IP ®mbf. Chfe book is outneb TBM From the Series of -A Canterbury Classics? Che Canterbury Classics A Series of Supplementary Readers edited under the general supervision of KATHARINE LEE BATES Professor of English Literature in Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass. The text of this edition of " The Water- Babies'" agrees with the standard text found in the author's edition, published in Londo?i by Macmillan & Company. Charles Kingsley Zbc Slater-Babies 3 fairy Cale for a Land-Baby By Charles Kingsley Edited by Sarah Willard Hiestand Editor of "The Beginner's Shakespeare" Rand ]Mc]^aUy <& Company Chicago New York London Copyright, IQ12, By Rand, McNally & Company €'C!.A314216 THE series of Canterbury Classics aims to bear its share in acquainting school children with literature suited to their years. The culture of the imagination is no less important than the culture of memory and the reasoning power. That childhood is poor which has not for friends many of the goodly company represented by Hector, Achilles, Roland, Sigurd, The Cid, Don Quixote, Lancelot, Robin Hood, Percy, the Douglas, Gulliver, Puck, Rip Van Winkle, and Alice in Wonderland. College classrooms, where Dante and Spenser, Goethe and Coleridge are taught, speedily feel the difference between minds nourished, from babyhood up, on myths of Olympus and myths of Asgard, Hans Christian Andersen, old ballads, the "Pilgrim's Progress," the "Arabian Nights," the "Alhambra," and minds which are still strangers to fairyland and hero -land and all the dreamlands of the world's inheritance. Minds of this latter description come almost as barbarians to the study of poetry, deaf to its music and blind to its visions. They are in a foreign clime. In the larger college of life, no less, is felt the lack of an early initiation into literature. A practical people in a practical age, we need the grace of fable to balance our fact, the joy of poetry to leaven our prose. Something of the sort we are bound to have, and if familiarity in childhood with the classic tone has not armed us against the cheap, the flimsy, the corrupt in fiction, we fall easy victims to the trash of the hour. We become the sport of those mocking elves who give dry leaves for gold. This series must needs conform somewhat, in its choice of books, to the present demands of the schools. It will furnish [5] 6 Introduction to the Series all good reading that is desired, but it aims also to help in arousing a desire for the more imaginative and inspiring legends of the Aryan race. In the case of every volume issued the text of the authoritative edition will be faithfully reproduced. These texts will be furnished with a modest amount of apparatus hidden away at the end of the book. It is the classic that is of importance. Often it may be best to disregard the notes. The series is addressed to children and aims to stimulate imagination, broaden sympathy, and awaken a love for literature. The editors strive to keep these aims in view and to avoid breaking the charm of the story by irrelevant and burdensome information. What is told is meant to be what a child would naturally like to know about the book that pleases him and the writer of the book. The biographical sketches emphasize, whenever it is appropriate, the childhood of the authors treated, and try throughout to give, by concrete illustration, impressions of personality and character. Special subjects sometimes call for special sketches, but, in general, the editorial work aims at quality rather than quantity. Knowledge which seems essential to intelligent reading, and which dictionary and teacher cannot reasonably be counted on to supply, has its place in notes, yet it is not forgotten that the notes exist for the sake of the literature, not the literature for the sake of the notes. Parents and librarians will appreciate the reading lists of books attractive to children, either by the author of the classic in hand or along the same lines of inter- est. Certain teachers, crowded and wearied with a variety of tasks, will welcome the section of suggestions. We have ventured to associate this series with the memory of the sweetest and most childlike spirit in English song, hoping that little pilgrims of to-day, journeying by April ways, may find as much cheer in gentle stories as did the poet of the Canterbury Tales. Katharine Lee Bates. Wellesley College. To- MY YOUNGEST SON GRENVILLE ARTHUR AND TO ALL OTHER GOOD LITTLE BOY8 Come read me my riddle, each good little man; If you cannot read it, no grown-up folk can. EEgnZZE THETABLEOF CONTENTS *JbjdtmLjk I ■fkAfc Introduction Dedication A List of Illustrations .... The Water-Babies Chapter I II . III. IV . V . VI . VII VIII Moral . . PAGE 5 7 ii i5 57 93 133 177 215 245 287 336 A Biographical Sketch 341 Notes 349 A Reading List 3 Sl A Pronouncing Vocabulary 383 Suggestions to Teachers 387 {9} PAGE Charles Kingsley Frontispiece Tom on the Roof Facing 15 "Tom . . . went to bed at seven" . . . . . . .20 "Grimes rode the donkey in front, and Tom and the brushes walked behind" 23 "Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, seeing Tom, screamed as shrill as any peacock" ... 38 "Tom paddled up the park" 42 "Before him lay . . . great plains, and farms, and villages, amid dark knots of trees" "She toddled off into the next room, and brought a cup of milk" "The salmon looked at him full in the face" .... "One day among the rocks he found a playfellow" "A very tremendous lady she was" "She boxed their ears, and thumped them over the head with rulers' ' "At last he met the King of the Herrings" 249 "There he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing on the Allalone stone , all alone" 252 53 65 127 i47 i95 204 un 12 A List of Illustrations "The good molly s took Tom, and his dog up, and flew with them safe over the pack and the roaring ice giants' Mother Carey "They opened the box between them 1 .... "At last he came to the great sea-serpent himself' . l, The most wonderful bogy which he had ever seen" PAGE 269 274 281 289 292 I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined; In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think, What man has made of man. Wordsworth. Tom on the Roof THE WATER-BABIES CHAPTER I ONCE upon a time there was a little chimney- sweep, and his name was Tom. That is a short name, and you have heard it before, so you will not have much trouble in remembering it. He lived in a great town in the North country, 5 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 10 court where he lived. He had never been taught to say his prayers. He never had heard of God,, or of Christ, except in words which you never have heard, and which it would have been well if he had never heard. He cried half his time, and 15 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 20 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 Us] 16 The Water-Babies 25 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 30 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 hailstorm ; and then shook his ears and was as jolly as ever ; 35 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 40 with one gray ear, and carry her puppies in his pocket, just like a man. And he would have apprentices, one, two, three, if he could. How he would bully them, and knock them about, just as his master did to him; and make them carry « home the soot sacks, while he rode before them on his donkey, with a pipe in his mouth and a flower in his button-hole, like a king at the head of his army. Yes, there were good times coming ; and, when his master let him have a pull at the 50 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 The Water-Babies iy behind a wall, to heave half a brick at his horse's legs, as is the custom of that country when they 55 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«o put the half -brick down quietly behind the wall, and proceeded to take orders. Mr. Grimes was to come up next morning to Sir John Harthover's, at the Place, for his old chimney-sweep was gone to prison, and thees 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 70 very neat and clean, with his drab gaiters, drab breeches, drab jacket, snow-white tie with a smart pin in it, and clean round ruddy face, that Tom was offended and disgusted at his appearance, and considered him a stuck-up fellow, who gave 75 himself airs because he wore smart clothes, and other people paid for them ; and went behind the wall to fetch the half -brick after all ; but did not, remembering that he had come in the way of business, and was, as it were, under a flag of so truce. His master was so delighted at his new customer 18 The Water-Babies that he knocked Tom down out of hand, and drank more beer that night than he usually did ss in two, in order to be sure of getting up in time next morning; for the more a man's head aches when he wakes, the more glad he is to turn out, and have a breath of fresh air. And, when he did get up at four the next morning, he knocked 90 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 »5 give satisfaction. And Tom thought so likewise, and, indeed, would have done and behaved his best, even without being knocked down. For, of all places upon earth, Harthover Place (which he had ioo never seen) was the most wonderful, and, of all men on earth, Sir John (whom he had . seen, having been sent to gaol by him twice) was the most awful. Harthover Place was really a grand place, even 105 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 no a park full of deer, which Tom believed to be monsters who were in the habit of eating The Water-Babies ig children; with miles of game-preserves, in which Mr. Grimes and the collier lads poached at times, on which occasions Tom saw pheasants, and wondered what they tasted like; with a noble us 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 120 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 125 a pack of hounds, who would do what he thought right by his neighbours, as well as get what he thought right for himself; but, what was more, he weighed full fifteen stone, was nobody knew how many inches round the chest, and could 130 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 135 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 compli- ments in the North country; and thought that"© "Torn. . .went to bed at seven 1 ' f20] The Water -Babies 21 that made up for his poaching Sir John's pheas- ants ; whereby you may perceive that Mr. Grimes had not been to a properly-inspected Govern- ment National School. Now, I dare say, you never got up at three i« o'clock on a midsummer morning. Some people get up then because they want to catch salmon ; and some because they want to climb Alps; and a great many more because they must, like Tom. But, I assure you, that three o'clock on a mid-iso summer morning is the pleasantest time of all the twenty -four hours, and all the three hundred and sixty-five days; and why every one does not get up then, I never could tell, save that they are all determined to spoil their nerves and 155 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, iec when his master went to the public-house, and slept like a dead pig ; for which reason he was as piert as a game-cock (who always gets up early to wake the maids), and just ready to get up when the fine gentlemen and ladies were Justus 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, 22 The Water-Babies no past the closed window-shutters, and the winking weary policemen, and the roofs all shining gray in the gray dawn. They passed through the pitmen's village, all shut up and silent now, and through the turnpike ; 175 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 i8o walls likewise; and at the wall's foot grew long grass and gay flowers, all drenched with dew ; and instead of the groaning of the pit-engine, they heard the skylark saying his matins high up in the air, and the pit-bird warbling in the sedges, 185 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 wo 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 195 along the tops of the alders by the stream, waiting for the sun to bid them rise and go about their day's business in the clear blue overhead. On they went; and Tom looked, and looked, 24 The Water -Babies for he never had been so far into the country 200 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, 205 trudging along with a bundle at her back. She had a gray shawl over her head, and a crimson madder petticoat; so you may be sure she came from Galway. She had neither shoes nor stockings, and limped along as if she were tired 210 and footsore; but she was a very tall handsome woman, with bright gray eyes, and heavy black hair hanging about her cheeks. And she took Mr. Grimes' fancy so much, that when he came alongside he called out to her: 215 "This is a hard road for a gradely foot like that. Will ye up, lass, and ride behind me?" But, perhaps, she did not admire Mr. Grimes' look and voice; for she answered quietly: "No, thank you: I'd sooner walk with your 220 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, 225 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 ; The Water-Babies 25 and seemed sad when he told her that he knew no prayers to say. Then he asked her where she lived, and she 230 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, 235 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 sprang as you see here, which soaks up out of a white gravel in the bog, among 240 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 sand- bank in the hollow lane, by the great tuft of lady ferns, and makes the sand dance reels at 245 the bottom, day and night, all the year round; not such a spring as either of those; but a real North country limestone fountain, like one of those in Sicily or Greece, where the old heathen fancied the nymphs sat cooling themselves the 250 hot summer's day, while the shepherds peeped at them from behind the bushes. Out of a low cave of rock, at the foot of a limestone crag, the great fountain rose, quelling, and bubbling, and gurgling, so clear that you could not tell where 255 the water ended and the air began; and ran 26 The Water-Babies 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- 2co 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 265 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 270 could. The Irishwoman helped him, and showed him how to tie them up ; and a very pretty nose- gay they had made between them. But when he saw Grimes actually wash, he stopped, quite aston- ished ; and when Grimes had finished, and began 275 shaking his ears to dry them, he said: "Why, master, I never saw you do that before." "Nor will again, most likely. 