Citation
The water-babies

Material Information

Title:
The water-babies a fairy tale for a land-baby
Creator:
Kingsley, Charles, 1819-1875
Thomas Y. Crowell & Co ( Publisher )
C.J. Peters & Son ( typographer )
Place of Publication:
New York
Publisher:
Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
Manufacturer:
Typography by C.J. Peters & Son
Publication Date:
Language:
English
Physical Description:
268 p., [8] leaves of plates : ill. (some col.) ; 17 cm.

Subjects

Subjects / Keywords:
Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Chimney sweeps -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Fairies -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Evolution -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Animal welfare -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Child abuse -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Fairy tales -- 1895 ( rbgenr )
Bldn -- 1895
Genre:
Fairy tales ( rbgenr )
novel ( marcgt )
Spatial Coverage:
United States -- New York -- New York
Target Audience:
juvenile ( marctarget )

Notes

Summary:
The adventures of Tom, a sooty little chimney sweep with a great longing to be clean, who is stolen by fairies and turned into a water baby.
General Note:
Frontispiece printed in colors.
General Note:
The Water-Babies was inspired by Kingsley's thoughts on evolution. He was one of the few clergymen to accept Darwin's theories of evolution and natural selection.
Statement of Responsibility:
by Charles Kingsley.

Record Information

Source Institution:
University of Florida
Holding Location:
University of Florida
Rights Management:
This item is presumed to be in the public domain. The University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries respect the intellectual property rights of others and do not claim any copyright interest in this item. Users of this work have responsibility for determining copyright status prior to reusing, publishing or reproducing this item for purposes other than what is allowed by fair use or other copyright exemptions. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions may require permission of the copyright holder. The Smathers Libraries would like to learn more about this item and invite individuals or organizations to contact The Department of Special and Area Studies Collections (special@uflib.ufl.edu) with any additional information they can provide.
Resource Identifier:
026834016 ( ALEPH )
ALH2905 ( NOTIS )
32243708 ( OCLC )

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THE WATEHR-BABIES

@ Fairy Tale for a Lanv-Baby

BY

CHARLES KINGSLEY



New York: 46 EAsT 147TH STREET
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY

Bosron: 100 PURCHASE STREET



CorynriGHuyr, 1895,

By THomMmAs YÂ¥. CROWELL & COMPANY.

TypoGRAPHY BY C. J. PETERS & SON,
Bosron.



TO
MY YOUNGEST SON

GRENVILLE ARTHUR
AND

TO ALL OTHER GOOD LITTLE BOYS

COME READ ME MY RIDDLE, FACI GOOD LITTLE MAN;

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



THE WATER-BABIES.

CHAPTER I.

LI 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.

ZR.








NCE upon a time there was a
. little chimney-sweep, and his
? name was Tom. That is a

it before, so you will not have
much trouble in remembering it. He
| lived in a great town in the North
Ny conn 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
5



6 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 velvet-
eens 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,



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 7

while he rode before them on his donkey, with a pipe
in his mouth and a flower in his buttonhole, 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 be-
hind 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 appear-
ance, 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, remember-



8 THE WATER—-BABIES.

ing 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 morn-
ing, 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, Harth-
over 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 jail 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-pre-
serves, in which Mr. Grimes and the collier lads



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 9

poached at times, on which occasions Tom saw pheas-
ants, 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 neighbors, 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
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



10 THE WATER-BABIES.

because they want to catch salmon, and some because
they want to climb Alps, and a great many more
because they must, hke Tom. But, I assure you, that
three o’clock on a midsummer morning is the pleas-
antest time of all the twenty-four hours and all the
three hundred and sixty-five days; and why every
one does not get wp 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 pert 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 police-
men, 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 they 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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—-BABY. 11

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 over-
head.

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, trudg-
ing 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 véry tall,
handsome woman, with bright gray eyes, and heavy
black hair hanging about her cheeks. And she took
Mr. Grimes’s fancy so much, that when he came
alongside he called out to her, —



12 THE WATER-BABIES.

. “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’s 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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 13

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 hmestone 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. ’T wasn’t for clean-
liness I did it, but for coolness. I’d be ashamed to
want washing every week or so, like any smutty
collier lad.”



14 THE WATER-BABIES.

“T 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, ike me.”

“T 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 pre-
ferred 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’s legs
and kicked his shins with all his might.

“Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas
Grimes ? ” cried the Ivishwoman 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 had been ashamed of your-
self, you would have gone over into Vendale long ago.”

“What do you know about Vendale?” shouted
Grimes; but he left off beating Tom.

“JT 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 chmbed 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.



cr

A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—-BABY. 15
“Yes; I was there,” said the Irishwoman quietly.
“You are no Irishwoman, by your speech,” said

Grimes, after many bad words.

“Never mind whoITam. 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 disap-
pearing 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



16 THE WATER-BABIES.

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.

“T was told to expect thee,’ he said. “Now
thowlt be so good as to keep to the main avenue,
and not let me find a hare ora 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, —

“Tf that’s thy sort, I may as well walk up with
thee to the hall.”

“JT 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 sur-
prise, 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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 17

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 com-
pliment.

“T 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 Jam a man of honor.”



18 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 to-
gether with a spoon.

For the attics were Anglo Saxon.

The third floor Norman.

The second Cinque-cento.

The first floor Hlizubethan.

The vight wing pure Doric,

The centre Karly English, with a huge portico copied
from the Parthenon.

The left wing pure Beotian, which the country folk
admired most of all, because it was gust 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 Johws great-great-great-uncle,



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 19

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 hke med-
dling 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 build-
ing 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 an-
other, 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



20 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 had been all spawned in a night, as
mushrooms are. From which you may collect Gf 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, “Youll mind that, you little beg-
gar?” 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 om went and wp 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.



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 21

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 into one another, anastomos-
ing (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 won-
dered 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



29. THE WATER-BABIES.

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 gar-
ments, 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. Jor 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 ina 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 herroom? 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 tata his breath with astonishment.

Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white





“The most beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen.”

— Page 23.



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 28

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 an-
grily. What did such a little black ape want in that
sweet young lady’s room? And behold, it was him-
self, 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.



24. THE WATER-BABIES.

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 see-
ing 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 forever 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 police-
man 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 station-house 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.



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 25

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 win-
dow (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 Irish-
woman, too, was walking up to the house to beg, —
she must have got round by some by-way; but she



26 THE WATER-BABIES.

threw away her bundle, and gave chase to Tom like-
wise. 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,
the gardener, the groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the
steward, the ploughman, the keeper, and the Irish-



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 dairy-
maid 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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. QT

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 rhododeéndrons, 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
thododendrons, 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.



28 THE WATER-BABIES.

“T 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 cer-
tainly; 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 neat-



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-—BABY. 29

est double sharp to his right, and run along under the
wall for nearly half a mile.

Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the stew-
ard, 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



30 THE WATER-BABIES.

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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 8l

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.”





32 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 lime-
stone rock, just like illmade 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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 38

dark swallow-hole, going down into the earth as if
it was the chimney of some dwarf’s house under-
ground; 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 chim-
neys 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.



34 THE WATER—-BABIES.

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
hin.

A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow,
and filled with wood; but through the wood, hun-
dreds 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 cot-
tage, 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 ina 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 know-
ing 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,



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 85

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 dare sport with the sin-defiled ?
Shrink from me, turn from me, mother and child-

Strong and free, strong and free,
The flood-gates are open, away to the sea.
Free and strong, free and strong,
Cleansing my streams as I hurry along.
Lo the golden sands, and the leaping bar,
And the taintless tide that awaits me afar.



36 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 Ivishwoman going down behind him.



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-—BABY. 37

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.

MILE off, and a thousand feet
down.
So Tom found it, though it











: chucked a pebble on to the
( back of the woman in the red petti-
coat who was weeding in the gar-
den, or even across the dale to
“the rocks beyond. For the bot-
* tom of the valley was just one
field broad, and on the other side
ran the stream; and above it, gray
= erag, 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



388 THE WATER—-BABIES.

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, jwnp, 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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 39

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 bas-
ket 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 an-
other grass slope, and another step, and so on, till
oh, dear me! J 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 erown-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 erying
for his baba (though he never had had any baba to
ery for), he said, “Ah, this will just suit me!”
though he was very tired; and down he went, by



40 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 burn-
ing 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 leggings, 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. Tor 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
wagon, 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





A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. ~ 41

to live, let you be as strong and healthy as you may;
and when you are, you will find it a very ugly feel-
ing. I hope that that day you may have a stout,
stanch 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 were 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 where-
ever 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 cot-
tage 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.





