction?</p>
+<p>But they are true republicans, these hoodies, who do every one just
+what he likes, and make other people do so too; so that, for any freedom
+of speech, thought, or action, which is allowed among them, they might
+as well be American citizens of the new school.</p>
+<p>But the fairies took the good crow, and gave her nine new sets of
+feathers running, and turned her at last into the most beautiful bird
+of paradise with a green velvet suit and a long tail, and sent her to
+eat fruit in the Spice Islands, where cloves and nutmegs grow.</p>
+<p>And Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid settled her account with the wicked hoodies.&nbsp;
+For, as they flew away, what should they find but a nasty dead dog?&mdash;on
+which they all set to work, peeking and gobbling and cawing and quarrelling
+to their hearts&rsquo; content.&nbsp; But the moment afterwards, they
+all threw up their bills into the air, and gave one screech; and then
+turned head over heels backward, and fell down dead, one hundred and
+twenty-three of them at once.&nbsp; For why?&nbsp; The fairy had told
+the gamekeeper in a dream, to fill the dead dog full of strychnine;
+and so he did.</p>
+<p>And after a while the birds began to gather at Allfowlsness, in thousands
+and tens of thousands, blackening all the air; swans and brant geese,
+harlequins and eiders, harolds and garganeys, smews and goosanders,
+divers and loons, grebes and dovekies, auks and razor-bills, gannets
+and petrels, skuas and terns, with gulls beyond all naming or numbering;
+and they paddled and washed and splashed and combed and brushed themselves
+on the sand, till the shore was white with feathers; and they quacked
+and clucked and gabbled and chattered and screamed and whooped as they
+talked over matters with their friends, and settled where they were
+to go and breed that summer, till you might have heard them ten miles
+off; and lucky it was for them that there was no one to hear them but
+the old keeper, who lived all alone upon the Ness, in a turf hut thatched
+with heather and fringed round with great stones slung across the roof
+by bent-ropes, lest the winter gales should blow the hut right away.&nbsp;
+But he never minded the birds nor hurt them, because they were not in
+season; indeed, he minded but two things in the whole world, and those
+were, his Bible and his grouse; for he was as good an old Scotchman
+as ever knit stockings on a winter&rsquo;s night: only, when all the
+birds were going, he toddled out, and took off his cap to them, and
+wished them a merry journey and a safe return; and then gathered up
+all the feathers which they had left, and cleaned them to sell down
+south, and make feather-beds for stuffy people to lie on.</p>
+<p>Then the petrels asked this bird and that whether they would take
+Tom to Shiny Wall: but one set was going to Sutherland, and one to the
+Shetlands, and one to Norway, and one to Spitzbergen, and one to Iceland,
+and one to Greenland: but none would go to Shiny Wall.&nbsp; So the
+good-natured petrels said that they would show him part of the way themselves,
+but they were only going as far as Jan Mayen&rsquo;s Land; and after
+that he must shift for himself.</p>
+<p>And then all the birds rose up, and streamed away in long black lines,
+north, and north-east, and north-west, across the bright blue summer
+sky; and their cry was like ten thousand packs of hounds, and ten thousand
+peals of bells.&nbsp; Only the puffins stayed behind, and killed the
+young rabbits, and laid their eggs in the rabbit-burrows; which was
+rough practice, certainly; but a man must see to his own family.</p>
+<p>And, as Tom and the petrels went north-eastward, it began to blow
+right hard; for the old gentleman in the gray great-coat, who looks
+after the big copper boiler, in the gulf of Mexico, had got behindhand
+with his work; so Mother Carey had sent an electric message to him for
+more steam; and now the steam was coming, as much in an hour as ought
+to have come in a week, puffing and roaring and swishing and swirling,
+till you could not see where the sky ended and the sea began.&nbsp;
+But Tom and the petrels never cared, for the gale was right abaft, and
+away they went over the crests of the billows, as merry as so many flying-fish.</p>
+<p>And at last they saw an ugly sight&mdash;the black side of a great
+ship, waterlogged in the trough of the sea.&nbsp; Her funnel and her
+masts were overboard, and swayed and surged under her lee; her decks
+were swept as clean as a barn floor, and there was no living soul on
+board.</p>
+<p>The petrels flew up to her, and wailed round her; for they were very
+sorry indeed, and also they expected to find some salt pork; and Tom
+scrambled on board of her and looked round, frightened and sad.</p>
+<p>And there, in a little cot, lashed tight under the bulwark, lay a
+baby fast asleep; the very same baby, Tom saw at once, which he had
+seen in the singing lady&rsquo;s arms.</p>
+<p>He went up to it, and wanted to wake it; but behold, from under the
+cot out jumped a little black and tan terrier dog, and began barking
+and snapping at Tom, and would not let him touch the cot.</p>
+<p>Tom knew the dog&rsquo;s teeth could not hurt him: but at least it
+could shove him away, and did; and he and the dog fought and struggled,
+for he wanted to help the baby, and did not want to throw the poor dog
+overboard: but as they were struggling there came a tall green sea,
+and walked in over the weather side of the ship, and swept them all
+into the waves.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, the baby, the baby!&rdquo; screamed Tom: but the next
+moment he did not scream at all; for he saw the cot settling down through
+the green water, with the baby, smiling in it, fast asleep; and he saw
+the fairies come up from below, and carry baby and cradle gently down
+in their soft arms; and then he knew it was all right, and that there
+would be a new water-baby in St. Brandan&rsquo;s Isle.</p>
+<p>And the poor little dog?</p>
+<p>Why, after he had kicked and coughed a little, he sneezed so hard,
+that he sneezed himself clean out of his skin, and turned into a water-dog,
+and jumped and danced round Tom, and ran over the crests of the waves,
+and snapped at the jelly-fish and the mackerel, and followed Tom the
+whole way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.</p>
+<p>Then they went on again, till they began to see the peak of Jan Mayen&rsquo;s
+Land, standing-up like a white sugar-loaf, two miles above the clouds.</p>
+<p>And there they fell in with a whole flock of molly-mocks, who were
+feeding on a dead whale.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;These are the fellows to show you the way,&rdquo; said Mother
+Carey&rsquo;s chickens; &ldquo;we cannot help you farther north.&nbsp;
+We don&rsquo;t like to get among the ice pack, for fear it should nip
+our toes: but the mollys dare fly anywhere.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So the petrels called to the mollys: but they were so busy and greedy,
+gobbling and peeking and spluttering and fighting over the blubber,
+that they did not take the least notice.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come, come,&rdquo; said the petrels, &ldquo;you lazy greedy
+lubbers, this young gentleman is going to Mother Carey, and if you don&rsquo;t
+attend on him, you won&rsquo;t earn your discharge from her, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Greedy we are,&rdquo; says a great fat old molly, &ldquo;but
+lazy we ain&rsquo;t; and, as for lubbers, we&rsquo;re no more lubbers
+than you.&nbsp; Let&rsquo;s have a look at the lad.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And he flapped right into Tom&rsquo;s face, and stared at him in
+the most impudent way (for the mollys are audacious fellows, as all
+whalers know), and then asked him where he hailed from, and what land
+he sighted last.</p>
+<p>And, when Tom told him, he seemed pleased, and said he was a good
+plucked one to have got so far.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come along, lads,&rdquo; he said to the rest, &ldquo;and give
+this little chap a cast over the pack, for Mother Carey&rsquo;s sake.&nbsp;
+We&rsquo;ve eaten blubber enough for to-day, and we&rsquo;ll e&rsquo;en
+work out a bit of our time by helping the lad.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So the mollys took Tom up on their backs, and flew off with him,
+laughing and joking&mdash;and oh, how they did smell of train oil!</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who are you, you jolly birds?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We are the spirits of the old Greenland skippers (as every
+sailor knows), who hunted here, right whales and horse-whales, full
+hundreds of years agone.&nbsp; But, because we were saucy and greedy,
+we were all turned into mollys, to eat whale&rsquo;s blubber all our
+days.&nbsp; But lubbers we are none, and could sail a ship now against
+any man in the North seas, though we don&rsquo;t hold with this new-fangled
+steam.&nbsp; And it&rsquo;s a shame of those black imps of petrels to
+call us so; but because they&rsquo;re her grace&rsquo;s pets, they think
+they may say anything they like.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And who are you?&rdquo; asked Tom of him, for he saw that
+he was the king of all the birds.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My name is Hendrick Hudson, and a right good skipper was I;
+and my name will last to the world&rsquo;s end, in spite of all the
+wrong I did.&nbsp; For I discovered Hudson River, and I named Hudson&rsquo;s
+Bay; and many have come in my wake that dared not have shown me the
+way.&nbsp; But I was a hard man in my time, that&rsquo;s truth, and
+stole the poor Indians off the coast of Maine, and sold them for slaves
+down in Virginia; and at last I was so cruel to my sailors, here in
+these very seas, that they set me adrift in an open boat, and I never
+was heard of more.&nbsp; So now I&rsquo;m the king of all mollys, till
+I&rsquo;ve worked out my time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And now they came to the edge of the pack, and beyond it they could
+see Shiny Wall looming, through mist, and snow, and storm.&nbsp; But
+the pack rolled horribly upon the swell, and the ice giants fought and
+roared, and leapt upon each other&rsquo;s backs, and ground each other
+to powder, so that Tom was afraid to venture among them, lest he should
+be ground to powder too.&nbsp; And he was the more afraid, when he saw
+lying among the ice pack the wrecks of many a gallant ship; some with
+masts and yards all standing, some with the seamen frozen fast on board.&nbsp;
+Alas, alas, for them!&nbsp; They were all true English hearts; and they
+came to their end like good knights-errant, in searching for the white
+gate that never was opened yet.</p>
+<p>But the good mollys took Tom and his dog up, and flew with them safe
+over the pack and the roaring ice giants, and set them down at the foot
+of Shiny Wall.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And where is the gate?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There is no gate,&rdquo; said the mollys.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No gate?&rdquo; cried Tom, aghast.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;None; never a crack of one, and that&rsquo;s the whole of
+the secret, as better fellows, lad, than you have found to their cost;
+and if there had been, they&rsquo;d have killed by now every right whale
+that swims the sea.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What am I to do, then?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dive under the floe, to be sure, if you have pluck.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve not come so far to turn now,&rdquo; said Tom; &ldquo;so
+here goes for a header.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A lucky voyage to you, lad,&rdquo; said the mollys; &ldquo;we
+knew you were one of the right sort.&nbsp; So good-bye.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you come too?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>But the mollys only wailed sadly, &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t go yet, we
+can&rsquo;t go yet,&rdquo; and flew away over the pack.</p>
+<p>So Tom dived under the great white gate which never was opened yet,
+and went on in black darkness, at the bottom of the sea, for seven days
+and seven nights.&nbsp; And yet he was not a bit frightened.&nbsp; Why
+should he be?&nbsp; He was a brave English lad, whose business is to
+go out and see all the world.</p>
+<p>And at last he saw the light, and clear clear water overhead; and
+up he came a thousand fathoms, among clouds of sea-moths, which fluttered