'Twasn't for cleanliness I did it, but for coolness. I'd be ashamed to want washing every week or so, like 280 any smutty collier lad." "I wish I might go and dip my head in," said poor little Tom. "It must be as good as putting it under the town-pump; and there is no beadle here to drive a chap away." 2*5 "Thou come along," said Grimes; "what dost The Water-Babies 27 want with washing thyself? Thou did not drink half a gallon of beer last night, like me." "Idon'tcareforyou," said naughty Tom, and ran down to the stream, and began washing his face. Grimes was very sulky, because the woman 290 preferred Tom's company to his; so he dashed at him with horrid words, and tore him up from his knees, and began beating him. But Tom was accustomed to that, and got his head safe between Mr. Grimes' legs, and kicked his shins with all 295 his might. . "Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes?" cried the Irishwoman over the wall. Grimes looked up, startled at her knowing his name; but all he answered was, "No, nor never 300 was yet," and went on beating Tom. "True for you. If you ever had been ashamed of yourself, you would have gone over into Ven- dale long ago." "What do you know about Vendale?" shouted 305 Grimes; but he left off beating Tom. "I know about Vendale, and about you, too. I know, for instance, what happened in Aldermire Copse, by night, two years ago come Martinmas." "You do?" shouted Grimes; and leavingsio Tom, he climbed up over the wall, and faced the woman. Tom thought he was going to strike her; but she looked him too full and fierce in the face for that. 28 The Water-Babies 315 "Yes; I was there," said the Irishwoman quietly. "You are no Irishwoman, by your speech," said Grimes, after many bad words. "Never mind who I am. I saw what I saw; 320 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 325 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 330 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. 335 Had she hidden away? There was no place to hide in. But Grimes looked about, and Tom also, for he was as puzzled as Grimes himself at her disappearing so suddenly; but look where they would, she was not there. 340 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. The Water-Babies 2Q And now they had gone three miles and more, and came to Sir John's lodge-gates. a« Very grand lodges they were, with very grand iron gates and stone gate-posts, and on the top of each a most dreadful bogy, all teeth, horns, and tail, which was the crest which Sir John's ancestors wore in the Wars of the Roses ; and very 350 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. 355 "I was told to expect thee," he said. "Now thou'lt be so good as to keep to the main avenue, and not let me find a hare or a rabbit on thee when thou comest back. I shall look sharp for one, I tell thee." 3eo "Not if it's in the bottom of the soot-bag," quoth Grimes, and at that he laughed; and the keeper laughed and said: "If that's thy sort, I may as well walk up with thee to the hall." 355 "I think thou best had. It's thy business to see after thy game, man, and not mine." So the keeper went with them; and, to Tom's surprise, he and Grimes chatted together all the way quite pleasantly. He did not know that a 370 keeper is only a poacher turned outside in, and a poacher a keeper turned inside out. jo The Water-Babies They walked up a great lime avenue, a full mile long, and between their stems Tom peeped 375 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 38o murmuring noise, which followed them all the way. So much puzzled, that at last he took courage to ask the keeper what it was. He spoke very civilly, and called him Sir, for he was horribly afraid of him, which pleased 385 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. 390 "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- 395 pliment. "I wish I were a keeper," said Tom, "to live in such a beautiful place, and wear green velveteens, and have a real dog-whistle at my button, like you." 5 as if he was going- up the chimneys, and not Tom. And Grimes listened, and said every now and then, under his voice, "You'll mind that, you little beggar?" and Tom did mind, all at least that he could. And then the housekeeper 500 turned them into a grand room, all covered up in sheets of brown paper, and bade them begin, in a lofty and tremendous voice; and so after a whimper or two, and a kick from his master, into the grate Tom went, and up the chimney, 505 while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the furniture; to whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous compliments, but met with very slight encouragement in return. How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say ; 510 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 515 old country-houses, large and crooked chimneys, The Water-Babies 35 which had been altered again and again, till they ran one into another, anastomosing (as Professor Owen would say) considerably. So Tom fairly lost his way in them ; not that he cared much for that, though he was in pitchy darkness, for he was 520 as much at home in a chimney as a mole is under- ground; 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. 525 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 furni- ture huddled together under a cloth, and the pic- tures covered with aprons and dusters; and he 530 had often enough wondered what the rooms were like when they were all ready for the quality to sit in. And now he saw, and he thought the sight very pretty. The room was all dressed in white, — white 535 window-curtains, white bed-curtains, white furni- ture, 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 540 much. There were pictures of ladies and gentle- men, and pictures of horses and dogs. The horses he liked; but the dogs he did not care for much, for there were no bull-dogs among them, not 36 The Water-Babies 545 even a terrier. But the two pictures which took his fancy most were, one a man in long garments, with little children and their mothers round him, who was laying his hand upon the children's heads. That was a very pretty picture, Tom 550 thought, to hang in a lady's room. For he could see that it was a lady's room by the dresses which lay about. The other picture was that of a man nailed to a cross, which surprised Tom much. He fancied 555 that he had seen something like it in a shop- window. But why was it there? "Poor man," thought Tom, "and he looks so kind and quiet. But why should the lady have such a sad picture as that in her room? Perhaps it was some 560 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 565 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, 570 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." The Water-Babies 37 And then, looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty lady, and held his breath with aston-575 ishment. Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow- white pillow, lay the most beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen. Her cheeks were almost as white as the pillow, and her hair wassso 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 585 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. 590 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 595 wondered whether it ever would come off. "Cer- tainly 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, eoo with bleared eyes and grinning white teeth. He turned on it angrily. What did such a little black The Water-Babies jq ape want in that sweet young lady's room? And behold, it was himself, reflected in a great mirror, the like of which Tom had never seen before. eos And Tom, for the first time in his life, found out that he was dirty ; and b>urst into tears with shame and anger; and turned to sneak up the chimney again and hide; and upset the fender and threw the fireirons down, with a noise as ofcio ten thousand tin kettles tied to ten thousand mad dogs' tails. Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, seeing Tom, screamed as shrill as any pea- cock. In rushed a stout old nurse from the next 015 room, and seeing Tom likewise, made up her mind that he had come to rob, plunder, destroy, and burn; and dashed at him, as he lay over the fender, so fast that she caught him by the jacket. But she did not hold him. Tom had been in a 620 policeman's hands many a time, and out of them too, what is more; and he would have been ashamed to face his friends for ever if he had been stupid enough to be caught by an old woman ; so he doubled under the good lady's arm, across 625 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 630 to the church roof, he said to take jackdaws' eggs, 40 The Water-Babies but the policeman said to steal lead; and, when he was seen on high, sat there till the sun got too hot, and came down by another spout, leaving 635 the policemen to go back to the stationhouse and eat their dinners. But all under the window spread a tree, with great leaves and sweet white flowers, almost as big as his head. It was magnolia, I suppose; 640 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. 645 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 650 noise, got the churn between her knees, and tum- bled 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 655 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 66o pony's chin upon the spikes, and, for aught I know, The Water-Babies 4 1 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. Theees 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. Sire?o John looked out of his study window (for he was an early old gentleman) and up at the nurse, and a marten dropped mud in his eye, so that he had at last to send for the doctor; and yet he ran out, and gave chase to Tom. The Irishwoman, too,e?5 was walking up to the house to beg,— she must have got round by some byway, — but she threw away her bundle, and gave chase to Tom likewise. Only My Lady did not give chase ; for when she had put her head out of the window, her night- eso 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 conser- vatory, among acres of broken glass, and tons of smashed flower-pots— such a noise, row, hubbub, Poor Tom paddled up the park" [42l The Water-Babies 43 babel, shindy, hullabaloo, stramash, charivari, and.690 total contempt of dignity, repose, and order, as that day, when Grimes, gardener, the groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the steward, the plough- man, the keeper, and the Irishwoman, all ran up the park, shouting "Stop thief," in the belief 695 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. 700 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 705 one paw, toss the dairymaid into a tree with another, and wrench off Sir John's head with a third, while he cracked the keeper's skull with his teeth as easily as if it had been a cocoa-nut or a paving-stone. 710 However, Tom did not remember ever having had a father; so he did not look for one, and expected to have to take care of himself; while as for running, he could keep up for a couple of miles with any stagecoach, if there was the 715 chance of a copper or a cigar-end, and turn coach- wheels on his hands and feet ten times follow- ing, which is more than you can do. Wherefore 44 The Water -Babies his pursuers found it very difficult to catch him ; 720 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 725 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 730 a very different sort of place from what he had fancied. He pushed into a thick cover of rhodo- dendrons, 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, 735 made him shut his eyes tight (though that was no great loss, for he could not see at best a yard before his nose) ; and when he got through the rhododendrons, the hassock-grass and sedges tumbled him over, and cut his poor little fingers 740 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 745 they had sharks' teeth — which lawyers are likely enough to have. "I must get out of this," thought Tom, "or I The Water-Babies 45 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. 750 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 755 pleasant, especially if it is a loose wall/ with the stones all set on edge, and a sharp cornered one hits you between the eyes and makes you see all manner of beautiful stars. The stars are very beautiful, certainly; but unfortunately they go?co 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 765 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. 770 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. 775 He knew as well as a stag that if he backed he 46 The Water-Babies might throw the hounds out. So the first thing he did when he was over the wall was to make the neatest double sharp to his right, and run 780 along under the wall for nearly half a mile. Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the steward, and the gardener, and the ploughman, and the dairymaid, and all the hue-and-cry together, went on ahead half a mile in the very 785 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 790 to the bottom of it, and then he turned 1 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 795 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 8oo 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 805 sight of her ; and they could do no less. For The Water-Babies 47 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 lyin* 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 m 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 fright-** ened 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 sun- shine; and the cubs jumped over her, and ran round her, and nibbled her paws, and lugged 48 The Water-Babies 835 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 84o 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. 845 And next he had a fright ; for, as he scrambled up a sandy brow — whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock- kick — something went off in his face, with a most horrid noise. He thought the ground had blown up, and the end of the world come. 850 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 855 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." 