42, THE WATER-BABIES.

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 four-
teen neat, rosy, chubby little children, learning their
Christ-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!
Tl have no sweeps here.”

“Water,” said poor little Tom, quite faint.

“Water? There’s plenty 1 the beck,” she said
quite sharply.

“But I can’t get there; ’m most clemmed with



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-—BABY. 43

hunger and drought.” And Tom sank down upon
the doorstep 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;
Vl 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 leaned his head
against the post.

“And how got ye up there? ”

“T 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 TV’ warrant not.
Why, God’s guided the bairn, because he was inno-
cent! Away from the Place, and over Harthover



44 THE WATER-BABIES.

Fell, and down Lewthwaite Crag! Who ever heard
the like, if God hadn’t led him? Why dost not eat
thy bread ?”

“T can’t.”

“Tt’s good enough, for I made it myself.”

“T can’t,” said Tom, and he laid his head on his
knees, and then asked, —

“Ts 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-



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 45

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, say-
ing 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 peb-
ble 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.



46 THE WATER-BABIES.

“Ah,” said Tom, “I must be quick and wash my-
self; 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 per-
son 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
stepped 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-
likes 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.

“T 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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 47

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 he 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



48 THE WATER—-BABIES.

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 Conversa-
tions. 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 with-
out 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 —



“ West Vamour, Pamour, Vamour
Qui fuit la monde & la ronde ;”

and yet no one may be able to see them except those
whose hearts are going round to that same tune. At



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 49

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, think-
ing that little Tom had tricked her with a false story,
and shammed ill, and then ran away again.





50 THE WATER-BABLES.

But she altered her mind the next day. Tor
when Sir John and the rest of them had run them-
selves 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, cry-
ing 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 Mv. Grimes that even-
ing, 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,



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 51

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 les 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, anda 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 underkeeper
with the bloodhound in a leash—a great dog as
tall as a calf, of the color 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.



52 THE WATER-BABIES.

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.

“Fleaven forgive us!” said Sir John “Tf we
find him at all, we shall find him lying at the bot-
tom.” 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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 53

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 Bees-
wing 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 courtesied
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, Harth-
over,” 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 ?”

“Tam hunting, and strange game too,” said he.

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

“Vm looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep,
that is run away.”

“O 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



54 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 he accurate — 3.87902
inches long, and having round the parotid region of
his fauces a set of external gills (I hope you under-
stand 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.











“ce
A
Ww
ray
ter-b
ab
NY
: 3

Pa
a
ie
55



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. d5

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



56 THE WATER~BABIES.

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 Pro-
fessor 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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-—BABY. 57

“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 aston-
ish 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 them-
selves, 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 eannot 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



58 THE WATER—BABIES.

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, “Non-
sense, 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 com-
parative 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 im-
possible 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.



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 59

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 fly-
ing 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 ? Ave there not
water-rats, water-fiies, water-crickets, water-crabs, water-
tortoises, water-svorpions, water-tigers, and water-hogs,
water-cats and water-dogs, sea-lions and sea-bears, sea-
horses and sea-elephants, sea-nvice, and sea-urchins, sea-
razors and sea-pens, sca-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



60 THE WATER-BABIES.

Tom changed his? And if a water-animal can con-
tinually 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 an-
swer 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-bar-



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-—BABY. 61

nacles 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 1s ?

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 trans-
formation 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



62 THE WATER-BABLES.

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 fae
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 toa
wonderful to be true. “We are fearfully and won-
derfully 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 lit-
tle real Tom was washed out of the inside of it, and
swam away, as a caddis does when its case of stones



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-—-BABY. 63

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-colored 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 Linnean 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 mar-
bles, 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 ery, for Sir John gave
him ten pounds, and he drank it’all ina 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



64 THE WATER-BABIES.

dolls for a whole week, and never forgot poor little
Tom. And soon my lady put a pretty little tomb-
stone over Tom’s shell in the little churchyard in
Vendale, where the old dalesmen all sleep side by
side between the limestone 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 alt 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.



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 65

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.



66 THE WATER—BABIES.

CHAPTER III.

He prayeth well who loveth welt
Both man 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.



OM was now quite amphibi-
ous. 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. Aavectee, de-
vied from two Greek words, amphi,
a fish, and dios, a beast. An animal

_supposed by our ignorant ancestors
2— to be compounded of a fish and a
beast ; which; therefore, ike 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













A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 67

being alive and healthy; and may it be long before
you have to think about it!

He did not remember having ever been dirty. In-
deed, 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 remem-
bered 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 feel-
ings 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 had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.



68 THE WATER-BABIES.

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-recetved

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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 69

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 holi-
days 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, per-
haps; 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-pud-
ding, 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



70 THE WATER-BABIES.

the caddis did not let him have any voice in the mat-
ter, 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 Dll have one
too;” and she stuck it on her back, and marched
about with it quite proud, though it was very incon-
venient 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 be-
hind, getting between each other’s legs, and tum-
bling 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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 71

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
colors; 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 threshing-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



72 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 there-
fore 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.



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 73

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 were 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
anew nightcap 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 tt 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



74 THE WATER-—BABIES.

out of water in their fright. But as Tom chased
them, he came close to 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!”



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. Td

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 colors 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. J am a
dragon-fly now, the king of all the flies; and I shail



76 THE WATER-BABIES.

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.”

“JT 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, — star-
wort 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
colors 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.



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. Hh

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 ris-
ing 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 them-
selves up again into the tree, rolling up the rope ina
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 a

And very often Tom caught them just as they
touched the water; and caught the alder-flies, and
the caperers, and the cock-tail duns and spinners,



78 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 de 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 lttle 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 httle 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 trouble-
some 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





“Tom and the otter.’’

— Page 88.



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 79

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 be-
comes a family man. But I’m tired of it, that’s the
truth. ’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, yowre ill!” said Tom. But he did not
answer.



80 THE WATBER-BABIES.

“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 Vrikell, nor all the conjurers 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.

“fa, 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 colors 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!” gaid 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 either.”

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, —



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 81

“ My wife shall dance, and I shail sing,
So merrily pass the day ;

For I hold it for quite the wisest thing,
To dvive 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



82 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 Zodlogical 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 some-
times), and then say, if otters at play in the water
are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creatures
you ever say. s

But, when the biggest of them saw Tom, she
darted out from the rest, and cried in the water-



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 83

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, Hand-
some 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.”

“Tam not an eft!” said Tom; “efts have tails.”

“ You are an eft,” said the otter very positively ;
“T see your two hands quite plain, and I know you
have a tail.”

“TJ 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, —



84 THE WATER-—BABIES.

“JT 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 some-
times; and the first time that you hear it you will
probably think it is bogies.

“What are salmon?” asked Tom.

“Wish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat. They
are the lords of the fish, and we are the 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, com-
ing 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.



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—-BABY. 85

“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 pol-
lock, 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. Ah, he lost his fe 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



86 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 dogs, 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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 87

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 leaped 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 locked
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 bucketfuls, and the hail
hammered lke 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-
eges, 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 gob-
bling the beetles and leeches in the most greedy and
quarrelsome way, and swimming about with great



88 THE WATER-—BABIES.

worms hanging out of their mouths, tugging and
kicking to get them away from each other.

And now, by the flashes of the ightning, 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
tun. 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 them-
selves; and she spied Tom as she came by, and
sald, —

“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 forme!” cried Tom; but they
were gone; yet he could hear their voices clear and



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 89

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-by, 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 med-
die 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,



90 THE WATER-BABIES.

“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, —

“Ts there a salmon here, do you think, Dennis ? ”

“Ts it salmon, thin, your honor manes? Salmon ?
Cartloads it is of thim, thin, an’ ridgmens, shouldther-
ing ache ither 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 yow’ll but think, if one had come up last tide, he’d
be gone to the higher pools by now.”

“Shure, thin, and your honor’s the thrue fisher-
man, 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 honor would like
a pleasant answer ?”

So you must not trust Dennis, because he is in
the habit of giving pleasant answers; but, instead





A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 91

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 Cy-
thrawl Sassenuch (which means you, my little dear,
your kith and kin, and signifies much the same as
the Chinese Fan Quet) from coming bothering in-
to Wales, with good tackle and ready money, and
civilization and common honesty, and other like
things of which the Cymry stand in no need whatso-
ever ?

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



92 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 color 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.
Cuff 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
switling 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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 93

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 yel-
low 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 humor, 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 gen-
tleman 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 country-
man; and, even if you do not care about the salmon



94 THE WATER-BABIES.

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: —

“Tf they want to describe a finished young gentle-
man in France, I hear, they say of him, ‘ZZ 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 itis! 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



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 95

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 survey-
ing 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 gen-
tlemen, 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 lone.