+round his head.&nbsp; There were moths with pink heads and wings and
+opal bodies, that flapped about slowly; moths with brown wings that
+flapped about quickly; yellow shrimps that hopped and skipped most quickly
+of all; and jellies of all the colours in the world, that neither hopped
+nor skipped, but only dawdled and yawned, and would not get out of his
+way.&nbsp; The dog snapped at them till his jaws were tired; but Tom
+hardly minded them at all, he was so eager to get to the top of the
+water, and see the pool where the good whales go.</p>
+<p>And a very large pool it was, miles and miles across, though the
+air was so clear that the ice cliffs on the opposite side looked as
+if they were close at hand.&nbsp; All round it the ice cliffs rose,
+in walls and spires and battlements, and caves and bridges, and stories
+and galleries, in which the ice-fairies live, and drive away the storms
+and clouds, that Mother Carey&rsquo;s pool may lie calm from year&rsquo;s
+end to year&rsquo;s end.&nbsp; And the sun acted policeman, and walked
+round outside every day, peeping just over the top of the ice wall,
+to see that all went right; and now and then he played conjuring tricks,
+or had an exhibition of fireworks, to amuse the ice-fairies.&nbsp; For
+he would make himself into four or five suns at once, or paint the sky
+with rings and crosses and crescents of white fire, and stick himself
+in the middle of them, and wink at the fairies; and I daresay they were
+very much amused; for anything&rsquo;s fun in the country.</p>
+<p>And there the good whales lay, the happy sleepy beasts, upon the
+still oily sea.&nbsp; They were all right whales, you must know, and
+finners, and razor-backs, and bottle-noses, and spotted sea-unicorns
+with long ivory horns.&nbsp; But the sperm whales are such raging, ramping,
+roaring, rumbustious fellows, that, if Mother Carey let them in, there
+would be no more peace in Peacepool.&nbsp; So she packs them away in
+a great pond by themselves at the South Pole, two hundred and sixty-three
+miles south-south-east of Mount Erebus, the great volcano in the ice;
+and there they butt each other with their ugly noses, day and night
+from year&rsquo;s end to year&rsquo;s end.</p>
+<p>But here there were only good quiet beasts, lying about like the
+black hulls of sloops, and blowing every now and then jets of white
+steam, or sculling round with their huge mouths open, for the sea-moths
+to swim down their throats.&nbsp; There were no threshers there to thresh
+their poor old backs, or sword-fish to stab their stomachs, or saw-fish
+to rip them up, or ice-sharks to bite lumps out of their sides, or whalers
+to harpoon and lance them.&nbsp; They were quite safe and happy there;
+and all they had to do was to wait quietly in Peacepool, till Mother
+Carey sent for them to make them out of old beasts into new.</p>
+<p>Tom swam up to the nearest whale, and asked the way to Mother Carey.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There she sits in the middle,&rdquo; said the whale.</p>
+<p>Tom looked; but he could see nothing in the middle of the pool, but
+one peaked iceberg: and he said so.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s Mother Carey,&rdquo; said the whale, &ldquo;as
+you will find when you get to her.&nbsp; There she sits making old beasts
+into new all the year round.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How does she do that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s her concern, not mine,&rdquo; said the old whale;
+and yawned so wide (for he was very large) that there swam into his
+mouth 943 sea-moths, 13,846 jelly-fish no bigger than pins&rsquo; heads,
+a string of salpae nine yards long, and forty-three little ice-crabs,
+who gave each other a parting pinch all round, tucked their legs under
+their stomachs, and determined to die decently, like Julius Caesar.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;she cuts up a great whale
+like you into a whole shoal of porpoises?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At which the old whale laughed so violently that he coughed up all
+the creatures; who swam away again very thankful at having escaped out
+of that terrible whalebone net of his, from which bourne no traveller
+returns; and Tom went on to the iceberg, wondering.</p>
+<p>And, when he came near it, it took the form of the grandest old lady
+he had ever seen&mdash;a white marble lady, sitting on a white marble
+throne.&nbsp; And from the foot of the throne there swum away, out and
+out into the sea, millions of new-born creatures, of more shapes and
+colours than man ever dreamed.&nbsp; And they were Mother Carey&rsquo;s
+children, whom she makes out of the sea-water all day long.</p>
+<p>He expected, of course&mdash;like some grown people who ought to
+know better&mdash;to find her snipping, piecing, fitting, stitching,
+cobbling, basting, filing, planing, hammering, turning, polishing, moulding,
+measuring, chiselling, clipping, and so forth, as men do when they go
+to work to make anything.</p>
+<p>But, instead of that, she sat quite still with her chin upon her
+hand, looking down into the sea with two great grand blue eyes, as blue
+as the sea itself.&nbsp; Her hair was as white as the snow&mdash;for
+she was very very old&mdash;in fact, as old as anything which you are
+likely to come across, except the difference between right and wrong.</p>
+<p>And, when she saw Tom, she looked at him very kindly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you want, my little man?&nbsp; It is long since I
+have seen a water-baby here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom told her his errand, and asked the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You ought to know yourself, for you have been there already.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have I, ma&rsquo;am?&nbsp; I&rsquo;m sure I forget all about
+it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then look at me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And, as Tom looked into her great blue eyes, he recollected the way
+perfectly.</p>
+<p>Now, was not that strange?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thank you, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Then
+I won&rsquo;t trouble your ladyship any more; I hear you are very busy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am never more busy than I am now,&rdquo; she said, without
+stirring a finger.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I heard, ma&rsquo;am, that you were always making new beasts
+out of old.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So people fancy.&nbsp; But I am not going to trouble myself
+to make things, my little dear.&nbsp; I sit here and make them make
+themselves.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are a clever fairy, indeed,&rdquo; thought Tom.&nbsp;
+And he was quite right.</p>
+<p>That is a grand trick of good old Mother Carey&rsquo;s, and a grand
+answer, which she has had occasion to make several times to impertinent
+people.</p>
+<p>There was once, for instance, a fairy who was so clever that she
+found out how to make butterflies.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t mean sham ones;
+no: but real live ones, which would fly, and eat, and lay eggs, and
+do everything that they ought; and she was so proud of her skill that
+she went flying straight off to the North Pole, to boast to Mother Carey
+how she could make butterflies.</p>
+<p>But Mother Carey laughed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Know, silly child,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that any one can
+make things, if they will take time and trouble enough: but it is not
+every one who, like me, can make things make themselves.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But people do not yet believe that Mother Carey is as clever as all
+that comes to; and they will not till they, too, go the journey to the
+Other-end-of-Nowhere.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now, my pretty little man,&rdquo; said Mother Carey, &ldquo;you
+are sure you know the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom thought; and behold, he had forgotten it utterly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That is because you took your eyes off me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom looked at her again, and recollected; and then looked away, and
+forgot in an instant.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But what am I to do, ma&rsquo;am?&nbsp; For I can&rsquo;t
+keep looking at you when I am somewhere else.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You must do without me, as most people have to do, for nine
+hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of their lives; and look at the
+dog instead; for he knows the way well enough, and will not forget it.&nbsp;
+Besides, you may meet some very queer-tempered people there, who will
+not let you pass without this passport of mine, which you must hang
+round your neck and take care of; and, of course, as the dog will always
+go behind you, you must go the whole way backward.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Backward!&rdquo; cried Tom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Then I shall not
+be able to see my way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On the contrary, if you look forward, you will not see a step
+before you, and be certain to go wrong; but, if you look behind you,
+and watch carefully whatever you have passed, and especially keep your
+eye on the dog, who goes by instinct, and therefore can&rsquo;t go wrong,
+then you will know what is coming next, as plainly as if you saw it
+in a looking-glass.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom was very much astonished: but he obeyed her, for he had learnt
+always to believe what the fairies told him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So it is, my dear child,&rdquo; said Mother Carey; &ldquo;and
+I will tell you a story, which will show you that I am perfectly right,
+as it is my custom to be.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Once on a time, there were two brothers.&nbsp; One was called
+Prometheus, because he always looked before him, and boasted that he
+was wise beforehand.&nbsp; The other was called Epimetheus, because
+he always looked behind him, and did not boast at all; but said humbly,
+like the Irishman, that he had sooner prophesy after the event.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, Prometheus was a very clever fellow, of course, and
+invented all sorts of wonderful things.&nbsp; But, unfortunately, when
+they were set to work, to work was just what they would not do: wherefore
+very little has come of them, and very little is left of them; and now
+nobody knows what they were, save a few archaeological old gentlemen
+who scratch in queer corners, and find little there save Ptinum Furem,
+Blaptem Mortisagam, Acarum Horridum, and Tineam Laciniarum.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But Epimetheus was a very slow fellow, certainly, and went
+among men for a clod, and a muff, and a milksop, and a slowcoach, and
+a bloke, and a boodle, and so forth.&nbsp; And very little he did, for
+many years: but what he did, he never had to do over again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what happened at last?&nbsp; There came to the two brothers
+the most beautiful creature that ever was seen, Pandora by name; which
+means, All the gifts of the Gods.&nbsp; But because she had a strange
+box in her hand, this fanciful, forecasting, suspicious, prudential,
+theoretical, deductive, prophesying Prometheus, who was always settling
+what was going to happen, would have nothing to do with pretty Pandora
+and her box.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But Epimetheus took her and it, as he took everything that
+came; and married her for better for worse, as every man ought, whenever
+he has even the chance of a good wife.&nbsp; And they opened the box
+between them, of course, to see what was inside: for, else, of what
+possible use could it have been to them?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And out flew all the ills which flesh is heir to; all the
+children of the four great bogies, Self-will, Ignorance, Fear, and Dirt&mdash;for
+instance:</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<pre>Measles,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Famines,
+Monks,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Quacks,
+Scarlatina,&nbsp; &nbsp;  Unpaid bills,
+Idols,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Tight stays,
+Hooping-coughs, Potatoes,
+Popes,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Bad Wine,