860 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 The Water-Babies 49 than the twelfth of August was; though the old grouse-cock was quite certain of it. ses 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." Butsvo 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 875 all she answered was: "Kick-kick-kick — go and catch spiders, go and catch spiders — kick." So Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why ; but he liked the great wide strange place, and the cool fresh bracing air. But he went more andsao more slowly as he got higher up the hill ; for now the ground grew very bad indeed. Instead of soft turf and springy heather, he met great patches of flat limestone rock, just like ill-made pavements, with deep cracks between the stones sss 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. 890 What would Tom have said if he had seen, walking over the moor behind him, the very 50 The Water-Babies same Irishwoman who had taken his part upon the road ? But whether it was that he looked too 895 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 9oo 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, 905 and still less to drink. The heath was full of bilberries and whim- berries; 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 910 he passed by a deep dark swallow-hole, going down into the earth, as if it was the chimney of some dwarf's house underground; and more than once, as he passed, he could hear water falling, trickling, tinkling, many many feet below. 915 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 920 with the heat, and he thought he heard church- bells ringing, a long way off. The Water -Babies 57 "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 925 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 moun-930 tain he could see — what could he not see ? Behind him, far below, was Harthover, and the dark woods, and the shining salmon river; and on his left, far below, was the town, and the smoking chimneys of the collieries; and far, far 935 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; 940 but he had sense to see that they were long miles away. And to his right rose moor after moor, hill after hill, till they faded away, blue into blue sky. But between him and those moors, and really at 945 his very feet, lay something, to which, as soon as Tom saw it, he determined to go, for that was the place for him. A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very nar- row, and filled with wood ; but through the wood, 050 52 The Water-Babies hundreds of feet below him, he could see a clear stream glance. Oh, if he could but get down to that stream! Then, by the stream, he saw the roof of a little cottage, and a little garden set out 955 in squares and beds. And there was a tiny little red thing moving in the garden, no bigger than a fly. As Tom looked down, he saw that it was a woman in a red petticoat. Ah! perhaps she would give him something to eat. And there 960 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 965 county after him; and he could get down there in five minutes. Tom was quite right about the hue-and-cry not having got thither; for he had come, without knowing it, the best part of ten miles from Harth- 970 over; 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 975 tired, and hungry, and thirsty ; while the church- bells rang so loud, he began to think that they must be inside his own head, and the river chimed and tinkled far below ; and this was the song which it sang: — ' Before him lay. . .great plains, and farms, and villages, amid dark knots of trees' 1 [S3] 54 The Water-Babies 980 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, ess And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings, Undented, for the undenled; Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. Dank and foul, dank and foul, By the smoky town in its murky cowl; 990 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 ? ess Shrink from me, turn from me, mother and child. Strong and free, strong and free, The floodgates are open, away to the sea, Free and strong, free and strong, Cleansing my streams as I hurry along, looo To the golden sands, and the leaping bar, And the taintless tide that awaits me afar. As I lose myself in the infinite main, Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again. Undefiled, for the undefiled; 1005 Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. So Tom went down ; and all the while he never saw the Irishwoman going down behind him. 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. CHAPTER II A MILE off, and a thousand feet down. So Tom found it; though it seemed as if he could have chucked a pebble on to theioio back of the woman in the red petticoat who was weeding in the garden, or even across the dale to the rocks beyond. For the bottom of the valley was just one field broad, and on the other side ran the stream; and above it, gray crag, 1015 gray down, gray stair, gray moor walled up to heaven. A quiet, silent, rich, happy place; a narrow crack cut deep into the earth ; so deep, and so out of the way, that the bad bogies can hardly find 1020 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 1025 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 1030 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. [57] 5# The Water-Babies io36 So Tom went to go down; and first he went down three hundred feet of steep heather, mixed up with loose brown gritstone, as rough as a file; which was not pleasant to his poor little heels, as he came bump, stump, jump, down 1040 the steep. And still he thought he could throw a stone into the garden. Then he went down three hundred feet of limestone terraces, one below the other, as straight as if a carpenter had ruled them with 1045 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. 1050 Then bump down a two-foot step of limestone. Then another bit of grass and flowers. Then bump down a one-foot step. Then another bit of grass and flowers for fifty yards, as steep as the house-roof, where he 1055 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 loeo garden, and frightened her out of her wits. Then, when he had found a dark narrow crack, full of green-stalked fern, such as hangs in the basket in the drawing-room, and had crawled The Water -Babies 59 down through it, with knees and elbows, as he would down a chimney, there was another grass wes slope, and another step, and so on, till — oh, dear me ! I wish it was all over ; and so did he. And yet he thought he could throw a stone into the old woman's garden. At last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs; wo white-beam with its great silver-backed leaves, and mountain-ash, and oak; and below them cliff and crag, cliff and crag, with great beds of crown-ferns and wood-sedge; while through the shrubs he could see the stream sparkling, and 1075 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 ioso himself on the top of a high cliff, instead of sitting down and crying for his baba (though he never had had any baba to cry for), he said, "Ah, this will just suit me!" though he was very tired; and down he went, by stock and stone, sedge and wss 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. io»o But he was getting terribly tired now. The burning sun on the fells had sucked him up; but 60 The Water-Babies the damp heat of the woody crag sucked him up still more; and the perspiration ran out of the 1095 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 1100 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 no5 smart as a gardener's dog with a polyanthus in his mouth. At last he got to the bottom. But, behold, it was not the bottom — as people usually find when they are coming down a mountain. For mo at the foot of the crag were heaps and heaps of fallen limestone of every size from that of your head to that of a stage-waggon, with holes between them full of sweet heath-fern; and before Tom got through them, he was out in the iii5 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 1120 ought to live, let you be as strong and healthy as you may : and when you are, you will find it a The Water-Babies 61 very ugly feeling. I hope that that day you may have a stout staunch friend by you who is not beat; for, if you have not, you had best lie where you are, and wait for better times, as poor "25 Tom did. He could not get on. The sun was burning, and yet he felt chill all over. He was quite empty, and yet he felt quite sick. There was but two hundred yards of smooth pasture between 1130 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 "35 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 "40 nibbled so at his hands and face wherever they could find a place free from soot, that at last he woke up, and stumbled away, down over a low wall, and into a narrow road, and up to the cottage-door. 1145 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 "50 62 The Water-Babies 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 nobodv knows. 1155 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 iieo old woman that ever was seen, in her red petti- coat, 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 "65 benches, twelve or fourteen neat, rosy, chubby little " children, learning their Chris-cross-row ; and gabble enough they made about it. Such a pleasant cottage it was, with a shiny clean stone floor, and curious old prints on the 1170 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. ins 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 Jiim rudely enough ; but Tom was too tired to care for that. "What art thou, and what dost want?" cried The Water-Babies 63 the old dame. "A chimney-sweep! Away withnso thee! I'll have no sweeps here." "Water," said poor little Tom, quite faint. "Water? There's plenty i' the beck," she said, quite sharply. "But I can't get there; I'm most clemmed nss with hunger and drought." And Tom sank down upon the door-step, and laid his head against the post. And the old dame looked at him through her spectacles one minute, and two, and three ;n9o 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 spec- tacles, and rose, and came to Tom. "Water's 1195 bad for thee; I'll give thee milk." And she toddled off into the next room, and brought a cup of milk and a bit of bread. Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then looked up, revived. 1200 "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?" 1205 "Why should I?" said Tom, and leant his head against the post. "And how got ye up there?" 64 The Water-Babies "I came over from the Place"; and Tom was 1210 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?" 1215 "No." "Bless thy little heart! and I'll warrant not. Why, God's guided the bairn, because he was innocent! Away from the Place, and over Harthover Fell, and down Lewthwaite Crag! 1220 Who ever heard the like, if God hadn't led him? Why dost not eat thy bread?" "I can't." "It's good enough, for I made it myself." "I can't," said Tom, and he laid his head on 1225 his knees, and then asked — "Is it Sunday?" "No, then; why should it be?" "Because I hear the church-bells ringing so." "Bless thy pretty heart! The bairn's sick. 1230 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 1235 him. She put him in an outhouse upon soft sweet hay and an old rug, and bade him sleep off his Artkr* - ^s c4S r - <&<, a ^ A/ 1 o w Cn~ a 5 $>. , l She toddled off into the next room, and brought a cup of milk" [65} 66 The Water-Babies walk, and she would come to him when school was over, in an hour's time. 1240 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 1245 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 i25o saying, "Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be. ' ' And then he heard the church-bells ring so loud, close to him too, that he was sure it must be Sunday, in spite of what the old dame had said; and he would go to church, and see 1255 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 i26o 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 1265 before him, saying continually, "I must be clean, I must be clean." He had got there on his own The Water-Babies 6j 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, 1270 and lay down on the grass, and looked into the clear, clear limestone water, with every pebble at the bottom bright and clean, while the little silver trout dashed about in fright at the sight of his black face; and he dipped his hand in and 1275 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^o enough with such ragged old things. And he put his poor hot sore feet into the water; and then his legs; and the farther he went in, the more the church-bells rang in his head. "Ah," said Tom, "I must be quick and wash 1285 myself; the bells are ringing quite loud now; and they will stop soon, and then the door will be shut, and I shall never be able to get in at all." Tom was mistaken: for in England the church doors are left open all service time, for everybody 1290 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 1295 68 The Water-Babies any peaceable person out of God's house, which belongs to all alike. But Tom did not know that, any more than he knew a great deal more which people ought to know. 1300 And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman, not behind him this time, but before. For just before he came to the river side, she had stept down into the cool clear water ; and her shawl and her petticoat floated off her, and the 1305 green water- weeds floated round her sides, and the white water-lilies floated round her head, and the fairies of the stream came up from the bottom and bore her away and down upon their arms; for she was the Queen of them all; and perhaps isio of more besides. "Where have you been?" they asked her. "I have been smoothing sick folks' pillows, and whispering sweet dreams into their ears; opening cottage casements, to let out the stifling 1315 air; coaxing little children away from gutters, and foul pools where fever breeds ; turning women from the gin-shop door, and staying men's hands as they were going to strike their wives; doing all I can to help those who will not help them- 1320 selves: 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. The Water -Babies 6g "But mind, maidens, he must not see you, or 1325 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." "30 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 1335 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 thewio 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 13*5 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 1350 