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THE WATEHR-BABIES

@ Fairy Tale for a Lanv-Baby

BY

CHARLES KINGSLEY



New York: 46 EAsT 147TH STREET
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY

Bosron: 100 PURCHASE STREET
CorynriGHuyr, 1895,

By THomMmAs YÂ¥. CROWELL & COMPANY.

TypoGRAPHY BY C. J. PETERS & SON,
Bosron.
TO
MY YOUNGEST SON

GRENVILLE ARTHUR
AND

TO ALL OTHER GOOD LITTLE BOYS

COME READ ME MY RIDDLE, FACI GOOD LITTLE MAN;

If YOU CANNOT READ IT, NO GROWN-UP FOLK CAN.
THE WATER-BABIES.

CHAPTER I.

LI 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.

ZR.








NCE upon a time there was a
. little chimney-sweep, and his
? name was Tom. That is a

it before, so you will not have
much trouble in remembering it. He
| lived in a great town in the North
Ny conn 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
5
6 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 velvet-
eens 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,
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 7

while he rode before them on his donkey, with a pipe
in his mouth and a flower in his buttonhole, 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 be-
hind 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 appear-
ance, 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, remember-
8 THE WATER—-BABIES.

ing 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 morn-
ing, 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, Harth-
over 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 jail 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-pre-
serves, in which Mr. Grimes and the collier lads
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 9

poached at times, on which occasions Tom saw pheas-
ants, 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 neighbors, 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
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
10 THE WATER-BABIES.

because they want to catch salmon, and some because
they want to climb Alps, and a great many more
because they must, hke Tom. But, I assure you, that
three o’clock on a midsummer morning is the pleas-
antest time of all the twenty-four hours and all the
three hundred and sixty-five days; and why every
one does not get wp 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 pert 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 police-
men, 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 they 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—-BABY. 11

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 over-
head.

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, trudg-
ing 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 véry tall,
handsome woman, with bright gray eyes, and heavy
black hair hanging about her cheeks. And she took
Mr. Grimes’s fancy so much, that when he came
alongside he called out to her, —
12 THE WATER-BABIES.

. “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’s 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 13

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 hmestone 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. ’T wasn’t for clean-
liness I did it, but for coolness. I’d be ashamed to
want washing every week or so, like any smutty
collier lad.”
14 THE WATER-BABIES.

“T 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, ike me.”

“T 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 pre-
ferred 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’s legs
and kicked his shins with all his might.

“Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas
Grimes ? ” cried the Ivishwoman 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 had been ashamed of your-
self, you would have gone over into Vendale long ago.”

“What do you know about Vendale?” shouted
Grimes; but he left off beating Tom.

“JT 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 chmbed 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.
cr

A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—-BABY. 15
“Yes; I was there,” said the Irishwoman quietly.
“You are no Irishwoman, by your speech,” said

Grimes, after many bad words.

“Never mind whoITam. 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 disap-
pearing 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
16 THE WATER-BABIES.

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.

“T was told to expect thee,’ he said. “Now
thowlt be so good as to keep to the main avenue,
and not let me find a hare ora 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, —

“Tf that’s thy sort, I may as well walk up with
thee to the hall.”

“JT 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 sur-
prise, 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 17

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 com-
pliment.

“T 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 Jam a man of honor.”
18 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 to-
gether with a spoon.

For the attics were Anglo Saxon.

The third floor Norman.

The second Cinque-cento.

The first floor Hlizubethan.

The vight wing pure Doric,

The centre Karly English, with a huge portico copied
from the Parthenon.

The left wing pure Beotian, which the country folk
admired most of all, because it was gust 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 Johws great-great-great-uncle,
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 19

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 hke med-
dling 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 build-
ing 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 an-
other, 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
20 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 had been all spawned in a night, as
mushrooms are. From which you may collect Gf 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, “Youll mind that, you little beg-
gar?” 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 om went and wp 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.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 21

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 into one another, anastomos-
ing (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 won-
dered 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
29. THE WATER-BABIES.

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 gar-
ments, 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. Jor 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 ina 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 herroom? 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 tata his breath with astonishment.

Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white


“The most beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen.”

— Page 23.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 28

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 an-
grily. What did such a little black ape want in that
sweet young lady’s room? And behold, it was him-
self, 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.
24. THE WATER-BABIES.

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 see-
ing 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 forever 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 police-
man 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 station-house 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.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 25

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 win-
dow (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 Irish-
woman, too, was walking up to the house to beg, —
she must have got round by some by-way; but she
26 THE WATER-BABIES.

threw away her bundle, and gave chase to Tom like-
wise. 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,
the gardener, the groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the
steward, the ploughman, the keeper, and the Irish-



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 dairy-
maid 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. QT

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 rhododeéndrons, 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
thododendrons, 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.
28 THE WATER-BABIES.

“T 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 cer-
tainly; 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 neat-
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-—BABY. 29

est double sharp to his right, and run along under the
wall for nearly half a mile.

Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the stew-
ard, 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
30 THE WATER-BABIES.

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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 8l

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.”


32 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 lime-
stone rock, just like illmade 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 38

dark swallow-hole, going down into the earth as if
it was the chimney of some dwarf’s house under-
ground; 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 chim-
neys 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.
34 THE WATER—-BABIES.

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
hin.

A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow,
and filled with wood; but through the wood, hun-
dreds 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 cot-
tage, 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 ina 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 know-
ing 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,
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 85

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 dare sport with the sin-defiled ?
Shrink from me, turn from me, mother and child-

Strong and free, strong and free,
The flood-gates are open, away to the sea.
Free and strong, free and strong,
Cleansing my streams as I hurry along.
Lo the golden sands, and the leaping bar,
And the taintless tide that awaits me afar.
36 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 Ivishwoman going down behind him.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-—BABY. 37

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.

MILE off, and a thousand feet
down.
So Tom found it, though it











: chucked a pebble on to the
( back of the woman in the red petti-
coat who was weeding in the gar-
den, or even across the dale to
“the rocks beyond. For the bot-
* tom of the valley was just one
field broad, and on the other side
ran the stream; and above it, gray
= erag, 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
388 THE WATER—-BABIES.

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, jwnp, 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 39

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 bas-
ket 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 an-
other grass slope, and another step, and so on, till
oh, dear me! J 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 erown-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 erying
for his baba (though he never had had any baba to
ery for), he said, “Ah, this will just suit me!”
though he was very tired; and down he went, by
40 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 burn-
ing 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 leggings, 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. Tor 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
wagon, 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


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. ~ 41

to live, let you be as strong and healthy as you may;
and when you are, you will find it a very ugly feel-
ing. I hope that that day you may have a stout,
stanch 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 were 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 where-
ever 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 cot-
tage 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.


42, THE WATER-BABIES.

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 four-
teen neat, rosy, chubby little children, learning their
Christ-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!
Tl have no sweeps here.”

“Water,” said poor little Tom, quite faint.

“Water? There’s plenty 1 the beck,” she said
quite sharply.

“But I can’t get there; ’m most clemmed with
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-—BABY. 43

hunger and drought.” And Tom sank down upon
the doorstep 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;
Vl 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 leaned his head
against the post.

“And how got ye up there? ”

“T 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 TV’ warrant not.
Why, God’s guided the bairn, because he was inno-
cent! Away from the Place, and over Harthover
44 THE WATER-BABIES.

Fell, and down Lewthwaite Crag! Who ever heard
the like, if God hadn’t led him? Why dost not eat
thy bread ?”

“T can’t.”

“Tt’s good enough, for I made it myself.”

“T can’t,” said Tom, and he laid his head on his
knees, and then asked, —

“Ts 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-
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 45

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, say-
ing 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 peb-
ble 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.
46 THE WATER-BABIES.

“Ah,” said Tom, “I must be quick and wash my-
self; 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 per-
son 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
stepped 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-
likes 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.

“T 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 47

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 he 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
48 THE WATER—-BABIES.

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 Conversa-
tions. 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 with-
out 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 —



“ West Vamour, Pamour, Vamour
Qui fuit la monde & la ronde ;”

and yet no one may be able to see them except those
whose hearts are going round to that same tune. At
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 49

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, think-
ing that little Tom had tricked her with a false story,
and shammed ill, and then ran away again.


50 THE WATER-BABLES.

But she altered her mind the next day. Tor
when Sir John and the rest of them had run them-
selves 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, cry-
ing 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 Mv. Grimes that even-
ing, 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,
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 51

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 les 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, anda 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 underkeeper
with the bloodhound in a leash—a great dog as
tall as a calf, of the color 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.
52 THE WATER-BABIES.