+Wars,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  Despots,
+Peacemongers,&nbsp;  Demagogues,
+And, worst of all, Naughty Boys and Girls.</pre>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>But one thing remained at the bottom of the box, and that was, Hope.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, as most men do
+in this world: but he got the three best things in the world into the
+bargain&mdash;a good wife, and experience, and hope: while Prometheus
+had just as much trouble, and a great deal more (as you will hear),
+of his own making; with nothing beside, save fancies spun out of his
+own brain, as a spider spins her web out of her stomach.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And Prometheus kept on looking before him so far ahead, that
+as he was running about with a box of lucifers (which were the only
+useful things he ever invented, and do as much harm as good), he trod
+on his own nose, and tumbled down (as most deductive philosophers do),
+whereby he set the Thames on fire; and they have hardly put it out again
+yet.&nbsp; So he had to be chained to the top of a mountain, with a
+vulture by him to give him a peck whenever he stirred, lest he should
+turn the whole world upside down with his prophecies and his theories.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But stupid old Epimetheus went working and grubbing on, with
+the help of his wife Pandora, always looking behind him to see what
+had happened, till he really learnt to know now and then what would
+happen next; and understood so well which side his bread was buttered,
+and which way the cat jumped, that he began to make things which would
+work, and go on working, too; to till and drain the ground, and to make
+looms, and ships, and railroads, and steam ploughs, and electric telegraphs,
+and all the things which you see in the Great Exhibition; and to foretell
+famine, and bad weather, and the price of stocks and (what is hardest
+of all) the next vagary of the great idol Whirligig, which some call
+Public Opinion; till at last he grew as rich as a Jew, and as fat as
+a farmer, and people thought twice before they meddled with him, but
+only once before they asked him to help them; for, because he earned
+his money well, he could afford to spend it well likewise.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And his children are the men of science, who get good lasting
+work done in the world; but the children of Prometheus are the fanatics,
+and the theorists, and the bigots, and the bores, and the noisy windy
+people, who go telling silly folk what will happen, instead of looking
+to see what has happened already.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Now, was not Mother Carey&rsquo;s a wonderful story?&nbsp; And, I
+am happy to say, Tom believed it every word.</p>
+<p>For so it happened to Tom likewise.&nbsp; He was very sorely tried;
+for though, by keeping the dog to heels (or rather to toes, for he had
+to walk backward), he could see pretty well which way the dog was hunting,
+yet it was much slower work to go backwards than to go forwards.&nbsp;
+But, what was more trying still, no sooner had he got out of Peacepool,
+than there came running to him all the conjurors, fortune-tellers, astrologers,
+prophesiers, projectors, prestigiators, as many as were in those parts
+(and there are too many of them everywhere), Old Mother Shipton on her
+broomstick, with Merlin, Thomas the Rhymer, Gerbertus, Rabanus Maurus,
+Nostradamus, Zadkiel, Raphael, Moore, Old Nixon, and a good many in
+black coats and white ties who might have known better, considering
+in what century they were born, all bawling and screaming at him, &ldquo;Look
+a-head, only look a-head; and we will show you what man never saw before,
+and right away to the end of the world!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But I am proud to say that, though Tom had not been to Cambridge&mdash;for,
+if he had, he would have certainly been senior wrangler&mdash;he was
+such a little dogged, hard, gnarly, foursquare brick of an English boy,
+that he never turned his head round once all the way from Peacepool
+to the Other-end-of-Nowhere: but kept his eye on the dog, and let him
+pick out the scent, hot or cold, straight or crooked, wet or dry, up
+hill or down dale; by which means he never made a single mistake, and
+saw all the wonderful and hitherto by-no-mortal-man-imagined things,
+which it is my duty to relate to you in the next chapter.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII AND LAST</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Come to me, O ye children!<br />For I hear you at your play;<br />And
+the questions that perplexed me<br />Have vanished quite away.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ye open the Eastern windows,<br />That look towards the sun,<br />Where
+thoughts are singing swallows,<br />And the brooks of morning run.</p>
+<p>* * * * *</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For what are all our contrivings<br />And the wisdom of our
+books,<br />When compared with your caresses,<br />And the gladness
+of your looks?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ye are better than all the ballads<br />That ever were sung
+or said;<br />For ye are living poems,<br />And all the rest are dead.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>LONGFELLOW.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Here begins the never-to-be-too-much-studied account of the nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth
+part of the wonderful things which Tom saw on his journey to the Other-end-of-Nowhere;
+which all good little children are requested to read; that, if ever
+they get to the Other-end-of-Nowhere, as they may very probably do,
+they may not burst out laughing, or try to run away, or do any other
+silly vulgar thing which may offend Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.</p>
+<p>Now, as soon as Tom had left Peacepool, he came to the white lap
+of the great sea-mother, ten thousand fathoms deep; where she makes
+world-pap all day long, for the steam-giants to knead, and the fire-giants
+to bake, till it has risen and hardened into mountain-loaves and island-cakes.</p>
+<p>And there Tom was very near being kneaded up in the world-pap, and
+turned into a fossil water-baby; which would have astonished the Geological
+Society of New Zealand some hundreds of thousands of years hence.</p>
+<p>For, as he walked along in the silence of the sea-twilight, on the
+soft white ocean floor, he was aware of a hissing, and a roaring, and
+a thumping, and a pumping, as of all the steam-engines in the world
+at once.&nbsp; And, when he came near, the water grew boiling-hot; not
+that that hurt him in the least: but it also grew as foul as gruel;
+and every moment he stumbled over dead shells, and fish, and sharks,
+and seals, and whales, which had been killed by the hot water.</p>
+<p>And at last he came to the great sea-serpent himself, lying dead
+at the bottom; and as he was too thick to scramble over, Tom had to
+walk round him three-quarters of a mile and more, which put him out
+of his path sadly; and, when he had got round, he came to the place
+called Stop.&nbsp; And there he stopped, and just in time.</p>
+<p>For he was on the edge of a vast hole in the bottom of the sea, up
+which was rushing and roaring clear steam enough to work all the engines
+in the world at once; so clear, indeed, that it was quite light at moments;
+and Tom could see almost up to the top of the water above, and down
+below into the pit for nobody knows how far.</p>
+<p>But, as soon as he bent his head over the edge, he got such a rap
+on the nose from pebbles, that he jumped back again; for the steam,
+as it rushed up, rasped away the sides of the hole, and hurled it up
+into the sea in a shower of mud and gravel and ashes; and then it spread
+all around, and sank again, and covered in the dead fish so fast, that
+before Tom had stood there five minutes he was buried in silt up to
+his ankles, and began to be afraid that he should have been buried alive.</p>
+<p>And perhaps he would have been, but that while he was thinking, the
+whole piece of ground on which he stood was torn off and blown upwards,
+and away flew Tom a mile up through the sea, wondering what was coming
+next.</p>
+<p>At last he stopped&mdash;thump! and found himself tight in the legs
+of the most wonderful bogy which he had ever seen.</p>
+<p>It had I don&rsquo;t know how many wings, as big as the sails of
+a windmill, and spread out in a ring like them; and with them it hovered
+over the steam which rushed up, as a ball hovers over the top of a fountain.&nbsp;
+And for every wing above it had a leg below, with a claw like a comb
+at the tip, and a nostril at the root; and in the middle it had no stomach
+and one eye; and as for its mouth, that was all on one side, as the
+madreporiform tubercle in a star-fish is.&nbsp; Well, it was a very
+strange beast; but no stranger than some dozens which you may see.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you want here,&rdquo; it cried quite peevishly, &ldquo;getting
+in my way?&rdquo; and it tried to drop Tom: but he held on tight to
+its claws, thinking himself safer where he was.</p>
+<p>So Tom told him who he was, and what his errand was.&nbsp; And the
+thing winked its one eye, and sneered:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am too old to be taken in in that way.&nbsp; You are come
+after gold&mdash;I know you are.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Gold!&nbsp; What is gold?&rdquo;&nbsp; And really Tom did
+not know; but the suspicious old bogy would not believe him.</p>
+<p>But after a while Tom began to understand a little.&nbsp; For, as
+the vapours came up out of the hole, the bogy smelt them with his nostrils,
+and combed them and sorted them with his combs; and then, when they
+steamed up through them against his wings, they were changed into showers
+and streams of metal.&nbsp; From one wing fell gold-dust, and from another
+silver, and from another copper, and from another tin, and from another
+lead, and so on, and sank into the soft mud, into veins and cracks,
+and hardened there.&nbsp; Whereby it comes to pass that the rocks are
+full of metal.</p>
+<p>But, all of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam below, and the
+hole was left empty in an instant: and then down rushed the water into
+the hole, in such a whirlpool that the bogy spun round and round as
+fast as a teetotum.&nbsp; But that was all in his day&rsquo;s work,
+like a fair fall with the hounds; so all he did was to say to Tom -</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now is your time, youngster, to get down, if you are in earnest,
+which I don&rsquo;t believe.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll soon see,&rdquo; said Tom; and away he went,
+as bold as Baron Munchausen, and shot down the rushing cataract like
+a salmon at Ballisodare.</p>
+<p>And, when he got to the bottom, he swam till he was washed on shore
+safe upon the Other-end-of-Nowhere; and he found it, to his surprise,
+as most other people do, much more like This-End-of-Somewhere than he
+had been in the habit of expecting</p>
+<p>And first he went through Waste-paper-land, where all the stupid
+books lie in heaps, up hill and down dale, like leaves in a winter wood;
+and there he saw people digging and grubbing among them, to make worse
+books out of bad ones, and thrashing chaff to save the dust of it; and
+a very good trade they drove thereby, especially among children.</p>
+<p>Then he went by the sea of slops, to the mountain of messes, and
+the territory of tuck, where the ground was very sticky, for it was
+all made of bad toffee (not Everton toffee, of course), and full of
+deep cracks and holes choked with wind-fallen fruit, and green goose-berries,
+and sloes, and crabs, and whinberries, and hips and haws, and all the
+nasty things which little children will eat, if they can get them.&nbsp;
+But the fairies hide them out of the way in that country as fast as
+they can, and very hard work they have, and of very little use it is.&nbsp;
+For as fast as they hide away the old trash, foolish and wicked people
+make fresh trash full of lime and poisonous paints, and actually go
+and steal receipts out of old Madame Science&rsquo;s big book to invent
+poisons for little children, and sell them at wakes and fairs and tuck-shops.&nbsp;
+Very well.&nbsp; Let them go on.&nbsp; Dr. Letheby and Dr. Hassall cannot
+catch them, though they are setting traps for them all day long.&nbsp;
+But the Fairy with the birch-rod will catch them all in time, and make
+them begin at one corner of their shops, and eat their way out at the