found it out. It was merely that the fairies took him. Some people think that there are no fairies. jo The Water-Babies Cousin Cramchild tells little folks so in his Con- 1355 versations. Well, perhaps there are none — in Boston, U.S., where he was raised. There are only a clumsy lot of spirits there, who can't make people hear without thumping on the table: but they get their living thereby, and I suppose that iseo is all they want. And Aunt Agitate, in her Ar- guments 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 crino- 1365 lines 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 1370 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 1375 yet you can't see it; and so there may be fairies in the world, and they may be just what makes the world go round to the old tune of "C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour Quit fait la monde a la ronde:" isso and yet no one may be able to see them except those whose hearts are going round to that same tune. At all events, we will make believe that The Water -Babies 7 1 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 noi385 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 1390 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 ; 1395 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, woo 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 some- thing worth seeing between Haddon Wood and 1405 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 ai«o heath-cropper bred and born. J2 The Water-Babies So the old dame went in again quite sulky, thinking that little Tom had tricked her with a false story, and shammed ill, and then run away his again. But she altered her mind the next day. For, when Sir John and the rest of them had run themselves out of breath, and lost Tom, they went back again, looking very foolish. i«o 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 i«5 black chimney-sweep, crying and sobbing, and going to get up the chimney again. Of course, she was very much frightened: and no wonder. But that was all. The boy had taken nothing in the room; by the mark of his little sooty i«o 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 1435 the boy quietly up to him, without beating him, that he might be sure of the truth. For he took for granted, and Grimes too, that Tom had made his way home. But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that 1440 evening; and he went to the police-office, to The Water -Babies 73 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. 14 <5 So Mr. Grimes came up to Harthover next day with a very sour face ; but when he got there, Sir John was over the hills and far away; and Mr. Grimes had to sit in the outer servants' hall all day, and drink strong ale to wash away his "so 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, i«5 and lost himself; and he lies very heavily on my conscience, poor little lad. But I know what I will do." * So, at five the next morning up he got, and into his bath, and into his shooting- jacket and«fio gaiters, and into the stableyard, like a fine old English gentleman, with a face as red as a rose, and a hand as hard as a table, and a back as broad as a bullock's; and bade them bring his shooting pony, and the keeper to come on hisses 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 colour of a gravel-walk, with mahogany 74 The Water-Babies 1470 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 1475 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, "so and very light from the heat and drought. But that was why cunning old Sir John started at five in the morning. And at last he came to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and there he bayed, and looked up in their 1485 faces, as much as to say, "I tell you he is gone down there!" 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 1490 would have dared to face it. But if the dog said so, it must be true. "Heaven forgive us!" said Sir John. "If we find him at all, we shall find him lying at the bottom." And he slapped his great hand upon 1495 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!" 1500 The Water-Babies 75 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 1505 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 1510 as ever climbed a flue." So down over Lewthwaite Crag he went: a very smart groom he was at the top, and a very shabby one at the bottom; for. he tore his gaiters, and he tore his breeches, and he tore 1515 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 1520 top of it, of t'ould mare, noble old Beeswing herself, as natural as life ; so it was a really severe loss: but he never saw anything of Tom. And all the while Sir John and the rest were riding round, full three miles to the right, and 1525 back again, to get into Vendale, and to the foot of the crag. y6 The Water-Babies When they came to the old dame's school, all the children came out to see. And the old dame came i53o out too ; and when she saw Sir John, she curtsied very low, for she was a tenant of his. "Well, dame, and how are you?" said Sir John. "Blessings on you as broad as your back, Harthover," says she — she didn't call him Sir 1535 John, but only Harthover, for that is the fashion in the North country — "and welcome into Ven- dale : but you're no hunting the fox this time of the year?" "I am hunting, and strange game too," said he. 1540 "Blessings on your heart, and what makes you look so sad the morn?" "I'm looking for a lost child, a chimney- sweep, that is run away." "Oh, Harthover, Harthover," says she, "ye were 1545 always a just man and a merciful ; and ye '11 no harm the poor little lad if I give you tidings of him? " "Not I, not I, dame. I'm afraid we hunted him out of the house all on a miserable mistake, and the hound has brought him to the top of 1550 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 1555 heart '11 guide them right, if they will but hearken to it." And then she told Sir John all. The Water-Babies 77 "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 awayiseo 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. ises 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— wo found himself swimming about in the stream, being about four inches, or— that I may be accu- rate — 3.87902 inches long, and having round the parotid region of his fauces a set of external gills (I hope you understand all the big words) 1575 just like those of a sucking eft, which he mistook for a lace frill, till he pulled at them, found he hurt himself, and made up his mind that they were part of himself, and best left alone. In fact, the fairies had turned him into aisso 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 isks y8 The Water-Babies 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 1590 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 1595 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 leoo 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 1605 nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do. "But surely if there were water-babies, some- body would have caught one at least?" Well. How do you know that somebody has not? leio "But they would have put it into spirits, or into the Illustrated News, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing, and sent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley ,. to see what they would each say about it." The Water-Babies . 79 Ah, my dear little man! that does not follow ww 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^o 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 cor- ner, and is, as the great Sir Isaac Newton said, only a child picking up pebbles on the shore of ai625 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, orwso Professor Owen, or Professor Sedgwick, or Pro- fessor Huxley, or Mr. Darwin, or Professor Fara- day, 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 respect- less fully 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 whoi64o read Aunt Agitate's Arguments, or Cousin Cram- child's Conversations; or lads who go to popular lectures, and see a man pointing at a few big ugly 80 The Water-Babies pictures on the wall, or making nasty smells with 1645 bottles and squirts, for an hour or two, and calling that anatomy or chemistry — who talk about " cannot exist," and "contrary to nature." Wise men are afraid to say that there is anything contrary to nature, except what is contrary to i65o 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 "can- 1655 not." 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 i66o apt to astonish them suddenly by showing them, that though they say she cannot, yet she can, and what is more, will, whether they approve or not. And therefore it is, that there are dozens and lees 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 1670 shape from themselves, and these trees again pro- duce fresh seeds, to grow into fresh trees, they would have said, "The thing cannot be; it is The Water-Babies 81 contrary to nature." And they would have been quite as right in saying so, as in saying that most other things cannot be. ic?* 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«»o shape, and plan, and anatomy of the beast, and of his feet, and of his trunk, and of his grinders, and of his tusks, though they are not tusks at all, but two fore teeth run mad; and this is the section of his skull, more like a mushroom than aieso 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) mo thirteenth or fourteenth cousin to a rabbit, yet he is the wisest of all beasts, and can do every- thing save read, write, and cast accounts." People would surely have said, "Nonsense; your elephant is contrary to nature"; and havens 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 woo his country water turned to marble, and rain 82 The Water-Babies fell as feathers. They would tell you, the more they knew of science, "Your elephant is an im- possible monster, contrary to the laws of com- nosparative 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 1710 an impossible monster ? And do we not now know that there are hundreds of them found fossil up and down the world ? People call them Ptero- dactyles: but that is only because they are ashamed to call them flying dragons, after denying 1715 so long that flying dragons could exist. The truth is, that folks' fancy that such and such things cannot be, simply because they have not seen them, is worth no more than a savage's fancy that there cannot be such a thing as a mo locomotive, because he never saw one running wild in the forest. Wise men know that their business is to examine what is, and not to settle what is not. They know that there are elephants ; they know that there have been flying dragons; 1725 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 1730 double in the water ; and you may see that that is, The Water-Babies 83 if not quite true, still quite as true as most other theories which you are likely to hear for many a day. There are land-babies — then why not water-babies? Are there not water-rats, water-flies, water -crickets, water-crabs, water -tortoises, water- ms scorpions, water-tigers and water-hogs, water-cats and water-dogs, sea-lions and sea-bears, sea-horses and sea-elephants, sea-mice and sea-urchins, sea- razors and sea-pens, sea-combs and sea- fans; and of plants, are there not water-grass, and water-crow- mo foot, 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 1745 of cases, not only of the same family, but actually the same individual creatures. Do not even you know that a green drake, and an alder-fly, and a dragon-fly, live under water till they change their skins, just as Tom changed his ? And 1750 if a water animal can continually change into a land animal, why should not a land animal some- times change into a water animal? Don't be put down by any of Cousin Cramchild's arguments, but stand up to him like a man, and answer him 1755 (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 84 The Water-Babies mother!, 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 1765 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 1770 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 1775 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 hap- pen, till he has seen what strange things do happen every day. nso 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 com- n85 mon goose-barnacles, which one finds sticking on ships' bottoms; or the still stranger degra- dation of some cousins of theirs, of which one hardly likes to talk, so shocking and ugly it is? The Water-Babies 85 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 ww 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 won-isoo derful 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 ofisos us, in coming into this world, go through a trans- formation 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 transforma- tion is not the last? and that, though what wewio 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 Cram- isis child, if he sees even less than they. And so forth, and so forth, till he is quite cross. And 86 The Water-Babies then tell him that if there are no water-babies, at least there ought to be; and that, at least, he 1820 cannot answer. And meanwhile, my dear little man, till you know a great deal more about nature than Professor Owen and Professor Huxley put to- gether, don't tell me about what cannot be, or 1825 fancy that anything is too wonderful to be true. "We are fearfully and wonderfully made," said old David; and so we are; and so is everything around us, down to the very deal table. Yes; much more fearfully and wonderfully made, i83o 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 1835 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 i84o 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 1845 was quite alive; and cleaner, and merrier, than he ever had been. The fairies had washed him, The Water-Babies 87 you see, in the swift river, so thoroughly, that not only his dirt, but his whole husk and shell had been washed quite off him, and the pretty little real Tom was -washed out of the inside of isso it, and swam away, as a caddis does when its case of stones and silk is bored through, and away it goes on its back, paddling to the shore, there to split its skin, and fly away as a caperer, on four fawn-coloured wings, with long legsisss and horns. They are foolish fellows, the ca- perers, 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. i860 But good Sir John did not understand