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.

“Fleaven forgive us!” said Sir John “Tf we
find him at all, we shall find him lying at the bot-
tom.” 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 53

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 Bees-
wing 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 courtesied
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, Harth-
over,” 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 ?”

“Tam hunting, and strange game too,” said he.

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

“Vm looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep,
that is run away.”

“O 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
54 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 he accurate — 3.87902
inches long, and having round the parotid region of
his fauces a set of external gills (I hope you under-
stand 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.








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A
Ww
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ter-b
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NY
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Pa
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ie
55
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. d5

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
56 THE WATER~BABIES.

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 Pro-
fessor 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-—BABY. 57

“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 aston-
ish 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 them-
selves, 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 eannot 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
58 THE WATER—BABIES.

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, “Non-
sense, 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 com-
parative 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 im-
possible 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.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 59

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 fly-
ing 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 ? Ave there not
water-rats, water-fiies, water-crickets, water-crabs, water-
tortoises, water-svorpions, water-tigers, and water-hogs,
water-cats and water-dogs, sea-lions and sea-bears, sea-
horses and sea-elephants, sea-nvice, and sea-urchins, sea-
razors and sea-pens, sca-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
60 THE WATER-BABIES.

Tom changed his? And if a water-animal can con-
tinually 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 an-
swer 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-bar-
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-—BABY. 61

nacles 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 1s ?

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 trans-
formation 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
62 THE WATER-BABLES.

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 fae
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 toa
wonderful to be true. “We are fearfully and won-
derfully 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 lit-
tle real Tom was washed out of the inside of it, and
swam away, as a caddis does when its case of stones
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-—-BABY. 63

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-colored 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 Linnean 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 mar-
bles, 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 ery, for Sir John gave
him ten pounds, and he drank it’all ina 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
64 THE WATER-BABIES.

dolls for a whole week, and never forgot poor little
Tom. And soon my lady put a pretty little tomb-
stone over Tom’s shell in the little churchyard in
Vendale, where the old dalesmen all sleep side by
side between the limestone 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 alt 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.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 65

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.
66 THE WATER—BABIES.

CHAPTER III.

He prayeth well who loveth welt
Both man 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.



OM was now quite amphibi-
ous. 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. Aavectee, de-
vied from two Greek words, amphi,
a fish, and dios, a beast. An animal

_supposed by our ignorant ancestors
2— to be compounded of a fish and a
beast ; which; therefore, ike 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










A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 67

being alive and healthy; and may it be long before
you have to think about it!

He did not remember having ever been dirty. In-
deed, 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 remem-
bered 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 feel-
ings 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 had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.
68 THE WATER-BABIES.

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-recetved

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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 69

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 holi-
days 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, per-
haps; 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-pud-
ding, 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
70 THE WATER-BABIES.

the caddis did not let him have any voice in the mat-
ter, 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 Dll have one
too;” and she stuck it on her back, and marched
about with it quite proud, though it was very incon-
venient 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 be-
hind, getting between each other’s legs, and tum-
bling 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 71

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
colors; 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 threshing-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
72 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 there-
fore 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.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 73

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 were 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
anew nightcap 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 tt 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
74 THE WATER-—BABIES.

out of water in their fright. But as Tom chased
them, he came close to 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!”
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. Td

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 colors 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. J am a
dragon-fly now, the king of all the flies; and I shail
76 THE WATER-BABIES.

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.”

“JT 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, — star-
wort 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
colors 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.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. Hh

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 ris-
ing 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 them-
selves up again into the tree, rolling up the rope ina
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 a

And very often Tom caught them just as they
touched the water; and caught the alder-flies, and
the caperers, and the cock-tail duns and spinners,
78 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 de 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 lttle 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 httle 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 trouble-
some 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


“Tom and the otter.’’

— Page 88.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 79

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 be-
comes a family man. But I’m tired of it, that’s the
truth. ’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, yowre ill!” said Tom. But he did not
answer.
80 THE WATBER-BABIES.

“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 Vrikell, nor all the conjurers 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.

“fa, 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 colors 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!” gaid 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 either.”

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, —
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 81

“ My wife shall dance, and I shail sing,
So merrily pass the day ;

For I hold it for quite the wisest thing,
To dvive 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
82 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 Zodlogical 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 some-
times), and then say, if otters at play in the water
are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creatures
you ever say. s

But, when the biggest of them saw Tom, she
darted out from the rest, and cried in the water-
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 83

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, Hand-
some 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.”

“Tam not an eft!” said Tom; “efts have tails.”

“ You are an eft,” said the otter very positively ;
“T see your two hands quite plain, and I know you
have a tail.”

“TJ 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, —
84 THE WATER-—BABIES.

“JT 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 some-
times; and the first time that you hear it you will
probably think it is bogies.

“What are salmon?” asked Tom.

“Wish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat. They
are the lords of the fish, and we are the 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, com-
ing 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.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—-BABY. 85

“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 pol-
lock, 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. Ah, he lost his fe 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
86 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 dogs, 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 87

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 leaped 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 locked
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 bucketfuls, and the hail
hammered lke 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-
eges, 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 gob-
bling the beetles and leeches in the most greedy and
quarrelsome way, and swimming about with great
88 THE WATER-—BABIES.

worms hanging out of their mouths, tugging and
kicking to get them away from each other.

And now, by the flashes of the ightning, 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
tun. 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 them-
selves; and she spied Tom as she came by, and
sald, —

“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 forme!” cried Tom; but they
were gone; yet he could hear their voices clear and
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 89

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-by, 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 med-
die 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,
90 THE WATER-BABIES.

“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, —

“Ts there a salmon here, do you think, Dennis ? ”

“Ts it salmon, thin, your honor manes? Salmon ?
Cartloads it is of thim, thin, an’ ridgmens, shouldther-
ing ache ither 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 yow’ll but think, if one had come up last tide, he’d
be gone to the higher pools by now.”

“Shure, thin, and your honor’s the thrue fisher-
man, 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 honor would like
a pleasant answer ?”

So you must not trust Dennis, because he is in
the habit of giving pleasant answers; but, instead


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 91

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 Cy-
thrawl Sassenuch (which means you, my little dear,
your kith and kin, and signifies much the same as
the Chinese Fan Quet) from coming bothering in-
to Wales, with good tackle and ready money, and
civilization and common honesty, and other like
things of which the Cymry stand in no need whatso-
ever ?

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
92 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 color 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.
Cuff 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
switling 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 93

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 yel-
low 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 humor, 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 gen-
tleman 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 country-
man; and, even if you do not care about the salmon
94 THE WATER-BABIES.

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: —

“Tf they want to describe a finished young gentle-
man in France, I hear, they say of him, ‘ZZ 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 itis! 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 95

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 survey-
ing 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 gen-
tlemen, 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 lone.
96 THE WATER-BABIES.

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. “TI 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 mea 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.”
A FAIRY TALE FOR A: LAND-BABY. 97

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, showed us the way round them in the mosi
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.
98 THE WATER-BABIES.

“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. 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
impudent little creature.”

“J 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 con-
sider 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 some-
thing just too much like himself to be tolerated.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 99

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.

O the salmon went up,

\. after Tom had warned

& them of the wicked
old otter; and Tom

7 went down, but slow-
x= ly and cautiously, coast-
“ing along the shore. He.

was many days about it,
S for it was many miles
down to the sea; and
\\ perhaps he would never
/ have found his way, if
age a the fairies had not guided him, with-
a out his seeing their fair faces, or feel-
ae ing their gentle hands.

And as he went, he had a very strange adventure.
It was a clear, still, September night, and the moon




100 THE WATER-BABIES.

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.
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, —
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 101

“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.
102 THE WATER-BABIES.

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, seem-
ingly 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.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 103

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 any-
thing 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
104 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 wharves, 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 mill-races and sewer-
mouths, and all foul and dangerous things. Poor
little fellow, it was a dreary journey for him; and
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 105

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 good 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
106 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 lke 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 out-
side.”

“Qh, then,” said Tom, “TI 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 107

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 pink-and-white
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.
108 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 Jittle rabbit’?s mouth, no bigger than Tom’s ;
and when Tom questioned him, he answered in a
little squeaky, feeble voice, —

“T’m sure I don’t know; T’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 follow-
ing that pleasant warm water. I’m sure I’ve lost my
way.”
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 109

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-guards-
men 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~TI'om 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 ;
110 THE WATER-—BABIES.