+other: by which time they will have got such stomach-aches as will cure
+them of poisoning little children.</p>
+<p>Next he saw all the little people in the world, writing all the little
+books in the world, about all the other little people in the world;
+probably because they had no great people to write about: and if the
+names of the books were not Squeeky, nor the Pump-lighter, nor the Narrow
+Narrow World, nor the Hills of the Chattermuch, nor the Children&rsquo;s
+Twaddeday, why then they were something else.&nbsp; And, all the rest
+of the little people in the world read the books, and thought themselves
+each as good as the President; and perhaps they were right, for every
+one knows his own business best.&nbsp; But Tom thought he would sooner
+have a jolly good fairy tale, about Jack the Giant-killer or Beauty
+and the Beast, which taught him something that he didn&rsquo;t know
+already.</p>
+<p>And next he came to the centre of Creation (the hub, they call it
+there), which lies in latitude 42.21 degrees south, and longitude 108.56
+degrees east.</p>
+<p>And there he found all the wise people instructing mankind in the
+science of spirit-rapping, while their house was burning over their
+heads: and when Tom told them of the fire, they held an indignation
+meeting forthwith, and unanimously determined to hang Tom&rsquo;s dog
+for coming into their country with gunpowder in his mouth.&nbsp; Tom
+couldn&rsquo;t help saying that though they did fancy they had carried
+all the wit away with them out of Lincolnshire two hundred years ago,
+yet if they had had one such Lincolnshire nobleman among them as good
+old Lord Yarborough, he would have called for the fire-engines before
+he hanged other people&rsquo;s dogs.&nbsp; But it was of no use, and
+the dog was hanged: and Tom couldn&rsquo;t even have his carcase; for
+they had abolished the have-his-carcase act in that country, for fear
+lest when rogues fell out, honest men should come by their own.&nbsp;
+And so they would have succeeded perfectly, as they always do, only
+that (as they also always do) they failed in one little particular,
+viz. that the dog would not die, being a water-dog, but bit their fingers
+so abominably that they were forced to let him go, and Tom likewise,
+as British subjects.&nbsp; Whereon they recommenced rapping for the
+spirits of their fathers; and very much astonished the poor old spirits
+were when they came, and saw how, according to the laws of Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid,
+their descendants had weakened their constitution by hard living.</p>
+<p>Then came Tom to the Island of Polupragmosyne (which some call Rogues&rsquo;
+Harbour; but they are wrong; for that is in the middle of Bramshill
+Bushes, and the county police have cleared it out long ago).&nbsp; There
+every one knows his neighbour&rsquo;s business better than his own;
+and a very noisy place it is, as might be expected, considering that
+all the inhabitants are <i>ex officio</i> on the wrong side of the house
+in the &ldquo;Parliament of Man, and the Federation of the World;&rdquo;
+and are always making wry mouths, and crying that the fairies&rsquo;
+grapes were sour.</p>
+<p>There Tom saw ploughs drawing horses, nails driving hammers, birds&rsquo;
+nests taking boys, books making authors, bulls keeping china-shops,
+monkeys shaving cats, dead dogs drilling live lions, blind brigadiers
+shelfed as principals of colleges, play-actors not in the least shelfed
+as popular preachers; and, in short, every one set to do something which
+he had not learnt, because in what he had learnt, or pretended to learn,
+he had failed.</p>
+<p>There stands the Pantheon of the Great Unsuccessful, from the builders
+of the Tower of Babel to those of the Trafalgar Fountains; in which
+politicians lecture on the constitutions which ought to have marched,
+conspirators on the revolutions which ought to have succeeded, economists
+on the schemes which ought to have made every one&rsquo;s fortune, and
+projectors on the discoveries which ought to have set the Thames on
+fire.&nbsp; There cobblers lecture on orthopedy (whatsoever that may
+be) because they cannot sell their shoes; and poets on AEsthetics (whatsoever
+that may be) because they cannot sell their poetry.&nbsp; There philosophers
+demonstrate that England would be the freest and richest country in
+the world, if she would only turn Papist again; penny-a-liners abuse
+the Times, because they have not wit enough to get on its staff; and
+young ladies walk about with lockets of Charles the First&rsquo;s hair
+(or of somebody else&rsquo;s, when the Jews&rsquo; genuine stock is
+used up), inscribed with the neat and appropriate legend&mdash;which
+indeed is popular through all that land, and which, I hope, you will
+learn to translate in due time and to perpend likewise:-</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa puellis</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When he got into the middle of the town, they all set on him at once,
+to show him his way; or rather, to show him that he did not know his
+way; for as for asking him what way he wanted to go, no one ever thought
+of that.</p>
+<p>But one pulled him hither, and another poked him thither, and a third
+cried -</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You mustn&rsquo;t go west, I tell you; it is destruction to
+go west.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But I am not going west, as you may see,&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>And another, &ldquo;The east lies here, my dear; I assure you this
+is the east.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t want to go east,&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then, at all events, whichever way you are going, you
+are going wrong,&rdquo; cried they all with one voice&mdash;which was
+the only thing which they ever agreed about; and all pointed at once
+to all the thirty-and-two points of the compass, till Tom thought all
+the sign-posts in England had got together, and fallen fighting.</p>
+<p>And whether he would have ever escaped out of the town, it is hard
+to say, if the dog had not taken it into his head that they were going
+to pull his master in pieces, and tackled them so sharply about the
+gastrocnemius muscle, that he gave them some business of their own to
+think of at last; and while they were rubbing their bitten calves, Tom
+and the dog got safe away.</p>
+<p>On the borders of that island he found Gotham, where the wise men
+live; the same who dragged the pond because the moon had fallen into
+it, and planted a hedge round the cuckoo, to keep spring all the year.&nbsp;
+And he found them bricking up the town gate, because it was so wide
+that little folks could not get through.&nbsp; And, when he asked why,
+they told him they were expanding their liturgy.&nbsp; So he went on;
+for it was no business of his: only he could not help saying that in
+his country, if the kitten could not get in at the same hole as the
+cat, she might stay outside and mew.</p>
+<p>But he saw the end of such fellows, when he came to the island of
+the Golden Asses, where nothing but thistles grow.&nbsp; For there they
+were all turned into mokes with ears a yard long, for meddling with
+matters which they do not understand, as Lucius did in the story.&nbsp;
+And like him, mokes they must remain, till, by the laws of development,
+the thistles develop into roses.&nbsp; Till then, they must comfort
+themselves with the thought, that the longer their ears are, the thicker
+their hides; and so a good beating don&rsquo;t hurt them.</p>
+<p>Then came Tom to the great land of Hearsay, in which are no less
+than thirty and odd kings, beside half a dozen Republics, and perhaps
+more by next mail.</p>
+<p>And there he fell in with a deep, dark, deadly, and destructive war,
+waged by the princes and potentates of those parts, both spiritual and
+temporal, against what do you think?&nbsp; One thing I am sure of.&nbsp;
+That unless I told you, you would never know; nor how they waged that
+war either; for all their strategy and art military consisted in the
+safe and easy process of stopping their ears and screaming, &ldquo;Oh,
+don&rsquo;t tell us!&rdquo; and then running away.</p>
+<p>So when Tom came into that land, he found them all, high and low,
+man, woman, and child, running for their lives day and night continually,
+and entreating not to be told they didn&rsquo;t know what: only the
+land being an island, and they having a dislike to the water (being
+a musty lot for the most part), they ran round and round the shore for
+ever, which (as the island was exactly of the same circumference as
+the planet on which we have the honour of living) was hard work, especially
+to those who had business to look after.&nbsp; But before them, as bandmaster
+and fugleman, ran a gentleman shearing a pig; the melodious strains
+of which animal led them for ever, if not to conquest, still to flight;
+and kept up their spirits mightily with the thought that they would
+at least have the pig&rsquo;s wool for their pains.</p>
+<p>And running after them, day and night, came such a poor, lean, seedy,
+hard-worked old giant, as ought to have been cockered up, and had a
+good dinner given him, and a good wife found him, and been set to play
+with little children; and then he would have been a very presentable
+old fellow after all; for he had a heart, though it was considerably
+overgrown with brains.</p>
+<p>He was made up principally of fish bones and parchment, put together
+with wire and Canada balsam; and smelt strongly of spirits, though he
+never drank anything but water: but spirits he used somehow, there was
+no denying.&nbsp; He had a great pair of spectacles on his nose, and
+a butterfly-net in one hand, and a geological hammer in the other; and
+was hung all over with pockets, full of collecting boxes, bottles, microscopes,
+telescopes, barometers, ordnance maps, scalpels, forceps, photographic
+apparatus, and all other tackle for finding out everything about everything,
+and a little more too.&nbsp; And, most strange of all, he was running
+not forwards but backwards, as fast as he could.</p>
+<p>Away all the good folks ran from him, except Tom, who stood his ground
+and dodged between his legs; and the giant, when he had passed him,
+looked down, and cried, as if he was quite pleased and comforted, -</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What? who are you?&nbsp; And you actually don&rsquo;t run
+away, like all the rest?&rdquo;&nbsp; But he had to take his spectacles
+off, Tom remarked, in order to see him plainly.</p>
+<p>Tom told him who he was; and the giant pulled out a bottle and a
+cork instantly, to collect him with.</p>
+<p>But Tom was too sharp for that, and dodged between his legs and in
+front of him; and then the giant could not see him at all.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, no, no!&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve not been round
+the world, and through the world, and up to Mother Carey&rsquo;s haven,
+beside being caught in a net and called a Holothurian and a Cephalopod,
+to be bottled up by any old giant like you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And when the giant understood what a great traveller Tom had been,
+he made a truce with him at once, and would have kept him there to this
+day to pick his brains, so delighted was he at finding any one to tell
+him what he did not know before.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, you lucky little dog!&rdquo; said he at last, quite simply&mdash;for
+he was the simplest, pleasantest, honestest, kindliest old Dominie Sampson
+of a giant that ever turned the world upside down without intending
+it&mdash;&ldquo;ah, you lucky little dog!&nbsp; If I had only been where
+you have been, to see what you have seen!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;if you want to do that, you
+had best put your head under water for a few hours, as I did, and turn
+into a water-baby, or some other baby, and then you might have a chance.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Turn into a baby, eh?&nbsp; If I could do that, and know what
+was happening to me for but one hour, I should know everything then,
+and be at rest.&nbsp; But I can&rsquo;t; I can&rsquo;t be a little child
+again; and I suppose if I could, it would be no use, because then I
+should then know nothing about what was happening to me.&nbsp; Ah, you
+lucky little dog!&rdquo; said the poor old giant.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But why do you run after all these poor people?&rdquo; said
+Tom, who liked the giant very much.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear, it&rsquo;s they that have been running after me,
+father and son, for hundreds and hundreds of years, throwing stones