all this, not being a fellow of the Linnaean Society; and he took it into his head that Tom was drowned. When they looked into the empty pockets of his shell, and found no jewels there, nor money — 1865 nothing but three marbles, and a brass button with a string to it — then Sir John did something as like crying as ever he did in his life, and blamed himself more bitterly than he need have done. So he cried, and the groom-boy cried, and the wo 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 ws 88 The Water-Babies 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 i88o milk out of leather: and Grimes did not cry, for Sir John gave him ten pounds, and he drank it all in a week. Sir John sent, far and wide, to find Tom's father and mother: but he might have looked till Doomsday for them, for one was dead, 1885 and the other was in Botany Bay. And the little girl would not play with her dolls for a whole week, and never forgot poor little Tom. And soon My Lady put a pretty little tombstone over Tom's shell in the little churchyard in i89oVendale, 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 1895 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 i9oo 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 ; The Water -Babies 8g Then hey for boot and horse, lad, 1905 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 ; 1910 And all the sport is stale, lad, And all the wheels run down ; Creep home, and take your place there, The spent and maimed among : God grant you find one face there, 1^3 You loved when all was young. Those are the words: but they are only the body of it : the soul of the song was the dear old woman's sweet face, and sweet voice, and the sweet old air to which she sang ; and that, alas ! one can- 1920 not 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 1925 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 1930 clean as a fresh-run salmon. Now if you don't like my story, then go to the go The Water-Babies schoolroom and learn your multiplication-table, and see if you like that better. Some people, no 1935 doubt, would do so. So much the better for us, if not for them. It takes all sorts, they say, to make a world. He prayeth well who loveth well 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. CHAPTER III TOM was now quite amphibious. You do not know what that means? You had better, then, ask the nearest Go vernment imo pupil-teacher, who may possibly answer you smartly enough, thus — "Amphibious. Adjective, derived from two Greek words, amphi, a fish, and bios, a beast. An animal supposed by our ignorant ancestors to be 1945 compounded of a fish and a beast; which there- fore, like the hippopotamus, can't live on the land, and dies in the water." However that may be, Tom was amphibious: and what is better still, he was clean. For the 1950 first time in his life, he felt how comfortable it was to have nothing on him but himself. But he only enjoyed it: he did not know it, or think about it; just as you enjoy life and health, and yet never think about being alive and healthy; 1955 and may it be long before you have to think about it! He did not remember having ever been dirty. Indeed, he did not remember any of his old troubles, being tired, or hungry, or beaten, or sent^o up dark chimneys. Since that sweet sleep, he had forgotten all about his master, and Harth- over Place, and the little white girl, and in a word, all that had happened to him when he lived [93] Q4 The Water-Babies W65 before; and what was best of all, he had forgot- ten 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 i97o came into this world, and became a land-baby, you remembered nothing. So why should he, when he became a water-baby? Then have you lived before? My dear child, who can tell? One can only 1975 tell that, by remembering something which happened where he lived before; and as we re- member 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, W80 and a very good man, who wrote a poem about the feelings which some children have about having lived before; and this is what he said — Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ; The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 1985 Hath elsewhere had its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 1990 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 The Water-Babies 95 all the fairies for many a year to come, can only do you good, and never do you harm ; and instead. 1995 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 2000 out with the first shake;— you will believe the one true, orthodox, inductive, rational, deductive, philosophical, seductive, 2005 logical, productive, irrefragable, salutary, nominalistic, comfortable, realistic, and on-all-accounts-to-be-received 2010 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 2015 little heathen Tom did. For he went downward into the water: but we, I hope, shall go upward to a very different place. But Tom was very happy in the water. He had been sadly overworked in the land-world ; 2020 and so now, to make up for that, he had nothing g6 The Water-Babies but holidays in the water-world for a long, long time to come. He had nothing to do now but enjoy himself, and look at all the pretty things 2025 which are to be seen in the cool clear water- world, where the sun is never too hot, and the frost is never too cold. And what did he live on? Water-cresses, perhaps ; or perhaps water-gruel, and water-milk ; 2030 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 203s 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 2040 the caddises eating dead sticks as greedily as you would eat plum-pudding, and building their houses with silk and glue. Very fanciful ladies they were ; none of them would keep to the same materials for a day. One would begin with some 2045 pebbles ; then she would stick on a piece of green wood ; then she found a shell, and stuck it on too ; and the poor shell was alive, and did not like at all being taken to build houses with: but the caddis did not let him have any voice in the matter, 2050 being rude and selfish, as vain people are apt 2060 The Water-Babies 97 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, 2055 and I'll have one too"; and she stuck it on her back, and marched about with it quite proud, though it was very inconvenient indeed. And, at that, tails became all the fashion among the caddis-baits in that pool, as they were at the end of the Long Pond last May, and they all toddled about with long straws sticking out behind, getting between each other's legs, and tumbling over each other, and looking so ridiculous, that Tom laughed at them till he cried, as we did.2065 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 2070 have looked to you only little weeds : but Tom, you must remember, was so little that every- thing 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 2075 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 q8 The Water-Babies 2080 the water, except efts and water-babies); and nimbly enough they ran among the branches. There were water-flowers there too, in thousands ; and Tom tried to pick them: but as soon as he touched them, they . drew themselves in and 2085 turned into knots of jelly ; and then Tom saw that they were all alive — bells, and stars, and wheels, and flowers, of all beautiful shapes and colours; and all alive and busy, just as Tom was. So now he found that there was a great deal more in the 2090 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 2095 wheels in a thrashing-machine; and Tom stood and stared at him, to see what he was going to make with his machinery. And what do you think he was doing? Brick-making. With his two big wheels he swept together all the mud 2100 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; 2105 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 The Water Babies QQ to him the brick-maker was much too busy and proud of his work to take notice of him. 2110 Now you must know that all the things under the water talk ; only not such a language as ours ; but such as horses, and dogs, and cows, and birds talk to each other; and Tom soon learned to understand them and talk to them; so that he 2115 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 2120 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, 2125 as monkeys have, that is no reason why they should give way to those tricks like monkeys, who know no better. And therefore they must not torment dumb creatures; for if they do, a certain old lady who is coming will surely give 2130 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 2135 to speak to or play with. The water-fairies, of course, were very sorry ioo The Water-Babies to see him so unhappy, and longed to take him, and tell him how naughty he was, and teach him 2140 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 2145 yearning over them all the while, and longing to teach them what they can only teach themselves. At last one day he found a caddis, and wanted it to peep out of its house; but its house-door was shut. He had never seen a caddis with a 2150 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 would you like to have any one breaking your bedroom-door in, to see how you 2155 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 2160 the shape of a bird's. But when Tom spoke to her she could not answer; for her mouth and * face were tight tied up in a new night-cap of neat pink skin. However, if she didn't answer, all the other caddises did; for they held up their hands 2105 and shrieked like the cats in Struwelpeter : "Oh, you nasty horrid boy; there you are at it The Water-Babies 101 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 2170 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; 2175 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, 2180 and jumped clean out of water in their fright. But as Tom chased them, he came close to a great dark hover under an alder root, and out floushed a huge old brown trout ten times as big as he was, and ran right against him, and knocked all the2i85 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 de- served to be ; and under a bank he saw a very ugly dirty creature sitting, about half as big aszwo 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 2195 2200 102 The Water-Babies 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 2205 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 2210 wings; and I want to split too. Don't speak to me. I am sure I shall split. I will split ! " Tom stood still, and watched him. And he swelled himself, and puffed, and stretched him- self out stiff, and at last — crack, puff, bang — he 2215 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 2220 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. The Water-Babies 103 Tom was so astonished that he never said a 2225 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 2230 strong and firm; the most lovely colours began to show on its body, blue and yellow and black, spots and bars and rings ; out of its back rose four great wings of bright brown gauze; and its eyes grew so large that they filled all its head, and 2235 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 2240 settled down again by Tom quite fearless. "No!" it said, "you cannot catch me. I am a dragon-fly now, the king of all the flies; and I shall dance in the sunshine, and hawk over the river, and catch gnats, and have a beautiful 2245 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 2250 with, and I am so lonely here. If you will but come back I will never try to catch you." "I don't care whether you do or not," said 104 The Water-Babies the dragon-fly ; "for you can't. But when I have 2255 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!" 2260 It was only a big dock: but you know the dragon-fly had never seen any but little water- trees; starwort, and milfoil, and water-crowfoot, and such like; so it did look very big to him. Besides, he was very short-sighted, as all 2265 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 2270 his fine colours and his large wings; but you know, he had been a poor dirty ugly creature all his life before ; so there were great excuses for him. He was very fond of talking about. all the wonderful things he saw in the trees and the 2275 meadows ; and Tom liked to listen to him, for he had forgotten all about them. So in a little while they became great friends. And I am very glad to say, that Tom learned such a lesson that day, that he did not torment 2280 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 The Water-Babies 105 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 2285 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 22*0 he used to try to leap out of the water, head over heels, as they did before a shower came on; but somehow he never could manage it. He liked most, though, to see them rising at the flies, as they sailed round and round under the 2295 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 2300 hauled themselves up again into the tree, roll- ing up the rope in a ball between their paws; which is a very clever rope-dancer's trick, and neither Blondin nor Leotard could do it : but why they should take so much trouble about it no 2305 one can tell; for they cannot get their living, as Blondin and Leotard do, by trying to break their necks on a string. And very often Tom caught them just as they touched the water ; and caught the alder-flies, 2310 and the caperers, and the cock-tailed duns and 106 The Water-Babies spinners, yellow, and brown, and claret, and gray, and gave them to his friends the trout. Perhaps he was not quite kind to the flies; but 2315 one must do a good turn to one's friends when one can. And at last he gave up catching even the flies; for he made acquaintance with one by accident and found him a very merry little 2320 fellow. And this was the way it happened; and it is all quite true. He was basking at the top of the water one hot day in July, catching duns and feeding the trout, when he saw a new sort, a dark gray little 2325 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 2330 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 ringer, and sat there as bold as nine tailors; and he cried out in the tiniest, 2335 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. 