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. Some-
times 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 ? ”

“T come from the warm Carolinas, and the sand-
banks 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 111

beautiful, beautiful poem,! which you must learn by
heart some day—and sit upon a point of rock,
among the shining seaweeds, in the low October
tides, and ery 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 play-
fellow. 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 cast-
ing-nets and swept the water, and came in for their
share of whatever there was for dinner.



1 This poem is printed at the end of the volume.
112 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 crea-
tures, 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 peo-
ple 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 on the rocks and chat for
hours.

And about this time there happened to Tom a very
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 1138

strange and important adventure — so important, in-
deed, 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, look-
ing 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 tablecloth 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 armchair in his bed-
room, all stiff and tired, for two or three hours be-
fore 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 Cam-
bridge hours of breakfast at eight and dinner at five ;
by which you may get two days’ work out of one.
114 THE WATER-BABIES.

But, of course, if you find a fox at three in the after-
noon 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 chim-
neys. 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, that then it will be too late;
besides, you see, Sir John did certainly snore very
loud.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 115

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 Curagao (of course you have learnt your
geography, and therefore know why), and his father
a Pole, and therefore he was brought up at Petro-
paulowski (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 neighbor’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 Necrobioneopalewonthydrochthonan-
thropopithekology in the new university which the
116 THE WATER-BABIES.

King of the Cannibal Islands had founded; and, be-
ing a member of the Acclimatization 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, no-
body 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 every-
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 117

thing, 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 beasitiful 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 stair-
case, 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
118 THE WATER-BABIES.

thing to eat their grandpapas, because they thought
it an ugly thing to put them underground. The pro-
fessor, indeed, went farther, 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 119

mucn 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 theig 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 farther than that; for he had read at the Brit-
ish 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, any
where, anywhen, or anyhow; that nymphs, satyrs,
fauns, inwi, dwarfs, trolls, elves, gnomes, fairies,
brownies, nixes, wilis, kobolds, leprechaunes, cluri-
caunes, 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
120 THE WATER-BABIES.

the divine met at dinner that evening, and sat to-
gether on the sofa afterwards for an hour, and talked
over the state of female labor on the antarctic conti-
nent (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 argu-
ments against water-babies once already, which is
once too often, we will not repeat them here.

Now, little Ellie was, I suppose, a stwpid little girl ;
for instead of being convinced by Professor Ptthmlln-
sprts’ arguments, she only asked the same question
over again.

“ But why are tliere 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 Snap

‘‘ Because there ain’t.”

Which was not even good English, my dear little
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 121

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, be-
cause 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 Holo-
thurian; with hands too! It must be connected
with Synapta.”

And he took him out.

“Tt 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
122 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 every-
thing 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 Brit-
ish Association? And what would Elle 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 re-
spectfulness 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
.

A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 123

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
labor. I was just telling you that there could be ne
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 In-
spirer 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 un-
speakable 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
124 THE WATER-BABIES.

clothes on him too, and make a dirty black chifnney-
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


© He dived into the water and was gone in a moment.”

— Page 124.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 125

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
(Gt is a pity that all do not), no cure, no pay.

So she took the poor professor in hand; and be-
cause 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,
126 THE WATER-BABIES.

— in unicorns, fire-drakes, manticoras, basilisks, am-
phisbenas, griffins, phwenixes, roes, 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 perito-
mic diacellurite in the encephalo digital region of the
distinguished individual of whose symptomatic pho-
nomena we had the melancholy honor (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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 127

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 ?

“Tt 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 doc-
tors never heard them.

So she made Sir John write to the Times to com-
mand 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 heter-
odoxy, spontaneity, spiritualism, spuriosity, etc.

And on words over five syllables (of which I hope
no one will wish to see any examples), a totally pro-
hibitory 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
128 THE WATER-BABIES.

and a man of sense, jumped at the notion; for he
saw in it the one and only plan for abolishing Sched-
ule 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 under-
stand 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 —

Lellebore of Aita.

Hellebore of Galatia.

Hellebore of Sicily.

And all other Hellebores, after the
method of the Helleborizing Hellebor-
ists 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 —
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 129

Hippocrates.
Areteus.

Celsus.

Celius Aurelianus.
And Galen.

But they have found that a great deal too much
trouble, as most people have since; and so had re-
course to —

3. Borage.
Cautertes.

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 ran’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 snrith’s forge.
Hops. ,
Ambergris.

Mandrake pillows.
Dormouse fat.

Lares’ ears.

Starvation.

Camphor.

Salts and senna.
180

Then —

THE WATER—-BABIES.

Musk.

Opium.

Strait-waistcoats.

Bullyings.

Bumpings.

Blisterings.

Bleedings.

Bucketings with cold water.

Knockings down.

Kneeling on his chest till they broke it
in, ete., after the medieval or monkish
method. But that would not do. Bump-
sterhausen’s blue follicles stuck there
still.

Coaxing.

Kissing.

Champagne and turtle.

Red herrings and soda water.
Good advice.

Gardening.

Croquet.

Musical soirées.

Aunt Sally.

Mild tobacco.

The Suturday Review.

A carriage with outriders, etc.

After the modern method. But that would not do.
And if he had been but a convict lunatic, and had
shot at the Queen, killed all his creditors to avoid
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—-BABY. 131

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 Easthamp-
stead Plain.

Free run of Windsor Forest.

The Zimes 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.
Metathe tractors,
Holloway’s Ointment.
Flectro-biology.
Valentine Greatrakes his Stroking Cure.
Spirit-rapping.
Holloway s Pills.
Table-turning.
Morison’s Pills.
Homeopathy.
THE WATER-BABIES.

Paris Life Pills.

Mesmerism.

Pure Bosh.

Hxorcisms, for which they read Maleus
Maleficarum, Nideri Formicarium, Del-
rio, Wierus, ete.

But he could not get one that mentioned water-

babies.

Hydropathy.

Madame Rachel’s Elixir of Youth.
The Poughkeepsie Seer his Prophecies.
The distilled liquor of addled 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, ov steaming him.

Sympathy, after the method of Basil Val-
entine his triumph of Antimony, and
Kenelm Dighy 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 bal-
loon; and, falling into the North Sea,
were picked up by a Yarmouth herring-
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 1383

boat, and came home much the wiser,
and all over scales.

Antiputhy, or using him like “a man and
a brother.”

Apathy, or doing nothing at all.

With all other ipathies and opathies which
Noodle hus invented and Foodle tried,
since black-fellows chipped flints at Abbvé-
ville — 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 think-
ing 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 con-
trary 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
134 THE WATER-BABIES.

(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 Mac-
intosh and Cording’s boots, spearing eels and sneez-
ing), 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 Fahren-
heit; and, therefore, it cannot be cold enough there
about four o’clock in the morning to condense the
babies’ mesenteric apophthegms into their left ventri-
cles; and, therefore, they can never catch the whoop-
ing-cough; and if they do not have whooping-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 be-
sides. Whereon the foul flood-water in his brains
ran down, and cleared to a fine coffee color, 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 185

brain rivers), and anatomized 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. °
186 THE WATER-—BABIES.

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.

WorpswortH: Ode to Duty.










» UT what became of
little Tom ?
He slipped away off
j the rocks into the
water, as I said be-
fore. But he could not
a p = help thinking of little
‘WSs Zh —-- _ Ellie. He did not re
: : member who she was;
but he knew that she
_r7 was a little girl, though
—~s 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 187

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 Waterproof 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?”
1388 THE WATER-BABIES.

“ Because I can’t; ” and the lobster twiddled his
horns more fiercely than ever, but he was forced to
confess, —

“T 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-hunt-
ers, 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 headfore-
most.

“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 mé, I never thought of that,” said the lob-
ster; “and after all the experience of life that I have
had !”
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 139

You see, experience is of very little good unless
a man, or a lobster, has wit enough to make use of
it. Fora 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.
140 THE WATER-—BABIES.

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 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 honor 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 141

come in and sing, “ What shall we do with the
drunken sailor, so early in the morning?” and an-
swering them each exactly alike, —

“Put him in the roundhouse 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 but-
tons, 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.
142 THE WATER—BABIES.

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 w ith, — 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 hfe, 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 colors at once, and turned
up his eyes hike a duck in thunder; for the water
was up to his chin, and still the lobster held on.


St. Brandan’s Sunday School.

— Page 117.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 1438

And then came a man-of-war’s boat round Mew-
stone, and saw his head sticking up out of the water.
One said it was a keg of brandy, and another that it
was a cocoanut, 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
144 THE WATER-BABIES.

did not know why. But they did not want any intro-
ductions 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 sub-
urban establishment for the idler members of the
youthful aristocracy, where the masters learn the les-
sons 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?”