+at me till they have knocked off my spectacles fifty times, and calling
+me a malignant and a turbaned Turk, who beat a Venetian and traduced
+the State&mdash;goodness only knows what they mean, for I never read
+poetry&mdash;and hunting me round and round&mdash;though catch me they
+can&rsquo;t, for every time I go over the same ground, I go the faster,
+and grow the bigger.&nbsp; While all I want is to be friends with them,
+and to tell them something to their advantage, like Mr. Joseph Ady:
+only somehow they are so strangely afraid of hearing it.&nbsp; But,
+I suppose I am not a man of the world, and have no tact.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But why don&rsquo;t you turn round and tell them so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I can&rsquo;t.&nbsp; You see, I am one of the sons
+of Epimetheus, and must go backwards, if I am to go at all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But why don&rsquo;t you stop, and let them come up to you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, my dear, only think.&nbsp; If I did, all the butterflies
+and cockyolybirds would fly past me, and then I should catch no more
+new species, and should grow rusty and mouldy, and die.&nbsp; And I
+don&rsquo;t intend to do that, my dear; for I have a destiny before
+me, they say: though what it is I don&rsquo;t know, and don&rsquo;t
+care.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t care?&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&nbsp; Do the duty which lies nearest you, and catch the
+first beetle you come across, is my motto; and I have thriven by it
+for some hundred years.&nbsp; Now I must go on.&nbsp; Dear me, while
+I have been talking to you, at least nine new species have escaped me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And on went the giant, behind before, like a bull in a china-shop,
+till he ran into the steeple of the great idol temple (for they are
+all idolaters in those parts, of course, else they would never be afraid
+of giants), and knocked the upper half clean off, hurting himself horribly
+about the small of the back.</p>
+<p>But little he cared; for as soon as the ruins of the steeple were
+well between his legs, he poked and peered among the falling stones,
+and shifted his spectacles, and pulled out his pocket-magnifier, and
+cried -</p>
+<p>&ldquo;An entirely new Oniscus, and three obscure Podurellae!&nbsp;
+Besides a moth which M. le Roi des Papillons (though he, like all Frenchmen,
+is given to hasty inductions) says is confined to the limits of the
+Glacial Drift.&nbsp; This is most important!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And down he sat on the nave of the temple (not being a man of the
+world) to examine his Podurellae.&nbsp; Whereon (as was to be expected)
+the roof caved in bodily, smashing the idols, and sending the priests
+flying out of doors and windows, like rabbits out of a burrow when a
+ferret goes in.</p>
+<p>But he never heeded; for out of the dust flew a bat, and the giant
+had him in a moment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear me!&nbsp; This is even more important!&nbsp; Here is
+a cognate species to that which Macgilliwaukie Brown insists is confined
+to the Buddhist temples of Little Thibet; and now when I look at it,
+it may be only a variety produced by difference of climate!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And having bagged his bat, up he got, and on he went; while all the
+people ran, being in none the better humour for having their temple
+smashed for the sake of three obscure species of Podurella, and a Buddhist
+bat.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; thought Tom, &ldquo;this is a very pretty quarrel,
+with a good deal to be said on both sides.&nbsp; But it is no business
+of mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And no more it was, because he was a water-baby, and had the original
+sow by the right ear; which you will never have, unless you be a baby,
+whether of the water, the land, or the air, matters not, provided you
+can only keep on continually being a baby.</p>
+<p>So the giant ran round after the people, and the people ran round
+after the giant, and they are running, unto this day for aught I know,
+or do not know; and will run till either he, or they, or both, turn
+into little children.&nbsp; And then, as Shakespeare says (and therefore
+it must be true) -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Jack shall have Gill<br />Nought shall go ill<br />The man
+shall have his mare again, and all go well.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Then Tom came to a very famous island, which was called, in the days
+of the great traveller Captain Gulliver, the Isle of Laputa.&nbsp; But
+Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has named it over again the Isle of Tomtoddies,
+all heads and no bodies.</p>
+<p>And when Tom came near it, he heard such a grumbling and grunting
+and growling and wailing and weeping and whining that he thought people
+must be ringing little pigs, or cropping puppies&rsquo; ears, or drowning
+kittens: but when he came nearer still, he began to hear words among
+the noise; which was the Tomtoddies&rsquo; song which they sing morning
+and evening, and all night too, to their great idol Examination -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t learn my lesson: the examiner&rsquo;s coming!&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>And that was the only song which they knew.</p>
+<p>And when Tom got on shore the first thing he saw was a great pillar,
+on one side of which was inscribed, &ldquo;Playthings not allowed here;&rdquo;
+at which he was so shocked that he would not stay to see what was written
+on the other side.&nbsp; Then he looked round for the people of the
+island: but instead of men, women, and children, he found nothing but
+turnips and radishes, beet and mangold wurzel, without a single green
+leaf among them, and half of them burst and decayed, with toad-stools
+growing out of them.&nbsp; Those which were left began crying to Tom,
+in half a dozen different languages at once, and all of them badly spoken,
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t learn my lesson; do come and help me!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And one cried, &ldquo;Can you show me how to extract this square root?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And another, &ldquo;Can you tell me the distance between &alpha;
+Lyrae and &beta; Camelopardis?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And another, &ldquo;What is the latitude and longitude of Snooksville,
+in Noman&rsquo;s County, Oregon, U.S.?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And another, &ldquo;What was the name of Mutius Scaevola&rsquo;s
+thirteenth cousin&rsquo;s grandmother&rsquo;s maid&rsquo;s cat?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And another, &ldquo;How long would it take a school-inspector of
+average activity to tumble head over heels from London to York?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And another, &ldquo;Can you tell me the name of a place that nobody
+ever heard of, where nothing ever happened, in a country which has not
+been discovered yet?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And another, &ldquo;Can you show me how to correct this hopelessly
+corrupt passage of Graidiocolosyrtus Tabenniticus, on the cause why
+crocodiles have no tongues?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And so on, and so on, and so on, till one would have thought they
+were all trying for tide-waiters&rsquo; places, or cornetcies in the
+heavy dragoons.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what good on earth will it do you if I did tell you?&rdquo;
+quoth Tom.</p>
+<p>Well, they didn&rsquo;t know that: all they knew was the examiner
+was coming.</p>
+<p>Then Tom stumbled on the hugest and softest nimblecomequick turnip
+you ever saw filling a hole in a crop of swedes, and it cried to him,
+&ldquo;Can you tell me anything at all about anything you like?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About what?&rdquo; says Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About anything you like; for as fast as I learn things I forget
+them again.&nbsp; So my mamma says that my intellect is not adapted
+for methodic science, and says that I must go in for general information.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom told him that he did not know general information, nor any officers
+in the army; only he had a friend once that went for a drummer: but
+he could tell him a great many strange things which he had seen in his
+travels.</p>
+<p>So he told him prettily enough, while the poor turnip listened very
+carefully; and the more he listened, the more he forgot, and the more
+water ran out of him.</p>
+<p>Tom thought he was crying: but it was only his poor brains running
+away, from being worked so hard; and as Tom talked, the unhappy turnip
+streamed down all over with juice, and split and shrank till nothing
+was left of him but rind and water; whereat Tom ran away in a fright,
+for he thought he might be taken up for killing the turnip.</p>
+<p>But, on the contrary, the turnip&rsquo;s parents were highly delighted,
+and considered him a saint and a martyr, and put up a long inscription
+over his tomb about his wonderful talents, early development, and unparalleled
+precocity.&nbsp; Were they not a foolish couple?&nbsp; But there was
+a still more foolish couple next to them, who were beating a wretched
+little radish, no bigger than my thumb, for sullenness and obstinacy
+and wilful stupidity, and never knew that the reason why it couldn&rsquo;t
+learn or hardly even speak was, that there was a great worm inside it
+eating out all its brains.&nbsp; But even they are no foolisher than
+some hundred score of papas and mammas, who fetch the rod when they
+ought to fetch a new toy, and send to the dark cupboard instead of to
+the doctor.</p>
+<p>Tom was so puzzled and frightened with all he saw, that he was longing
+to ask the meaning of it; and at last he stumbled over a respectable
+old stick lying half covered with earth.&nbsp; But a very stout and
+worthy stick it was, for it belonged to good Roger Ascham in old time,
+and had carved on its head King Edward the Sixth, with the Bible in
+his hand.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; said the stick, &ldquo;there were as pretty
+little children once as you could wish to see, and might have been so
+still if they had been only left to grow up like human beings, and then
+handed over to me; but their foolish fathers and mothers, instead of
+letting them pick flowers, and make dirt-pies, and get birds&rsquo;
+nests, and dance round the gooseberry bush, as little children should,
+kept them always at lessons, working, working, working, learning week-day
+lessons all week-days, and Sunday lessons all Sunday, and weekly examinations
+every Saturday, and monthly examinations every month, and yearly examinations
+every year, everything seven times over, as if once was not enough,
+and enough as good as a feast&mdash;till their brains grew big, and
+their bodies grew small, and they were all changed into turnips, with
+little but water inside; and still their foolish parents actually pick
+the leaves off them as fast as they grow, lest they should have anything
+green about them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;if dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby
+knew of it she would send them a lot of tops, and balls, and marbles,
+and ninepins, and make them all as jolly as sand-boys.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It would be no use,&rdquo; said the stick.&nbsp; &ldquo;They
+can&rsquo;t play now, if they tried.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you see how their
+legs have turned to roots and grown into the ground, by never taking
+any exercise, but sapping and moping always in the same place?&nbsp;
+But here comes the Examiner-of-all-Examiners.&nbsp; So you had better
+get away, I warn you, or he will examine you and your dog into the bargain,
+and set him to examine all the other dogs, and you to examine all the
+other water-babies.&nbsp; There is no escaping out of his hands, for
+his nose is nine thousand miles long, and can go down chimneys, and
+through keyholes, upstairs, downstairs, in my lady&rsquo;s chamber,
+examining all little boys, and the little boys&rsquo; tutors likewise.&nbsp;
+But when he is thrashed&mdash;so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has promised
+me&mdash;I shall have the thrashing of him: and if I don&rsquo;t lay