2340 "Your leg, which you are kind enough to The Water-Babies io*j hold out for me to sit on. I must just go and see after my wife for a few minutes Dear me! what a troublesome business a family is!" (though the idle little rogue did nothing at all, but left his poor wife to lay all the eggs by herself). " When 2345 I come back, I shall be glad of it, if you'll be so good as to keep it sticking out just so" ; and off he flew. Tom thought him a very cool sort of person- age; and still more so, when, in five minutes 2350 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. 2355 "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 gray23eo 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 respect- able, and all that sort of thing for a little, 2365 when one becomes a family man. But I'm tired of it, that's the truth. I've done quite enough business, I consider, in the last week, to last me my life. So I shall put on a ball dress, and go 108 The Water-Babies 2370 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, 2375 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 2380 then quite white. "Why, you're ill!" said Tom. But he did not answer. "You're dead," said Tom, looking at him as he stood on his knee as white as a ghost. 2385 "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 23»o Robin, nor Frikell, nor all the conjurors in the world. For the little rogue had jumped clean out of his own skin, and left it standing on Tom's knee, eyes, wings, legs, tail, exactly as if it had been alive. 2395 "Ha, ha!" he said, and he jerked and skipped up and down, never stopping an instant, just as if he had St. Vitus's dance. "Ain't I a pretty fellow now?" The Water-Babies i°9 And so he was; for his body was white, and his tail orange, and his eyes all the colours of a 2*00 peacock's tail. And what was the oddest of all, the whisks at the end of his tail had grown five times as long as they were before. "Ah!" said he, "now I will see the gay world. My living won't cost me much, for I have no 2405 mouth, you see, and no inside ; so I can never be hungry nor have the stomach-ache neither." No more he had. He had grown as dry and hard and empty as a quill, as such silly shallow- hearted fellows deserve to grow. 241 ° But, instead of being ashamed of his emptiness, he was quite proud of it, as a good many fine gentlemen are, and began flirting and flipping up and down, and singing— My wife shall dance, and I shall sing, 2415 So merrily pass the day ; For I hold it for quite the wisest tning, To drive dull care away. And he danced up and down for three days and three nights, till he grew so tired, that he 2420 tumbled into the water, and floated down. But what became of him Tom never knew, and he himself never minded; for Tom heard him sing- ing to the last, as he floated down- To drive dull care away -ay-ay! ww And if he did not care, why nobody else cared either. HO The Water-Babies But one day Tom had a new adventure. He was sitting on a water-lily leaf, he and his friend 2430 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) 2435 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 comb- ing his hair with his paws: but the dragon-fly never stirred, and kept on chatting to Tom about 2440 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 2445 a blind puppy, and left them there to settle themselves and make music. He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as the noise; a great ball rolling over and over down the stream, seeming one 2450 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. 2455 Tom asked the dragon-fly what it could be: but, of course, with his short sight, he could not The Water-Babies III 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 2460 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. 2455 And if you don't believe me, you may go to the Zoological Gardens (for I am afraid that you won't see it nearer, unless, perhaps, you get up at five in the morning, and go down to Cordery's Moor, and watch by the great withy pollard which 2470 hangs over the backwater, where the otters breed sometimes), and then say, if otters at play in the water are not the merriest, lithest, grace- fullest creatures you ever saw. But, when the biggest of them saw Tom, she 2475 darted out from the rest, and cried in the water- language sharply enough, "Quick, children, here is something to eat, indeed!" and came at poor Tom, showing such a wicked pair of eyes, and such a set of sharp teeth in a grinning mouth, 24so that Tom, who had thought her very handsome, said to himself, Handsome is that handsome does, and slipped in between the water-lily roots as fast as he could, and then turned round and made faces at her. 2485 112 The Water-Babies "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, 2490 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. 2495 "Come away, children," said the otter in dis- gust, "it is not worth eating, after all. It is only a nasty eft, which nothing eats, not even those vulgar pike in the pond." "I am not an eft!" said Tom; "efts have tails." 25oo ' ' You are an eft, ' ' said the otter, very positively ; "I see your two hands quite plain, and I know you have a tail." "I tell you I have not," said Tom. "Look here!" and he turned his pretty little self quite 2505 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 2510 stood to it, right or wrong; so she answered: "I say you are an eft, and therefore you are, and not fit food for gentlefolk like me and my children. You may stay there till the salmon eat you (she knew the salmon would not, but The Water-Babies nj she wanted to frighten poor Tom). Ha! ha! 2515 they will eat you, and we will eat them," and the otter laughed such a wicked cruel laugh — as you may hear them do sometimes; and the first time that you hear it you will probably think it is bogies. 2520 "What are salmon?" asked Tom. "Fish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat. They are the lords of the fish, and we are lords of the salmon"; and she laughed again. "We hunt them up and down the pools, and drive 2525 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 2530 their soft throats and suck their sweet juice — Oh, so good!" — (and she licked her wicked lips) — "and then throw them away, and go and catch another. They are coming soon, children, coming soon; I can smell the rain coming up 2535 off the sea, and then hurrah for a fresh, and sal- mon, 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. 2540 "And where do they come from?" asked Tom, who kept himself very close, for he was considerably frightened. H4 The Water -Babies "Out of the sea, eft, the great wide sea, where 2545 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 2550 fish for the bass and the pollock, and have jolly days along the shore, and toss and roll in the breakers, and sleep snug in the warm dry crags. Ah, that is a merry life too, children, if it were not for those horrid men." 2555 "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 2560 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 2565 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 2570 them carrying him away upon a pole. Ah, he lost his life for your sakes, my children, poor dear obedient creature that he was." The Water -Babies 115 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 2575 greedy, and no good to anybody at all) that she sailed solemnly away down the burn, and Tom saw her no more for that time. And lucky it was for her that she did so ; for no sooner was she gone, than down the bank came seven 2580 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. 2595 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 2590 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. 2595 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. Il6 The Water-Babies And then, on the evening of a very hot day, he saw a sight. He had been very stupid all day, and so had 2605 the trout; for they would not move an inch to take a fly, though there were thousands on the water, but lay dozing at the bottom under the shade of the stones ; and Tom lay dozing too, and was glad to cuddle their smooth cool sides, for 26io 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 2615 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 2620 him pop his head down quickly enough. And then the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed, and leapt across Vendale and back again, from cloud to cloud, and cliff to cliff, till the very rocks in the stream seemed to shake: and Tom 2625 looked up at it through the water, and thought it the finest thing he ever saw in his life. But out of the water he dared not put his head; for the rain came down by bucketsful, and the hail hammered like shot on the stream, 2680 and churned it into foam; and soon the stream The Water-Babies nj rose, and rushed down, higher and higher, and fouler and fouler, full of beetles, and sticks, and straws, and worms, and addle-eggs, and wood-lice, and leeches, and odds and ends, and omnium- gatherums, and this, that, and the other, enough 2635 to fill nine museums. Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and hid behind a rock. But the trout did not; for out they rushed from among the stones, and began gobbling the beetles and leeches in the 26*0 most greedy and quarrelsome way, and swimming about with great worms hanging out of their mouths, tugging and kicking to get them away from each other. And now, by the flashes of the lightning, Tom =6*5 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 2650 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 2655 run, we must run. What a jolly thunderstorm! Down to the sea, down to the sea!" And then the otter came by with all her brood, twining and sweeping along as fast as the eels n8 The Water -Babies 2660 themselves; and she spied Tom as she came by, and said: "Now is your time, eft, if you want to see the world. Come along, children, never mind those nasty eels: we shall breakfast on salmon to- 2665 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 2670 little white girls, with their arms twined round each other's necks, floating down the torrent, as they sang, "Down to the sea, down to the sea!" "Oh stay! Wait for me!" cried Tom; but they were gone: yet he could hear their voices 2675 clear and sweet through the roar of thunder and water and wind, singing as they died away, "Down to the sea!" "Down to the sea?" said Tom; "everything is going to the sea, and I will go too. Good-bye, 2680 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 2685 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 The Water-Babies ng which great trout rushed out on Tom, thinking him to be good to eat, and turned back sulkily, zeoo for the fairies sent them home again with a tremendous scolding, for daring to meddle with a water-baby ; on through narrow strids and roar- ing cataracts, where Tom was deafened and blinded for a moment by the rushing waters ;26»5 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 2700 see the great world below, and the salmon, and the breakers, and the wide wide sea. And when the daylight came, Tom found him- self out in the salmon river. And what sort of a river was it? Was it like 2705 an Irish stream, winding through the brown bogs, where the wild ducks squatter up from among the white water-lilies, and the curlews flit to and fro, crying "Tullie-wheep, mind your sheep" ; and Dennis tells you strange stories of the 2710 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 ; 2715 for if you ask him : "Is there a salmon here, do you think, Dennis?" 120 The Water-Babies "Is it salmon, thin, your honour manes? Salmon? Cartloads it is of thim, thin, an' ridg- 2720 mens, shouldthering ache out of water, av' ye'd but the luck to see thim." Then you fish the pool all over, and never get a rise. "But there can't be a salmon here, Dennis! 2725 and, if you'll but think, if one had come up last tide, he'd be gone to the higher pools by now." "Shure thin, and your honour's the thrue fisherman, and understands it all like a book. Why, ye spake as if ye'd known the wather a 2730 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 «73o handsome, sly, soft, sleepy, good-natured, un- trustable, Irish gray eye, and answer with the prettiest smile: "Shure, and didn't I think your honour Would like a pleasant answer?" wo So you must not trust Dennis, because he is in the habit of giving pleasant answers : but, instead of being angry with him, you must remember that he is a poor Paddy, and knows no better ; so you must just burst out laughing; and then he w«will burst out laughing too, and slave for you, and trot about after you, and show you good sport The Water-Babies 121 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 2750 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) 2755 for containing no salmon, as they have been all poached out by the enlightened peasantry, to prevent the Cythrawl Sassenach (which means you, my little dear, your kith and kin, and signi- fies much the same as the Chinese Fan Quel)™ from coming bothering into Wales, with good tackle, and ready money, and civilisation, and common honesty, and other like things of which the Cymry stand in no need whatsoever? Or was it such a salmon stream as I trust you 2755 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 2770 days a week; and fresh-run fish shall be as plentiful under Salisbury spire as they are in Holly-hole at Christchurch ; in the good time coming, when folks shall see that, of all Heaven's gifts of food, the one to be protected most carefully 2775 122 The Water-Babies 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 2780 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 .... 2785 Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under; Beautiful most of all, where beads of foam uprising Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the stillness .... Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendant birch boughs . . . Ah, my little man, when you are a big man, 2790 and fish such a stream as that, you will hardly care, I think, whether she be roaring down in full spate, like coffee covered with scald cream, while the fish are swirling at your fly as an oar-blade swirls in a boat-race, or flashing up the cataract 2795 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 2800 away their time till the rain creeps back again off the sea. You will not care much, if you have The Water-Babies 123 eyes and brains ; for you will lay down your rod contentedly, and drink in at your eyes the beauty of that glorious place ; and listen to the water-ouzel piping on the stones, and watch the yellow roes 2905 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 onssio the stone beside you. He will tell you no fibs, my little man; for he is a Scotchman, and fears God, and not the priest; and, as you talk with him, you will be surprised more and more at his knowledge, his sense, his humour, his courtesy 52315 and you will find out — unless you have found it out before — that a man may learn from his Bible to be a more thorough gentleman than if he had been brought up in all the drawing-rooms in London. . 