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 145

“At this poor dear little rock; a great clumsy
bowlder 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 sing-
ing 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 in-
shore after every storm to sweep them out, and comb
them down, and put them all to rights again.
146 THE WATER-BABIES,

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 dogfish, 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 cam
not 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-cu-
cumbers 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 peace-
able Christians at all.

So St. Brandan went out to the point of Old Dun-
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 147

more, and looked over the tideway 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
ablue 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
148 THE WATER-BABIES.

coming of the Cocqcigrues. But on still, clear sum-
mer 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 faney 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,
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 149

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 consider-
ate and just than that, and have dressed them all in
the most beautiful colors and patterns, till they look
like vast flower-beds of gay blossoms. If you think
Iam 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 honor them instead of despising them ;
and he was a very clever old gentleman, but, unfortu-
nately 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 pf 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 de-
tectives; and some had eyes in their tails; and some
150 THE WATER-BABIES.

had eyes in every joint, so that they kept a very
sharp lookout; 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 hun-
dreds of feet there sprang a whole cutler’s shop of —

Scythes, Juvelins,
Billhooks, Lanees,
Pickaxes, Halberts,
forks, Gisarines,
Penknives, Poleaxes,
Rapiers, Fishhooks,
Sabres, Bradawls,
Yataghans, Ginlets,
Creeses, Corkscrews,
Ghoorka swords, Pins,
Tucks, Needles,

And so forth,

which stabbed, shot, poked, pricked, scratched, rip-
ped, 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
Linnean 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 151

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 wp, 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


152 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 erinoline 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 eye-
brows; 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-bull’s-eyes, 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-
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 1538

fruit, which they call “frutta di mare: ” though T
suppose they call them “fruits de mer ” now, out of
compliment to that most successful, and therefore
most immaculate, potentate who is seemingly desi-
rous of inheriting the blessing pronounced on those
who remove their neighbors’ landmark. And _ per-
haps 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, #nd his eyes
grew as round as an owl’s. For he hoped that his
turn would come at last; and so it did. Jor 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 be-
gan 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 din-
ner! 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 them-
selves. 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’.”’
154 THE WATER-BABIES.

“JT did not know there was any harm in it,” said
Tom.

«Then you know now. People continually say
that tome; 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 fel-
low, “She will run down some day, or they may
\

A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 155

forget to wind her up, as old Grimes used to forget
to wind up his watch when he came in from the pub-
lic-house, and then I shall be safe.”

“JT 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!”

“T 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.
156 THE WATER-BABIES.

“And I am very ugly. I am the uglest fairy in
the world; and I shall be, till people behave them-
selves as they ought todo. And then I shall grow
as handsome as my sister, who is the loveliest fairy
in the world; and her name is Mrs. Doasyouwouldbe-
doneby. 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 warn-
ing 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
A. FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 1657

and water, and no basins; 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
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 sunstrokes; 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 bet-
ter; 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
158 THE WATER-BABIES.

called up all the cruel schoolmasters — whole regi-
ments 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 honor, 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 159

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 princi-
pally 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 Mis. 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
160 THE WATER-BABIES.

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, be-
cause 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 Tam; for if she could
only stop the cruel masters from ill-using poor chil-
dren, 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, Mapamn DoasyouwovuLp-
BEDONEBY, 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 161

little sorry for him, considering that he used some.
times 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. Where.
at all the little children began dancing and clap.
ping their hands, and Tom danced too with all hig
might.

And as for the pretty lady, I cannot tell you what
the color 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,
162 THE WATER-BABIES.

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, wears 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 168

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
live, 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 listen-
ing. 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 go
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 :—

T 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.
164 THE WATER-BABIES.

L 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.

NVhat 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 tor-
mented 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!
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 165

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.

ERE I come to the very
saddest part of all my
story. JI 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
“ss pair of gray mustaches as
â„¢ Jong as your arm, who said
once in company that two of the
most heartrending 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.

SS" —s«sTihe company did not laugh at him

















166 THE WATER-BABIES.

—his mustaches 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, hke 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-bull’s-eyes
and sea-lolipops 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 noth-
ing 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 beau-
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 167

tiful 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 lolli-
pops, 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, in-
stead 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. Be-
donebyasyoudid.

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 cup-
board locked ; every one may go and taste for them-
selves, and fare accordingly. It is very odd, but so
it is; and I am quite sure that she knows best. Per-
168 THE WATER-—BABIES.

haps 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 mis-
taken, 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 169

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. Yor, 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 com-
mitted 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.
170 THE WATER-BABIES.

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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 171

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-ege.

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
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.
172 THE WATER-BABIES.

“J 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.”

“T 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


“*T know,’ said the little girl.”

— Page 172.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 1738

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.mean-
ing, 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
174 THE WATER-BABIES.

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-sacrifi-
cing people, who really go there, can never tell you
anything about it, save that it is the most beautiful
r

A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 175

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, Tora 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 Elie?”

“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.’
176 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 Elie 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 177

surprised and sad; and at last Tom burst out cry-
ing; 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 any-
thing 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,
Pll 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 mis-
chievous), “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.

“T know what she wants me to do,” he said whin-
ing 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, [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.”
178 THE WATER-BABIES.

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

“OQ Tom, Tom!” she said, very mournfully —
and then she cried, “O Tom! where are you?”

And Tom cried, “O 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 eried 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 be-
fore; 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 spir-
itual causes for physical phenomena — especially in
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 179

parlor-tables; and, of course, physical causes for
spiritual ones, like thinking and praying and know-
ing right from wrong. And so they odds it till it
comes even, as folks say down in Berkshire.

« Flow 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 kind-
ly, 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 he 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 remem-
bered 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
180 THE WATER-BABIES.

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.

“T 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 pleas-
ant.”

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
18,598,000 years before anybody was born; and,
what is more, her photographs did not merely repre-
sent light and shade, as ours do, but color also, and
and all colors, 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.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 181

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
182 THE WATER- BABIES.

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,
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 ready made 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.”
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 183

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

“JT 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 humor, 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 Doasyou-
likes, 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 voleano, 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
184 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 Pad-
dies who eat potatoes.”

And she turned over the next five hundred years.
And there they were all living up in trees, and mak-
ing 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.”
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 185

. 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 Hindu
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. “Jt 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 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 con-
sumptions, 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.
186 THE WATER-BABIES.

“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 crea-
tures,” 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. Besides, 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 re-
membered that his ancestors had once been men, and
tried to say, “Am I not aman and a brother?” but
had forgotten how to use his tongue; and then
he had tried to call for a doctor, but had forgotten
the word for one. So all he said was “ Ubboboo!”
and died.


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—-BABY. 187

And that was the end of the great and jolly natior
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,
hey 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 becom-
ng apes ?”’ said little Elie at last.

“At first, my dear; if only they would have be-
aved 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, per-
haps 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. What-

ot

He

—_


188 THE WATER-BABIES.

ever 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. In-
deed, 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.”
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 189

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.
OW,” said Tom, “I am ready to 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

ad the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere,
andl there you will find Mr. Grimes.”






















190 THE WATER-BABIES.

“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-by, Miss Ellie; you
know I am getting a big boy, and I must go out and
see the world.”

“JT 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-
by. 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 whirlabout 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,
Tam 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. r

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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 191

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 para-
sols; 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.

Il.

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 ne.”
192 THE WATER-BABIES.

Her voice was so soft and low, and the music of
the air so sweet, that Tom could have listened to it
all day. Butas 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, per-
haps 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 to 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 198

mouth for a cigar, and asked him the way to Shiny
Wall; so he bolted his sprat head-foremost, and
said : —

“Tf I were you, young gentleman, I should go to
the Alalonestone 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 cour-
teous 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 ?”

“T never tried,” says Tom. “Why ?”

“ Because, 1f you can, I should advise you to say
nothing to the old lady about it. There, take a hint.
Good-by.”’

And away Tom went for seven days and seven
nights due north-west, till he came to a great cod-
bank, 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, stand-
194 THE WATER-BABIES.

ing up on the Allalonestone, 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 atone,
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, —

“ Tave you wings? Can you fly ?”

“Qh, dear, no, ma’am ; I should not think of such
a thing,” said cunning ttle Tom.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 195

“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 them-
selves 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
196 THE WATER-BABIES.

honor. 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 North-
ern Isles. But men shot us so, and knocked us on the
head, and took our eggs—vwhy, 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 Gair-
fowlskerry, 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 Gairfowls-
kerry 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.