+it on with a will it&rsquo;s a pity.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom went off: but rather slowly and surlily; for he was somewhat
+minded to face this same Examiner-of-all-Examiners, who came striding
+among the poor turnips, binding heavy burdens and grievous to be borne,
+and laying them on little children&rsquo;s shoulders, like the Scribes
+and Pharisees of old, and not touching the same with one of his fingers;
+for he had plenty of money, and a fine house to live in, and so forth;
+which was more than the poor little turnips had.</p>
+<p>But when he got near, he looked so big and burly and dictatorial,
+and shouted so loud to Tom, to come and be examined, that Tom ran for
+his life, and the dog too.&nbsp; And really it was time; for the poor
+turnips, in their hurry and fright, crammed themselves so fast to be
+ready for the Examiner, that they burst and popped by dozens all round
+him, till the place sounded like Aldershot on a field-day, and Tom thought
+he should be blown into the air, dog and all.</p>
+<p>As he went down to the shore he passed the poor turnip&rsquo;s new
+tomb.&nbsp; But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid had taken away the epitaph about
+talents and precocity and development, and put up one of her own instead
+which Tom thought much more sensible:-</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Instruction sore long time I bore,<br />And cramming was in
+vain;<br />Till heaven did please my woes to ease<br />With water on
+the brain.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>So Tom jumped into the sea, and swam on his way, singing:-</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Farewell, Tomtoddies all; I thank my stars<br />That nought
+I know save those three royal r&rsquo;s:<br />Reading and riting sure,
+with rithmetick,<br />Will help a lad of sense through thin and thick.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Whereby you may see that Tom was no poet: but no more was John Bunyan,
+though he was as wise a man as you will meet in a month of Sundays.</p>
+<p>And next he came to Oldwivesfabledom, where the folks were all heathens,
+and worshipped a howling ape.&nbsp; And there he found a little boy
+sitting in the middle of the road, and crying bitterly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are you crying for?&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because I am not as frightened as I could wish to be.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not frightened?&nbsp; You are a queer little chap: but, if
+you want to be frightened, here goes&mdash;Boo!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said the little boy, &ldquo;that is very kind of
+you; but I don&rsquo;t feel that it has made any impression.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on him, fettle him over
+the head with a brick, or anything else whatsoever which would give
+him the slightest comfort.</p>
+<p>But he only thanked Tom very civilly, in fine long words which he
+had heard other folk use, and which therefore, he thought were fit and
+proper to use himself; and cried on till his papa and mamma came, and
+sent off for the Powwow man immediately.&nbsp; And a very good-natured
+gentleman and lady they were, though they were heathens; and talked
+quite pleasantly to Tom about his travels, till the Powwow man arrived,
+with his thunderbox under his arm.</p>
+<p>And a well-fed, ill-favoured gentleman he was, as ever served Her
+Majesty at Portland.&nbsp; Tom was a little frightened at first; for
+he thought it was Grimes.&nbsp; But he soon saw his mistake: for Grimes
+always looked a man in the face; and this fellow never did.&nbsp; And
+when he spoke, it was fire and smoke; and when he sneezed, it was squibs
+and crackers; and when he cried (which he did whenever it paid him),
+it was boiling pitch; and some of it was sure to stick.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here we are again!&rdquo; cried he, like the clown in a pantomime.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;So you can&rsquo;t feel frightened, my little dear&mdash;eh?&nbsp;
+I&rsquo;ll do that for you.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll make an impression on you!&nbsp;
+Yah!&nbsp; Boo!&nbsp; Whirroo!&nbsp; Hullabaloo!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And he rattled, thumped, brandished his thunder-box, yelled, shouted,
+raved, roared, stamped, and danced corrobory like any black fellow;
+and then he touched a spring in the thunderbox, and out popped turnip-ghosts
+and magic-lanthorns and pasteboard bogies and spring-heeled Jacks, and
+sallaballas, with such a horrid din, clatter, clank, roll, rattle, and
+roar, that the little boy turned up the whites of his eyes, and fainted
+right away.</p>
+<p>And at that his poor heathen papa and mamma were as much delighted
+as if they had found a gold mine; and fell down upon their knees before
+the Powwow man, and gave him a palanquin with a pole of solid silver
+and curtains of cloth of gold; and carried him about in it on their
+own backs: but as soon as they had taken him up, the pole stuck to their
+shoulders, and they could not set him down any more, but carried him
+on willynilly, as Sinbad carried the old man of the sea: which was a
+pitiable sight to see; for the father was a very brave officer, and
+wore two swords and a blue button; and the mother was as pretty a lady
+as ever had pinched feet like a Chinese.&nbsp; But you see, they had
+chosen to do a foolish thing just once too often; so, by the laws of
+Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, they had to go on doing it whether they chose
+or not, till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.</p>
+<p>Ah! don&rsquo;t you wish that some one would go and convert those
+poor heathens, and teach them not to frighten their little children
+into fits?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now, then,&rdquo; said the Powwow man to Tom, &ldquo;wouldn&rsquo;t
+you like to be frightened, my little dear?&nbsp; For I can see plainly
+that you are a very wicked, naughty, graceless, reprobate boy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re another,&rdquo; quoth Tom, very sturdily.&nbsp;
+And when the man ran at him, and cried &ldquo;Boo!&rdquo;&nbsp; Tom
+ran at him in return, and cried &ldquo;Boo!&rdquo; likewise, right in
+his face, and set the little dog upon him; and at his legs the dog went.</p>
+<p>At which, if you will believe it, the fellow turned tail, thunderbox
+and all, with a &ldquo;Woof!&rdquo; like an old sow on the common; and
+ran for his life, screaming, &ldquo;Help! thieves! murder! fire!&nbsp;
+He is going to kill me!&nbsp; I am a ruined man!&nbsp; He will murder
+me; and break, burn, and destroy my precious and invaluable thunderbox;
+and then you will have no more thunder-showers in the land.&nbsp; Help!
+help! help!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At which the papa and mamma and all the people of Oldwivesfabledom
+flew at Tom, shouting, &ldquo;Oh, the wicked, impudent, hard-hearted,
+graceless boy!&nbsp; Beat him, kick him, shoot him, drown him, hang
+him, burn him!&rdquo; and so forth: but luckily they had nothing to
+shoot, hang, or burn him with, for the fairies had hid all the killing-tackle
+out of the way a little while before; so they could only pelt him with
+stones; and some of the stones went clean through him, and came out
+the other side.&nbsp; But he did not mind that a bit; for the holes
+closed up again as fast as they were made, because he was a water-baby.&nbsp;
+However, he was very glad when he was safe out of the country, for the
+noise there made him all but deaf.</p>
+<p>Then he came to a very quiet place, called Leaveheavenalone.&nbsp;
+And there the sun was drawing water out of the sea to make steam-threads,
+and the wind was twisting them up to make cloud-patterns, till they
+had worked between them the loveliest wedding veil of Chantilly lace,
+and hung it up in their own Crystal Palace for any one to buy who could
+afford it; while the good old sea never grudged, for she knew they would
+pay her back honestly.&nbsp; So the sun span, and the wind wove, and
+all went well with the great steam-loom; as is likely, considering&mdash;and
+considering&mdash;and considering -</p>
+<p>And at last, after innumerable adventures, each more wonderful than
+the last, he saw before him a huge building, much bigger, and&mdash;what
+is most surprising&mdash;a little uglier than a certain new lunatic
+asylum, but not built quite of the same materials.&nbsp; None of it,
+at least&mdash;or, indeed, for aught that I ever saw, any part of any
+other building whatsoever&mdash;is cased with nine-inch brick inside
+and out, and filled up with rubble between the walls, in order that
+any gentleman who has been confined during Her Majesty&rsquo;s pleasure
+may be unconfined during his own pleasure, and take a walk in the neighbouring
+park to improve his spirits, after an hour&rsquo;s light and wholesome
+labour with his dinner-fork or one of the legs of his iron bedstead.&nbsp;
+No.&nbsp; The walls of this building were built on an entirely different
+principle, which need not be described, as it has not yet been discovered.</p>
+<p>Tom walked towards this great building, wondering what it was, and
+having a strange fancy that he might find Mr. Grimes inside it, till
+he saw running toward him, and shouting &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; three or
+four people, who, when they came nearer, were nothing else than policemen&rsquo;s
+truncheons, running along without legs or arms.</p>
+<p>Tom was not astonished.&nbsp; He was long past that.&nbsp; Besides,
+he had seen the naviculae in the water move nobody knows how, a hundred
+times, without arms, or legs, or anything to stand in their stead.&nbsp;
+Neither was he frightened for he had been doing no harm.</p>
+<p>So he stopped; and, when the foremost truncheon came up and asked
+his business, he showed Mother Carey&rsquo;s pass; and the truncheon
+looked at it in the oddest fashion; for he had one eye in the middle
+of his upper end, so that when he looked at anything, being quite stiff,
+he had to slope himself, and poke himself, till it was a wonder why
+he did not tumble over; but, being quite full of the spirit of justice
+(as all policemen, and their truncheons, ought to be), he was always
+in a position of stable equilibrium, whichever way he put himself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All right&mdash;pass on,&rdquo; said he at last.&nbsp; And
+then he added: &ldquo;I had better go with you, young man.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And Tom had no objection, for such company was both respectable and
+safe; so the truncheon coiled its thong neatly round its handle, to
+prevent tripping itself up&mdash;for the thong had got loose in running&mdash;and
+marched on by Tom&rsquo;s side.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why have you no policeman to carry you?&rdquo; asked Tom,
+after a while.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because we are not like those clumsy-made truncheons in the
+land-world, which cannot go without having a whole man to carry them
+about.&nbsp; We do our own work for ourselves; and do it very well,
+though I say it who should not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then why have you a thong to your handle?&rdquo; asked Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are off duty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom had got his answer, and had no more to say, till they came up
+to the great iron door of the prison.&nbsp; And there the truncheon
+knocked twice, with its own head.</p>
+<p>A wicket in the door opened, and out looked a tremendous old brass
+blunderbuss charged up to the muzzle with slugs, who was the porter;
+and Tom started back a little at the sight of him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What case is this?&rdquo; he asked in a deep voice, out of
+his broad bell mouth.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you please, sir, it is no case; only a young gentleman
+from her ladyship, who wants to see Grimes, the master-sweep.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Grimes?&rdquo; said the blunderbuss.&nbsp; And he pulled in
+his muzzle, perhaps to look over his prison-lists.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Grimes is up chimney No. 345,&rdquo; he said from inside.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;So the young gentleman had better go on to the roof.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom looked up at the enormous wall, which seemed at least ninety
+miles high, and wondered how he should ever get up: but, when he hinted
+that to the truncheon, it settled the matter in a moment.&nbsp; For