2820 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, 2825 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 sky283o 124 The Water-Babies the smoking chimney of a colliery. You must look at Bewick to see just what it was like, for he has drawn it a hundred times with the care and the love of a true North-countryman; and, 2835 even if you do not care about the salmon river, you ought, like all good boys, to know your Bewick. At least, so old Sir John used to say, and very sensibly he put it too, as he was wont to do : 2840. "If they want to describe a finished young gentleman in France, I hear, they say of him, '11 sail 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." 2845 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, 2850 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 fright- ened. "This must be the sea," he thought. "What a wide place it is ! If I go on into it I shall 2855 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 The Water-Babies I2 $ a crack of the rock, just where the river opened 2 8 eo 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 he2 8 e 5 woke, the stream was clearing to a beautiful amber hue, though it was still very high. And after a while he saw a sight which made him jump up; for he knew in a moment it was one of the things which he had come to look for. 28 7o 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, 2375 and here and there a crimson dot ; with a grand hooked nose and grand curling lip, and a grand bright eye, looking round him as proudly as a king, and surveying the water right and left as if all belonged to him. Surely he must be the2 88 o 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, likens true gentlemen, they never harm or quarrel with any one, but go about their own business, and leave rude fellows to themselves. 126 The Water-Babies The salmon looked at him full in the face, and 2890 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 2895 strong strokes of their silver tails, now and then leaping clean out of water and up over a rock, shining gloriously for a moment in the bright sun ; while Tom was so delighted that he could have watched them all day long. 2900 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 sal- mon, an especially handsome one, who had not 2905 a single spot upon it, but was clothed in pure silver from nose to tail. "My dear," said the great fish to his com- panion, "you really look dreadfully tired, and you must not over-exert yourself at first. Do rest 2910 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 2915 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 "The salmon looked at him full in the face 1 [127J 128 The Water-Babies and pike, who have no high feelings, and take no care of their wives. 2920 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. 2925 "Oh, don't hurt me!" cried Tom. "I only want to look at you; you are so handsome." "Ah?" said the salmon, very stately but very civilly. "I really beg your pardon; I see what you are, my little dear. I have met one or two 2930 creatures like you before, and found them very agreeable and well-behaved. Indeed, one of them showed me a great kindness lately, which I hope to be able to repay. I hope we shall not be in your way here. As soon as this lady is 2935 rested, we shall proceed on our journey." What a well-bred old salmon he was! "So you have seen things like me before?" asked Tom. "Several times, my dear. Indeed, it was only 2940 last night that one at the river's mouth came and warned me and my wife of some new stake-nets which had got into the stream, I cannot tell how, since last winter, and showed us the way round them, in the most charmingly obliging way." 29« "So there are babies in the sea?" cried Tom, and clapped his little hands. "Then I shall have The Water-Babies 12Q 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 2950 three last night; but they were gone in an in- stant, 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 !" 2955 "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, 2900 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 2965 her lip, and looked dreadfully scornful, while her husband curled up his too, till he looked as proud as Alcibiades. "Why do you dislike the trout so?" asked Tom. "My dear, we do not even mention them, if we29?o can help it ; for I am sorry to say they are relations of ours who do us no credit. A great many years ago they were just like us: but they were so lazy, and cowardly, and greedy, that instead of going down to the sea every year to see the world and 2975 130 The Water-Babies grow strong and fat, they chose to stay and poke about in the little streams and eat worms and 4 grubs; and they are very properly punished for it; for they have grown ugly and brown and 2980 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 2»85 salmon, the little impudent little creature." "I should hope," said the gentleman, "that there are very few ladies of our race who would degrade themselves by listening to such a creature for an instant. If I saw such a thing happen, I should 2»8o consider it my duty to put them both to death upon the spot." So the old salmon said, like an old blue-blooded hidalgo of Spain; and what is more, he would have done it too. For you must know, no enemies are so bitter against each 2995 other as those who are of the same race; and a salmon looks on a trout, as some great folks look on some little folks, as something just too much like himself to be tolerated. 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. 3000 3005 CHAPTER IV SO the salmon went up, after Tom had warned them of the wicked old otter ; and Tom went down, but slowly and cautiously, coasting along the shore. He was many days about it, for it was many miles down to the sea ; and perhaps he would never have found his way, if the fairies had not guided him, without his seeing their fair faces, or feeling their gentle hands. And, as he went, he had a very strange adven- ture. It was a clear still September night, and the moon shone so brightly down through the 3010 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 3015 she looked at him. And he watched the moon- light 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 3020 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, 3025 [133] 134 The Water-Babies 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 beautifu. sight. A bright 3030 red light moved along the river-side, and threw down into the water a long tap-root of flame. Tom, curious little rogue that he was, must needs go and see what it was ; so he swam to the shore, and met the light as it stopped over a shallow run 3035 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. 3040 Tom came to the top, to look at this wonderful light nearer, and made a splash. And he heard a voice say: "There was a fish rose." He did not know what the words meant: but 3045 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 3050 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 : The Water-Babies 135 "Tak' that muckle fellow, lad; he's ower fifteen 3055 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 3060 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 3oes three men three other men; and there were shouts, and blows, and words which Tom recol- lected 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, 3070 and horrible. And it all began to come back to him. They were men; and they were fighting; savage, desperate, up-and-down fighting, such as Tom had seen too many times before. And he stopped his little ears, and longed to 3075 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 hissoso head with the trampling and struggling of the keepers and the poachers. All of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, Ij6 The Water-Babies and a frightful flash, and a hissing, and all was still. 3085 For into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the men; he who held the light in his hand. Into the swift river he sank, and rolled over and over in the current. Tom heard the men above run along, seemingly looking for him ; but he drifted 3090 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 3095 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, 3100 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, 3105 bit by bit, it was his old master, Grimes. Tom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he could. "Oh dear me!" he thought, "now he will turn into a water-baby. What a nasty troublesome 3iio 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 The Water-Babies ioy 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 3115 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 3120 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 3125 man; Mr. Grimes did not turn into a water- baby, or anything like one at all. But he did not make himself easy ; and a long time he was fearful lest he should meet Grimes suddenly in some deep pool. He could not know that the fairies 3130 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. 3135 And it is quite certain that, when a man becomes a confirmed poacher, the only way to cure him is to put him under water for twenty-four hours, like Grimes. So when you grow to be a big man, do you behave ; as all honest fellows should; and 3140 never touch a fish or a head of game which belongs Ij8 The Water-Babies 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: 3145 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 3iso 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, folio w- 3155 ing the flow of the stream, day after day, past great bridges, past boats and barges, past the great town, with its wharfs, and mills, and tall smoking chimneys, and ships which rode at anchor in the stream; and now and then he ran 3i6o against their hawsers, and wondered what they were, and peeped out, and saw the sailors loung- ing 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 3i65 once more. He did not know that the fairies were close to him always, shutting the sailors' eyes lest they should see him, and turning him aside from millraces, and sewer-mouths, and all foul and dangerous things. Poor little fellow, it was 3170 a dreary journey for him; and more than once The Water-Babies ijg 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. 3175 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 3iso will remain neither boys nor men, neither fish, flesh, nor good red-herring : having learnt a great deal too much, and yet not enough; and sown their wild oats, without having the advantage of reaping them. 3185 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, 3190 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 3195 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, 140 The Water-Babies 3200 just as the salmon do when they first touch the noble rich salt water, which, as some wise men tell us, is the mother of all living things. He did not care now for the tide being against him. The red buoy was in sight, dancing in the 3205 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 com- 3210 ing in after the mullet. The seal put his head and shoulders out of water, and stared at him, looking exactly like a fat old greasy negro with a gray pate. And Tom, instead of being frightened, said, "How d'ye do, sir; what a beautiful place 3215 the sea is!" And the old seal, instead of trying to bite him, looked at him with his soft sleepy winking eyes, and said, "Good tide to you, my little man; are you looking for your brothers and sisters? I passed them all at play outside." 3220 "Oh, then," said Tom, "I shall have playfellows at last," and he swam on to the buoy, and got upon it (for he was quite out of breath) and sat there, and looked round for water-babies: but there were none to be seen. 3225 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 The Water -Babies 141 clouds ran races over the bright blue bay, and yet never caught each other up; and the breakers 3230 plunged merrily upon the wide white sands, and jumped up over the rocks, to see what the green fields inside were like, and tumbled down and broke themselves all to pieces, and never minded it a bit, but mended themselves and jumped up 3235 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 3240 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 3245 vain. Sometimes he thought he heard them laughing: but it was only the laughter of the ripples. And sometimes he thought he saw them at the bottom: but it was only white and pink shells. And once he was sure he had found 3250 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 3255 and mouth all awry, and flopped away along the bottom, knocking poor Tom over. And he sat 142 The Water-Babies down at the bottom of the sea, and cried salt tears from sheer disappointment. 3260 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 3265 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. 3270 Then he began to ask all the strange things which come 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 3275 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 3280 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 3285 mid-ocean, with the warm sunshine above our heads, and the warm gulf -stream below ; and that The Water-Babies 143 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 3290 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 3295 big fins he had only a little rabbit's mouth, no bigger than Tom's; and, when Tom questioned him, he answered in a little squeaky feeble voice : "I'm sure I don't know; I've lost my way. I meant to go to the Chesapeake, and I'm afraid 3300 I've got wrong somehow. Dear me! it was all by following that pleasant warm water. I'm sure I've lost my way." And, when Tom asked him again, he could only answer, "I've lost my way. Don't talk to 3305 me; I want to think." But, like a good many other people, the more he tried to think the less he could think; and Tom saw him blundering about all day, till the coast-guardsmen saw his big fin above the water, 3310 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. 