“Tf you only had had wings,” said Tom; “then
you might all have flown away too.”
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 197

«Yes, young gentleman; and if people are not
gentleman and ladies, and forgot 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 honorable
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
198 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 lttle 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 daintly, and whist-
ling 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 199

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 ful-laltla-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 be-
fore; 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
200 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 sum-
mer 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 All-
fowlsness 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 cau-
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 201

cus, 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 gypsy is of
doing the hokanybaro; 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 pub-
licly. 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 ;
202 THE WATER-BABIES.

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, pecking and gobbling and caw-
ing 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
A FAIBY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 203

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, harle-
quins 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
204. THE WATER-—BABIES.

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
ery 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, water-logged in the trough of the
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 205

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 he knew
it was all right, and that there would be a new
water-baby in St. Brandan’s Isle.
206 THE WATER—-BABIES.

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 pecking and splutter-
ing 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




“wa

some along, lads.’’

— Page 207.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 207

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 whales’ 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 lke.”

“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 1; 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


208 THE WATER-—BABIES.

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 ’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 leaped 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 209

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.”

“Tye 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-
by.”

“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 colors 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
210 _ THE WATER-BABIES.

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 around 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 le 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 fire-
works, 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, woon 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 Frzebus,
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 211

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 mid-
dle 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 mak-
ing old beasts into new all the year round.”

“ Wow 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 salpe nine
yards long, and forty-three little ice-crabs, who gave
each other a parting pinch all round, tucked their
212 ; THE WATER-BABIES.

legs under their stomachs, and determined to die de-
cently, like Julius Cesar.

“T 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 bourn 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 swam away, out and out
into the sea, millions of new-born creatures, of more
shapes and colors 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 old; in fact, as old as anything which you
are likely to come across, except the difference be-
tween right and wrong.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 213

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 it not strange ?

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Tom. “Then I won’t
trouble your ladyship any more; I hear you are very
busy.”

“Tam 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 git 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
214 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 but-
terflies.

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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 215

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 care-
fully whatever you have passed, and especially keep
your eye on the dog, who goes by instinct, and there-
fore 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 proph-
esy 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
216 THE WATER-BABIES,

of them; and now nobody knows what they were,
save a few archeological 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 cer-
tainly, 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 de
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 Pro-
metheus, who was always settling what was going to
happen, would have nothing to do with pretty Pan-
dora 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 : —
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 217

Measles, Famines,
Monks, Quacks,
Scarlatina, Unpaid Bills,
Idols, Tight Stays,
Whooping-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.

“%o 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 besides,
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.
218 THE WATER-BABIES.

“But stupid old Epimetheus went working and
grubbing on, with the help of his wife Pandora, al-
ways 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 inthe Great Exhibition; and to fore-
tell famine and bad weather and the price of stocks,
aud (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, Iam happy to say, Tom believed it every word.

For it so happened to Tom lkewise. 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 hunt-
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 219

ing, yet 15 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 conjurers, fortune-
tellers, astrologers, prophesiers, projectors, prestigia-
tors, 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 bawl-
ing and screaming at him, “Look ahead, only look
ahead, 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.
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 was sung or said ;
For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.

LONGTELLOW.

220
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 221

CHAPTER VIII anp LAST.

ERE begins the never-
to-be-too-much-stud-
‘ . ied 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 chil-
_ | dren 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. Bedonebyasyou-
did.

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.
222 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 pump-
ing, 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 him-
self, 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,
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 2238

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 starfish 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,
“ setting in my way ?” and it tried to drop Tom; but
he held on tight to its claws, thinking himself satiar
where he was.

So Tom told him who he was, and what his er-
224 THE WATER-BABIES.

rand was. And the thing winked its one eye, and
sneered, —

“T 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 awhile Tom began to understand a little.
For, as the vapors 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 tectotum. 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.”

“Yow 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
A FAIBY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 225

was washed on shore safe upon the Other-end-of-No-
where; 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.

At 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
gooseberries 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 chil-
dren, and sell them at wares 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
226 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 httle 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 Presi-
dent; 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 meet-
ing forthwith, and unanimously determined to hang
Tom’s dog for coming into their country with gun-
powder 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 227

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 carcass; for they have abolished the have-
his-carcass 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 fin-
gers 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 spir-
its were when they came, and saw how, according to
the laws of Mis. Bedonebyasyoudid, their descend-
ants had weakened their constitutions by hard living.

Then came Tom to the Island of Polupragmosyne
(which some call Rogue’s Harbor; 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 neighbor’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 “ Par-
liament 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 driv-
228 THE WATER-BABIES.

ing hammers, birds’-nests taking boys, books making
authors, bulls keeping china shops, monkeys shaving
cats, dead dogs drilling live lions, blind brigadiers
shelved as principals of colleges, play-actors not in
the least shelved 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 Unsucess-
ful, from the builders of the Tower of Babel to those
of the Trafalgar Fountains; in which politicians lec-
ture on the contitutions which ought to have marched,
conspirators on the revolutions which ought to have
succeeded, ecnomists 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 (what-
soever that may be) because they cannot sell their
shoes, and poets on esthetics (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 appropiate legend — which indeed
is popular through all that land, and which, I hope,
you will learn to translate in due time and to per-
pend likewise : —
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 229

“ Vietrix 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 musn’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 as-
sure 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 to-
gether 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 mas-
ter in pieces, and tackled them so sharply about the
gastrocnemius muscle that he gave them some busi-
ness of their own to think of at last; and while they
were rubbing their bitten calves, Tom and the dog
got safe away.
230 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 1t 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 kit-
ten 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-—BABY. 231

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 forever, which (as the island was
exactly of the same circumference as the planet on
which we have the honor of living) was hard work,
especially to those who had business to look after.
3ut before them, as bandmaster and fugleman, ran a
gentleman shearing a pig; the melodious strains of
which animal led them forever, 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 hada
heart, though it was considerably overgrown with
brains.

He was made up principally of fish bones and
parchment, put together with wire and Canada bal-
232 THE WATER-BABIES.

sam; and smelt strongly of spirits, though he never
drank anything but water; but the 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 ap-
paratus, and all other tackle for finding out every-
thing 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 be-
tween 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 288

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, kindlest, old Dominie Sampson of a giant
that ever turned the world upside down without in-
tending 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 ean’t; Ican’t be a little child again; and I suppose
if I could, it would be no use, because then I should
know nothing about what was happening tome. 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 Vene-
tian and traduced the state, — goodness only knows
what they mean, for I never read poetry, — and hunt-
234 THE WATER-BABIES.

ing 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, ] am one of the sons
of Epimetheus, and must go backwards, if I am tovgo
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 talk-
ing 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 235
parts, of course, else they would never be afraid of
giants), and knocked the upper half clean off, hurt-
ing 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
Podurella! 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 Podurelle.
Whereon (as was to be expected) the roof caved in
bodily, smashing the idols, and sending the priests
flying out of doors and windows, lke 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 humor for having their temple smashed for
the sake of three obscure species of Podurella, and
a Buddhist bat.
236 THE WATER-BABIES.

“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 run-
ning 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 Jul
Naught shall go wt
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. Bedonebyas-
youdid has named it over again, the Isle of Tom-
toddies, 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 2387

evening, and all night too, to their great idol Exami-
nation : —

“TI cawt learn ny 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 rad-
ishes, 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 be-
tween a Lyre and 8 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
Scevola’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
238 THE WATER-BABIES.

that nobody ever heard of, where nothing ever hap-
pened, 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 ticde-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 infor-
mation 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 tur-
nip listened very carefully; and the more he listened,
the more he forgot, and the more water ran out of him.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 239

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 ly-
ing 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 m his hand.

“You see,” said the stick, “they were as pretty
little children once as you could wish to see, and
240 THE WATER-BABIES.

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. Doasyouwouldbe-
doneby 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.”

“Tt 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 Ex-
aminer-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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 241

nine thousand miles long, and can go down chimneys,
and through keyholes, up-stairs, down-stairs, 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 surhly; 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 touch-
ing 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.

3ut 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 tur-
nips,.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 : —
242 THE WATER-BABIES.

“ Instruction sore long time I bore,
And cramming wus 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 naught I know save those three royal ’s ¢
Reading and viting sure, with rithmetich,

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 howl-
ing 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 httle boy, “that is very kind of
you, but I don’t feel that it has made any impres-
sion.”

Tom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on
him, fettle him over the head with a brick, or any-
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 2438

thing 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 him-
self; 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 pleas-
antly to Tom about his travels, till the Powwow man
arrived, with his thunder-box under his arm.