+it whisked round, and gave him such a shove behind as sent him up to
+the roof in no time, with his little dog under his arm.</p>
+<p>And there he walked along the leads, till he met another truncheon,
+and told him his errand.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; it said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Come along: but it
+will be of no use.&nbsp; He is the most unremorseful, hard-hearted,
+foul-mouthed fellow I have in charge; and thinks about nothing but beer
+and pipes, which are not allowed here, of course.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So they walked along over the leads, and very sooty they were, and
+Tom thought the chimneys must want sweeping very much.&nbsp; But he
+was surprised to see that the soot did not stick to his feet, or dirty
+them in the least.&nbsp; Neither did the live coals, which were lying
+about in plenty, burn him; for, being a water-baby, his radical humours
+were of a moist and cold nature, as you may read at large in Lemnius,
+Cardan, Van Helmont, and other gentlemen, who knew as much as they could,
+and no man can know more.</p>
+<p>And at last they came to chimney No. 345.&nbsp; Out of the top of
+it, his head and shoulders just showing, stuck poor Mr. Grimes, so sooty,
+and bleared, and ugly, that Tom could hardly bear to look at him.&nbsp;
+And in his mouth was a pipe; but it was not a-light; though he was pulling
+at it with all his might.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Attention, Mr. Grimes,&rdquo; said the truncheon; &ldquo;here
+is a gentleman come to see you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But Mr. Grimes only said bad words; and kept grumbling, &ldquo;My
+pipe won&rsquo;t draw.&nbsp; My pipe won&rsquo;t draw.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Keep a civil tongue, and attend!&rdquo; said the truncheon;
+and popped up just like Punch, hitting Grimes such a crack over the
+head with itself, that his brains rattled inside like a dried walnut
+in its shell.&nbsp; He tried to get his hands out, and rub the place:
+but he could not, for they were stuck fast in the chimney.&nbsp; Now
+he was forced to attend.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hey!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;why, it&rsquo;s Tom!&nbsp; I suppose
+you have come here to laugh at me, you spiteful little atomy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom assured him he had not, but only wanted to help him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want anything except beer, and that I can&rsquo;t
+get; and a light to this bothering pipe, and that I can&rsquo;t get
+either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll get you one,&rdquo; said Tom; and he took up a
+live coal (there were plenty lying about) and put it to Grimes&rsquo;
+pipe: but it went out instantly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s no use,&rdquo; said the truncheon, leaning itself
+up against the chimney and looking on.&nbsp; &ldquo;I tell you, it is
+no use.&nbsp; His heart is so cold that it freezes everything that comes
+near him.&nbsp; You will see that presently, plain enough.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, of course, it&rsquo;s my fault.&nbsp; Everything&rsquo;s
+always my fault,&rdquo; said Grimes.&nbsp; &ldquo;Now don&rsquo;t go
+to hit me again&rdquo; (for the truncheon started upright, and looked
+very wicked); &ldquo;you know, if my arms were only free, you daren&rsquo;t
+hit me then.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The truncheon leant back against the chimney, and took no notice
+of the personal insult, like a well-trained policeman as it was, though
+he was ready enough to avenge any transgression against morality or
+order.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But can&rsquo;t I help you in any other way?&nbsp; Can&rsquo;t
+I help you to get out of this chimney?&rdquo; said Tom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; interposed the truncheon; &ldquo;he has come to
+the place where everybody must help themselves; and he will find it
+out, I hope, before he has done with me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; said Grimes, &ldquo;of course it&rsquo;s me.&nbsp;
+Did I ask to be brought here into the prison?&nbsp; Did I ask to be
+set to sweep your foul chimneys?&nbsp; Did I ask to have lighted straw
+put under me to make me go up?&nbsp; Did I ask to stick fast in the
+very first chimney of all, because it was so shamefully clogged up with
+soot?&nbsp; Did I ask to stay here&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know how long&mdash;a
+hundred years, I do believe, and never get my pipe, nor my beer, nor
+nothing fit for a beast, let alone a man?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; answered a solemn voice behind.&nbsp; &ldquo;No
+more did Tom, when you behaved to him in the very same way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.&nbsp; And, when the truncheon saw her,
+it started bolt upright&mdash;Attention!&mdash;and made such a low bow,
+that if it had not been full of the spirit of justice, it must have
+tumbled on its end, and probably hurt its one eye.&nbsp; And Tom made
+his bow too.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t think
+about me; that&rsquo;s all past and gone, and good times and bad times
+and all times pass over.&nbsp; But may not I help poor Mr. Grimes?&nbsp;
+Mayn&rsquo;t I try and get some of these bricks away, that he may move
+his arms?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You may try, of course,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>So Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks: but he could not move one.&nbsp;
+And then he tried to wipe Mr. Grimes&rsquo; face: but the soot would
+not come off.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear!&rdquo; he said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have come all this
+way, through all these terrible places, to help you, and now I am of
+no use at all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You had best leave me alone,&rdquo; said Grimes; &ldquo;you
+are a good-natured forgiving little chap, and that&rsquo;s truth; but
+you&rsquo;d best be off.&nbsp; The hail&rsquo;s coming on soon, and
+it will beat the eyes out of your little head.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What hail?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, hail that falls every evening here; and, till it comes
+close to me, it&rsquo;s like so much warm rain: but then it turns to
+hail over my head, and knocks me about like small shot.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That hail will never come any more,&rdquo; said the strange
+lady.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have told you before what it was.&nbsp; It was
+your mother&rsquo;s tears, those which she shed when she prayed for
+you by her bedside; but your cold heart froze it into hail.&nbsp; But
+she is gone to heaven now, and will weep no more for her graceless son.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then Grimes was silent awhile; and then he looked very sad.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So my old mother&rsquo;s gone, and I never there to speak
+to her!&nbsp; Ah! a good woman she was, and might have been a happy
+one, in her little school there in Vendale, if it hadn&rsquo;t been
+for me and my bad ways.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Did she keep the school in Vendale?&rdquo; asked Tom.&nbsp;
+And then he told Grimes all the story of his going to her house, and
+how she could not abide the sight of a chimney-sweep, and then how kind
+she was, and how he turned into a water-baby.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Grimes, &ldquo;good reason she had to hate
+the sight of a chimney-sweep.&nbsp; I ran away from her and took up
+with the sweeps, and never let her know where I was, nor sent her a
+penny to help her, and now it&rsquo;s too late&mdash;too late!&rdquo;
+said Mr. Grimes.</p>
+<p>And he began crying and blubbering like a great baby, till his pipe
+dropped out of his mouth, and broke all to bits.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear, if I was but a little chap in Vendale again, to
+see the clear beck, and the apple-orchard, and the yew-hedge, how different
+I would go on!&nbsp; But it&rsquo;s too late now.&nbsp; So you go along,
+you kind little chap, and don&rsquo;t stand to look at a man crying,
+that&rsquo;s old enough to be your father, and never feared the face
+of man, nor of worse neither.&nbsp; But I&rsquo;m beat now, and beat
+I must be.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve made my bed, and I must lie on it.&nbsp;
+Foul I would be, and foul I am, as an Irishwoman said to me once; and
+little I heeded it.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s all my own fault: but it&rsquo;s
+too late.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he cried so bitterly that Tom began crying
+too.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Never too late,&rdquo; said the fairy, in such a strange soft
+new voice that Tom looked up at her; and she was so beautiful for the
+moment, that Tom half fancied she was her sister.</p>
+<p>No more was it too late.&nbsp; For, as poor Grimes cried and blubbered
+on, his own tears did what his mother&rsquo;s could not do, and Tom&rsquo;s
+could not do, and nobody&rsquo;s on earth could do for him; for they
+washed the soot off his face and off his clothes; and then they washed
+the mortar away from between the bricks; and the chimney crumbled down;
+and Grimes began to get out of it.</p>
+<p>Up jumped the truncheon, and was going to hit him on the crown a
+tremendous thump, and drive him down again like a cork into a bottle.&nbsp;
+But the strange lady put it aside.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Will you obey me if I give you a chance?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As you please, ma&rsquo;am.&nbsp; You&rsquo;re stronger than
+me&mdash;that I know too well, and wiser than me, I know too well also.&nbsp;
+And, as for being my own master, I&rsquo;ve fared ill enough with that
+as yet.&nbsp; So whatever your ladyship pleases to order me; for I&rsquo;m
+beat, and that&rsquo;s the truth.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Be it so then&mdash;you may come out.&nbsp; But remember,
+disobey me again, and into a worse place still you go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I beg pardon ma&rsquo;am, but I never disobeyed you that I
+know of.&nbsp; I never had the honour of setting eyes upon you till
+I came to these ugly quarters.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Never saw me?&nbsp; Who said to you, Those that will be foul,
+foul they will be?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Grimes looked up; and Tom looked up too; for the voice was that of
+the Irishwoman who met them the day that they went out together to Harthover.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I gave you your warning then: but you gave it yourself a thousand
+times before and since.&nbsp; Every bad word that you said&mdash;every
+cruel and mean thing that you did&mdash;every time that you got tipsy&mdash;every
+day that you went dirty&mdash;you were disobeying me, whether you knew
+it or not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I&rsquo;d only known, ma&rsquo;am&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You knew well enough that you were disobeying something, though
+you did not know it was me.&nbsp; But come out and take your chance.&nbsp;
+Perhaps it may be your last.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, if it had not been
+for the scars on his face, he looked as clean and respectable as a master-sweep
+need look.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Take him away,&rdquo; said she to the truncheon, &ldquo;and
+give him his ticket-of-leave.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what is he to do, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will find some
+very steady men working out their time there, who will teach him his
+business: but mind, if that crater gets choked again, and there is an
+earthquake in consequence, bring them all to me, and I shall investigate
+the case very severely.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking as meek as a drowned
+worm.</p>
+<p>And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweeping the crater of
+Etna to this very day.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said the fairy to Tom, &ldquo;your work here
+is done.&nbsp; You may as well go back again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should be glad enough to go,&rdquo; said Tom, &ldquo;but