And a well-fed, ill-favored 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
ina pantomime. “So you can’t feel frightened, my
little dear—eh? I'll do that for you. VH 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 thunder-box, and out pop-
ped turnip-ghosts and magic-lanterns and pasteboard
244 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 on their knees before the Pow-
wow 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 shoul-
ders, and they could not set him down any more, but
carried him on willynilly, as Sindbad carried the old
man of the sea; which was a pitiable sight to see;
for thé 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. Bedone-
byasyoudid, 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,
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 245

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, thunder-box 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! Iamaruined man! He will murder me; and
break, burn, and destroy my precious and invaluable
thunder-box ; and then you will have no more thun-
der-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 Leave-
heavenalone. 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
246 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 sur-
prising —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 Maj-
esty’s pleasure may be unconfined during his own
pleasure, and take a walk in the neighboring park to
improve his spirits, after an hour’s ight and whole-
some labor with his dinner-fork or one of the legs
of his iron bedstead. No. The walls of this build-
ing 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 Myr. 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.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND—BABY. 247

Tom was not astonished. He was long past that.
Besides, he had seen the navicule 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 middlé 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, which-
ever 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 with-
out 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.”
248 THE WATER-BABIES.

“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.

“Tf 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 in-
side. “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 matterin 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.


. : ; 3 A 9)
“ Attention! Mr. Grimes, here is a gentleman come to see you,
— Page 249.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-—BABY. 249

“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 humors 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-lght,
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 trun-
cheon; 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
250 THE WATER-BABIES.

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.

“JT 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.”

“T’ll get you one,” said Tom; and he took up a
live coal (there were plenty lying about), and put it to
Grimes’s pipe: but it went out instantly.

“Tt’s no use,” said the truncheon, leaning itself up
against the chimney and looking on. “TI tell you, it
isnouse. His heart is so cold that it freezes every-
thing that comes near him. You will see that pres-
ently, 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 leaned 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.
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 251

“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 chim-
ney of all, because it was so shamefully clogged up
with soot ? Did I ask to stay here,—TI 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 — Atten-
tion! 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
252 THE WATER-BABIES.

Mr. Grimes’s face; but the soot would not come
off.

“Oh, dear!” he said. “TI 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 com-
ing 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 a while; 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 253

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 either. But I’m beat
now, and beat I must be. D’ve made my bed, and
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
254 THE WATER-BABIES.

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 remem-
ber, disobey me again, and into a worse place still
you go.”

“JT beg pardon, ma’am, but I never disobeyed you
that I know of. I never had the honor 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.
“T 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
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 255

day that you went dirty, you were disobeying me,
whether you knew it or not.”

“Tf Td 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, “ ang
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 earth-
quake 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.”

“T 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 ?”

“JT will take you up the backstairs; but I must
bandage your eyes first, for I never allow anybody
to see those backstairs of mine.”
256 THE WATER-BABIES.

“JT 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 back-
stairs, and could smuggle us up them; and in spite of
all our disappointments, we will honor and glorify,
and adore and beatify and translate and apotheo-
size 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, backstatrs,

precious backstairs, comprehensive buckstairs,
invaluable backstairs, accommoduting backstatrs,
requisite backstuirs, well-bred backstairs,
necessary backstarrs, commercial backstatrs,

good-natured backstatrs, economical backstaw's,
cosmopolitan backstairs, practical backstairs,
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 257

logical backstairs, respectable backstairs,
deductive backstairs, gentlemantike backstairs,
comfortable backstairs, ladylike backstuirs,
humane backstairs, orthodox backstairs,
reasonable buckstairs, probable backstairs,
long-sought backstairs, credible backstairs,
coveted backstairs, demonstrable backstairs,
aristocratic backstairs, wrefragable backstairs

potent backstairs,
all-but-omnipotent backstairs,
ete.

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
258 THE WATER=BABIES.

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 caves; 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 morn-
ing 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 gizl’s
voice.

And what was the song which she sang? Ab, 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 need-
ing 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.

*“ O Miss Ellie,” said he, “how you are grown!”

“OQ Tom,” said she, “how you are grown too!”
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 259

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 wait-
ing 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, chil-
dren. 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!”
260 THE WATER-BABIES.

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,” she said 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, smil-
ing; and then she turned to Ellie.

“You may take him home with you now on Sun-
days, Ellie. He has won his spurs in the great bat-
tle, 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 ?
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 261

“ 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 stickle-
backs, that the sticklebacks may prick them in their
poor little stomachs, and make them jump out of the
glass into somebody’s workbox, 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 fiat, 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
262 © THE WATER—BABIES.

not like to do), and thetr 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 379,428 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-babtes again,
and perhaps after that into land-babies ; and after
that perhaps into grown men.

You know they wowt? Very well, I daresay you
know best. But you see, some folks have a great lik-
ing 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 thou-
sands 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
cawt help hoping, with good Bishop Butler, that they
may have another chanee to make things fair and
even, somewhere, somewhen, sonehow,
A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY. 263

Meanwhile, do you learn your lessons, and thank
God that you have plenty of cold wuter 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 Lam 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 ts true.
264 THE WATER-BABIES.

THE FORSAKEN MERMAN?

BY MATTHEW ARNOLD.

Come, dear children, let us away ;
Down and away below !

Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow ;

Now the wild white horses play,

Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away !

This way, this way !

Call her once before you go, —

Call once yet!

In a voice that she will know, —

“ Margaret! Margaret !”
Children’s voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother’s ear;
Children’s voices, wild with pain, —
Surely she will come again !

Call her once, and come away;

This way, this way !

“ Mother dear, we cannot stay !

The wild white horses foam and fret.”
Margaret! Margaret !

1 See page 110, last line.
THE FORSAKEN MERMAN. 265

Come, dear children, come away down ;

Call no more!

One last look at the white-walled town,

And the little gray clabnele on the windy shore ;
Then come down !

She will not come, hough you call all day ay;
Come away, come away !

Children dear, was it yesterday

We heard the sweet bells over the bay, —
In the caverns where we lay,

Through the surf and through the swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell ?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;

Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream,
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,

Sail and sail, with unshut eye,

Round the world for ever and aye?
When did music come this way ?
Children dear, was it yesterday ?

Children dear, was it yesterday

(Call yet once) that she went away?

Once she sate with you and me,

On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
266 THE WATER-BABIES,

She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.

She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea;
She said, “I must go, for my kinsfolk pray

In the little gray church on the shore to-day.

°T will be Huster-time in the world — ah me!

And I lose my poor soul, merman! here with thee.”

I said, “ Go up, dear heart, through the waves;

Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!”
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.

Children dear, was it yesterday ?
Children dear, were we long alone?
“ The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan;
Long prayers,” I said, “in the world they say;
Come!” I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay.
We went up the beach, by the sandy down
Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-walled town;
Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still,
To the little gray church on the windy hill.
From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.
We climbed on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,
And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded
panes.

She sate by the pillar ; we saw her clear:
“ Margaret, hist ! come quick, we are here!
Dear heart,” I said, “we are long ulone ;
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.”
But, ah! she gave me never a look,
For her eyes were sealed to the holy book.

Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.
THE FORSAKEN MERMAN. 267

Come away, children, call no more!
Come away, come down, call no more !

Down, down, down !

Down to the depths of the sea!

She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.

Hark what she sings: “O joy, O joy,

For the humming street, and the child with its toy!
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;
For the wheel where I spun,

And the blessed light of the sun!”

And so she sings her fill,

Singing most joyfully,

Till the spindle drops from her hand,

And the whizzing wheel stands still.

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,
And over the sand at the sea;

And her eyes are set in a stare;

And anon there breaks a sigh,

And anon there drops a tear,

From a sorrow-clouded eye,

And a heart sorrow-laden,

A long, long sigh,

For the cold strange eyes of a little mermaiden,
And the gleam of her golden hair.

Come away, away, children;
Come, children, come down !
The hoarse wind blows colder;
Lights shine in the town.

She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door:
268

THE WATER—BABIES.

She will hear the winds howling,
Wal hear the waves roar.

We shall see, while above us

The waves roar and whirl,

A ceiling of amber,

A pavement of pearl.

Singing, “ Here came a mortal,
But faithless was she!

And alone dwell forever

The kings of the sea.”

But, children, at midnight,

When soft the winds blow,

When clear fulls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;

When sweet airs come seaward
Irom heaths starred with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly

On the blanched sunds a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Un the erecks we will hie,

Over banks of bright seaweed

The ebb-tide leaves dry.

We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white sleeping town;

At the church on the hillside,

And then come back down,
Singing, “ There dwells a loved one,
But cruel ts she!

She left lonely forever

The kings of the sea.”
oS




DAES




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