+how am I to get up that great hole again, now the steam has stopped
+blowing?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will take you up the backstairs: but I must bandage your
+eyes first; for I never allow anybody to see those backstairs of mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, ma&rsquo;am,
+if you bid me not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Aha!&nbsp; So you think, my little man.&nbsp; But you would
+soon forget your promise if you got back into the land-world.&nbsp;
+For, if people only once found out that you had been up my backstairs,
+you would have all the fine ladies kneeling to you, and the rich men
+emptying their purses before you, and statesmen offering you place and
+power; and young and old, rich and poor, crying to you, &lsquo;Only
+tell us the great backstairs secret, and we will be your slaves; we
+will make you lord, king, emperor, bishop, archbishop, pope, if you
+like&mdash;only tell us the secret of the backstairs.&nbsp; For thousands
+of years we have been paying, and petting, and obeying, and worshipping
+quacks who told us they had the key of the backstairs, and could smuggle
+us up them; and in spite of all our disappointments, we will honour,
+and glorify, and adore, and beatify, and translate, and apotheotise
+you likewise, on the chance of your knowing something about the backstairs,
+that we may all go on pilgrimage to it; and, even if we cannot get up
+it, lie at the foot of it, and cry -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&lsquo;Oh, backstairs,<br />precious backstairs,<br />invaluable
+backstairs,<br />requisite backstairs,<br />necessary backstairs,<br />good-natured
+backstairs,<br />cosmopolitan backstairs,<br />comprehensive backstairs,<br />accommodating
+backstairs,<br />well-bred backstairs,<br />commercial backstairs,<br />economical
+backstairs,<br />practical backstairs,<br />logical backstairs,<br />deductive
+backstairs,<br />comfortable backstairs,<br />humane backstairs,<br />reasonable
+backstairs,<br />long-sought backstairs,<br />coveted backstairs,<br />aristocratic
+backstairs,<br />respectable backstairs,<br />gentlenmanlike backstairs,<br />ladylike
+backstairs,<br />orthodox backstairs,<br />probable backstairs,<br />credible
+backstairs,<br />demonstrable backstairs,<br />irrefragable backstairs,<br />potent
+backstairs,<br />all-but-omnipotent backstairs,<br />&amp;c.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Save us from the consequences of our own actions, and from the cruel
+fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid!&rsquo;&nbsp; Do not you think that you
+would be a little tempted then to tell what you know, laddie?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Tom thought so certainly.&nbsp; &ldquo;But why do they want so to
+know about the backstairs?&rdquo; asked he, being a little frightened
+at the long words, and not understanding them the least; as, indeed,
+he was not meant to do, or you either.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That I shall not tell you.&nbsp; I never put things into little
+folks&rsquo; heads which are but too likely to come there of themselves.&nbsp;
+So come&mdash;now I must bandage your eyes.&rdquo;&nbsp; So she tied
+the bandage on his eyes with one hand, and with the other she took it
+off.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you are safe up the stairs.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Tom opened his eyes very wide, and his mouth too; for he had not, as
+he thought, moved a single step.&nbsp; But, when he looked round him,
+there could be no doubt that he was safe up the backstairs, whatsoever
+they may be, which no man is going to tell you, for the plain reason
+that no man knows.</p>
+<p>The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, high and sharp
+against the rosy dawn; and St. Brandan&rsquo;s Isle reflected double
+in the still broad silver sea.&nbsp; The wind sang softly in the cedars,
+and the water sang among the eaves: the sea-birds sang as they streamed
+out into the ocean, and the land-birds as they built among the boughs;
+and the air was so full of song that it stirred St. Brandan and his
+hermits, as they slumbered in the shade; and they moved their good old
+lips, and sang their morning hymn amid their dreams.&nbsp; But among
+all the songs one came across the water more sweet and clear than all;
+for it was the song of a young girl&rsquo;s voice.</p>
+<p>And what was the song which she sang?&nbsp; Ah, my little man, I
+am too old to sing that song, and you too young to understand it.&nbsp;
+But have patience, and keep your eye single, and your hands clean, and
+you will learn some day to sing it yourself, without needing any man
+to teach you.</p>
+<p>And as Tom neared the island, there sat upon a rock the most graceful
+creature that ever was seen, looking down, with her chin upon her hand,
+and paddling with her feet in the water.&nbsp; And when they came to
+her she looked up, and behold it was Ellie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Miss Ellie,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;how you are grown!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Tom,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;how you are grown too!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And no wonder; they were both quite grown up&mdash;he into a tall
+man, and she into a beautiful woman.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps I may be grown,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have
+had time enough; for I have been sitting here waiting for you many a
+hundred years, till I thought you were never coming.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Many a hundred years?&rdquo; thought Tom; but he had seen
+so much in his travels that he had quite given up being astonished;
+and, indeed, he could think of nothing but Ellie.&nbsp; So he stood
+and looked at Ellie, and Ellie looked at him; and they liked the employment
+so much that they stood and looked for seven years more, and neither
+spoke nor stirred.</p>
+<p>At last they heard the fairy say: &ldquo;Attention, children.&nbsp;
+Are you never going to look at me again?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We have been looking at you all this while,&rdquo; they said.&nbsp;
+And so they thought they had been.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then look at me once more,&rdquo; said she.</p>
+<p>They looked&mdash;and both of them cried out at once, &ldquo;Oh,
+who are you, after all?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid; but you are grown
+quite beautiful now!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To you,&rdquo; said the fairy.&nbsp; &ldquo;But look again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are Mother Carey,&rdquo; said Tom, in a very low, solemn
+voice; for he had found out something which made him very happy, and
+yet frightened him more than all that he had ever seen.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you are grown quite young again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To you,&rdquo; said the fairy.&nbsp; &ldquo;Look again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to Harthover!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And when they looked she was neither of them, and yet all of them
+at once.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it
+there.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, and they changed
+again and again into every hue, as the light changes in a diamond.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now read my name,&rdquo; said she, at last.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not yet, young things, not yet,&rdquo; said she, smiling;
+and then she turned to Ellie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You may take him home with you now on Sundays, Ellie.&nbsp;
+He has won his spurs in the great battle, and become fit to go with
+you and be a man; because he has done the thing he did not like.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and sometimes on week-days,
+too; and he is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads, and
+steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth;
+and knows everything about everything, except why a hen&rsquo;s egg
+don&rsquo;t turn into a crocodile, and two or three other little things
+which no one will know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.&nbsp; And
+all this from what he learnt when he was a water-baby, underneath the
+sea.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And of course Tom married Ellie?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My dear child, what a silly notion!&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you know that
+no one ever marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a prince or a
+princess?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And Tom&rsquo;s dog?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Oh, you may see him any clear night in July; for the old dog-star
+was so worn out by the last three hot summers that there have been no
+dog-days since; so that they had to take him down and put Tom&rsquo;s
+dog up in his place.&nbsp; Therefore, as new brooms sweep clean, we
+may hope for some warm weather this year.&nbsp; And that is the end
+of my story.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>MORAL.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>And now, my dear little man, what should we learn from this parable?</p>
+<p>We should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things, I am not exactly
+sure which: but one thing, at least, we may learn, and that is this&mdash;when
+we see efts in the pond, never to throw stones at them, or catch them
+with crooked pins, or put them into vivariums with sticklebacks, that
+the sticklebacks may prick them in their poor little stomachs, and make
+them jump out of the glass into somebody&rsquo;s work-box, and so come
+to a bad end.&nbsp; For these efts are nothing else but the water-babies
+who are stupid and dirty, and will not learn their lessons and keep
+themselves clean; and, therefore (as comparative anatomists will tell
+you fifty years hence, though they are not learned enough to tell you
+now), their skulls grow flat, their jaws grow out, and their brains
+grow small, and their tails grow long, and they lose all their ribs
+(which I am sure you would not like to do), and their skins grow dirty
+and spotted, and they never get into the clear rivers, much less into
+the great wide sea, but hang about in dirty ponds, and live in the mud,
+and eat worms, as they deserve to do.</p>
+<p>But that is no reason why you should ill-use them: but only why you
+should pity them, and be kind to them, and hope that some day they will
+wake up, and be ashamed of their nasty, dirty, lazy, stupid life, and
+try to amend, and become something better once more.&nbsp; For, perhaps,
+if they do so, then after 379,423 years, nine months, thirteen days,
+two hours, and twenty-one minutes (for aught that appears to the contrary),
+if they work very hard and wash very hard all that time, their brains
+may grow bigger, and their jaws grow smaller, and their ribs come back,
+and their tails wither off, and they will turn into water-babies again,
+and perhaps after that into land-babies; and after that perhaps into
+grown men.</p>
+<p>You know they won&rsquo;t?&nbsp; Very well, I daresay you know best.&nbsp;
+But you see, some folks have a great liking for those poor little efts.&nbsp;
+They never did anybody any harm, or could if they tried; and their only
+fault is, that they do no good&mdash;any more than some thousands of
+their betters.&nbsp; But what with ducks, and what with pike, and what
+with sticklebacks, and what with water-beetles, and what with naughty
+boys, they are &ldquo;sae sair hadden doun,&rdquo; as the Scotsmen say,
+that it is a wonder how they live; and some folks can&rsquo;t help hoping,
+with good Bishop Butler, that they may have another chance, to make
+things fair and even, somewhere, somewhen, somehow.</p>
+<p>Meanwhile, do you learn your lessons, and thank God that you have
+plenty of cold water to wash in; and wash in it too, like a true Englishman.&nbsp;
+And then, if my story is not true, something better is; and if I am
+not quite right, still you will be, as long as you stick to hard work
+and cold water.</p>
+<p>But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all a fairy
+tale, and only fun and pretence: and, therefore, you are not to believe
+a word of it, even if it is true.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE WATER-BABIES ***</p>
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