3315 144 The Water-Babies Then there came by a shoal of porpoises, roll- ing as they went — papas, and mammas, and little children — and all quite smooth and shiny, because the fairies French-polish them every 3320 morning; and they sighed so softly as they came by, that Tom took courage to speak to them: but all they answered was, "Hush, hush, hush"; for that was all they had learnt to say. And then there came a shoal of basking sharks, 3325 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 3330 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 backfms out of water ; and winked at Tom: but he never could get them to speak. 3335 They had eaten so many herrings that they were quite stupid; and Tom was glad when a collier brig came by and frightened them all away; for they did smell most horribly, certainly, and he had to hold his nose tight as long as they were 3340 there. And then there came by a beautiful creature, like a ribbon of pure silver with a sharp head and very long teeth ; but it seemed* very sick and sad. Sometimes it rolled helpless on its side ; and then The Water-Babies 145 it dashed away glittering like white fire ; and then 3345 it lay sick again and motionless. 1 ' Where do you come from ? ' ' asked Tom. ' 'And why are you so sick and sad?" "I come from the warm Carolinas, and the sandbanks fringed with pines; where the great 3350 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 3355 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." 3360 "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 por- poise." 3365 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. 3370 Arnold's beautiful, beautiful poem, which you must learn by heart some day — and sit upon a point of rock, among the shining sea-weeds, in the 1^6 The Water-Babies low October tides, and cry and call for the water- 3475 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 3380 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 con- science or the Victoria Cross. 3385 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 3390 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 3395 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. 3400 And always the little barnacles threw out their casting-nets and swept the water, and came in for their share of whatever there was for dinner. 'One day among the rocks he found a playfellow" [147] 148 The Water-Babies But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired himself off — snap! like the leap-frogs which 3405 you make out of a goose's breast-bone. Certainly he took the most wonderful shots, and back- wards, 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 3410 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 3415 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." 3420 Tom asked him about water-babies. "Yes," he said. He had seen them often. But he did not think much of them. They were meddlesome little creatures, that went about helping fish and shells which got into scrapes. Well, for his part, 3425 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 3430 not very civil to Tom ; and you will hear how he had to alter his mind before he was done, as The Water-Babies 149 conceited people generally have. But he was so funny, and Tom so lonely, that he could not quar- rel with him ; and they used to sit in holes in the rocks, and chat for hours. 3435 And about this time there happened to Tom a very strange and important adventure — so important, indeed, that he was very near never rinding the water-babies at all; and I am sure you would have been sorry for that. 3440 I hope that you have not forgotten the little white lady all this while. At least, here she comes, looking like a clean white good little darling, as she always was, and always will be. For it befell in the pleasant short December 3445 days, when the wind always blows from the south- west, till Old Father Christmas comes and spreads the great white table-cloth, ready for little boys and girls to give the birds their Christmas dinner of crumbs — it befell (to go on) in the pleasant 3450 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, 3455 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 hunt- ing season, which forces a man to make interest with the footman for cold beef and beer as soon34eo I jo The Water-Babies as he comes in, and so spoil his appetite, and then sleep in an arm-chair in his bedroom, all stiff and tired, for two or three hours before he can get his dinner like a gentleman. And do you be like 3465 Sir John, my dear little man, when you are your own master ; and, if you want either to read hard or ride hard, stick to the good old Cambridge hours of breakfast at eight and dinner at five; by which you may get two days' work out of one. 3470 But, of course, if you find a fox at three in the afternoon and run him till dark, and leave off twenty miles from home, why you must wait for your dinner till you can get it, as better men than you have done. Only see that, if you go 3475 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, 3480 hunting all day, and dining at five, fell asleep every evening, and snored so terribly that all the windows in Harthover shook, and the soot fell down the chimneys. Whereon My Lady, being no more able to get conversation out of him than 3485 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 The Water Babies 151 put herself and them into condition by mild 3490 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 6he would have saved her money, and saved the chance, also, of making all the children 3495 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 3500 of bad smells, and then it will be too late ; besides, you see, Sir John did certainly snore very loud. But where she went to nobody must know, for fear young ladies should begin to fancy that there are water-babies there! and so hunt and ho wk 3505 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 3510 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 3515 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 152 The Water-Babies friend the lobster, there walked one day the J520 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 Curasao (of course you have learnt your geography, and therefore know why) ; and 3525 his father a Pole, and therefore he was brought up at Petropaulowski (of course you have learnt your modern politics, and therefore know why) : but for all that he was as thorough an Englishman as ever coveted his neighbour's goods. And his 3530 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 Necrobioneopalceonthydrochthon- anthropopithekology in the new university which 3535 the king of the Cannibal Islands had founded; and, being a member of the Acclimatisation Society, he had come here to collect all the nasty things which he could find on the coast of England, and turn them loose round the Cannibal 3540 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 3545 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 The Water-Babies 153 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, 3550 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 3555 care where, nobody else does), and had made acquaintance with him, and become very fond of his children. Now, Sir John knew nothing about sea-cocky olybirds, and cared less, provided the fishmonger sent him good fish for dinner jsseo 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 3565 they are taught to know a little about everything, and to know it all ill; which is a great deal pleasanter and easier, and therefore quite right. So Ellie and he were walking on the rocks, and he was showing her about one in ten thousand 3570 of all the beautiful and curious things which are to be seen there. But little Ellie was not satis- fied 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 3575 she said honestly, "I don't care about all these Ij4 The Water-Babies 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, 3580 1 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 3585 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 swim- ming and playing, and the mermen trumpeting 3590 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 3595 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 36oo thinking it a fine thing to eat their grandpapas, because they thought it an ugly thing to put them underground. The professor, indeed, went further, and held that no man was forced to believe anything to be true, but what he could 3605 see, hear, taste, or handle. The Water-Babies 13 c 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;aeio 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 impor- tant differences between you and an ape, such as being able to speak, and make machines, andaeis 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, 3620 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- 3625 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 asreo hippopotamus major in your brain, and it has none ; and that, therefore, to discover one in its brain will be a very wrong and dangerous thing, at which every one will be very much shocked, as 1^6 The Water-Babies 3635 we may suppose they were at the professor. — Though really, after all, it don't much matter; because — as Lord Dundreary and others would put it — nobody but men have hippopotamuses in their brains; so, if a hippopotamus was dis- 3640 covered in an ape's brain, why it would not be one, you know, but something else. But the professor had gone, I am sorry to say, even further than that; for he had read at the British Association at Melbourne, Australia, - in 3645 the year 1999, a paper which assured every one who found himself the better or wiser for the news, that there were not, never had been, and could not be, any rational or half -rational beings except men, anywhere, anywhen, or anyhow; 3650 that nymphs, satyrs, fauns, inui, dwarfs, trolls, elves, gnomes, fairies, brownies, nixes, wilis, kobolds, leprechaunes, cluricaunes, banshees, will- o'-the-wisps, follets, lutins, magots, goblins, afrits, marids, jinns, ghouls, peris, deevs, angels, arch- 3655 angels, 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 3660 certain great divine, and a very clever divine was he, called him a regular Sadducee ; and prob- ably he was quite right. Whereon the professor, in return, called him a regular Pharisee; and The Water-Babies 157 probably he was quite right too. But they did not quarrel in the least; for, when men are men 3665 of the world, hard words run off them like water off a duck's back. So the professor and the divine met at dinner that evening, and sat together on the sofa afterwards for an hour, and talked over the state of female labour on the 3670 antarctic continent (for nobody talks shop after his claret), and each vowed that the other was the best company he ever met in his life. What an advantage it is to be men of the world ! From all which you may guess that the pro- 3675 fessor was not the least of little Ellie's opinion. So he gave her a succinct compendium of his famous paper at the British Association, in a form suited for the youthful mind. But, as we have gone over his arguments against water- 3680 babies once already, which is once too often, we will not repeat them here. Now little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl ; for, instead of being convinced by Professor Ptthmllnsprts' arguments, she only asked thesess same question over again. "But why are there not water-babies?" I trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at that moment on the edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt one of his corns 3690 sadly, that he answered quite sharply, forgetting that he was a scientific man, and therefore ought Ij8 The Water-Babies to have known that he couldn't know; and that he was a logician, and therefore ought to have 3695 known that he could not prove a universal negative — I say, I trust and hope it was because the mussel hurt his corn, that the professor answered quite sharply: "Because there ain't." 3700 Which was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as you must know from Aunt Agitate' s Arguments, the professor ought to have said, if he was so angry as to say anything of the kind — Because there are not: or are none: 3705 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. 3710 He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly, with Tom all entangled in the meshes. "Dear me!" he cried. "What a large pink Holothurian; with hands, too! It must be connected with Synapta." 37is And he took him out. 1 ' It has actually eyes ! " he cried. "Why, it must be a Cephalopod! This is most extraordinary!" "No, I ain't!" cfied Tom, as loud as he could; for he did not like to be called bad names. 3720 "It is a water-baby!" cried Ellie ; and of course it was. The Water-Babies ijg "Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!" said the pro- fessor; and he turned away sharply. There was no denying it. It was a water- baby: and he had said a moment ago that there 3725 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 3730 kind old gentleman), and written a book about him, and given him two long names, of which the first would have said a little about Tom, and the second all about himself; for of course he would have called him Hydrotecnon Ptthmlln- 3735 sprtsianum, or some other long name like that ; for they are forced to call everything by long names now, because they have used up all the short ones, ever since they took to making nine species out of one. But — what would all the 3740 learned men say to him after his speech at the British Association? And what would Ellie say, after what he had just told her? There was a wise old heathen once, who said, "Maxima debetur pueris reverentia" — The 3745 greatest reverence is due to children; that is, that grown people should never say or do any- thing wrong before children, lest they should set them a bad example. — Cousin Cramchild says it means, "The greatest respectfulness is expected 3750 160 The Water-Babies 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 3755 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 3760 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 3765 make it mean, that you must show your respect for children, by never confessing yourself in the wrong to them, even if you know that you are so, lest they should lose confidence in their elders. 3770 Now, if the professor had said to Ellie, "Yes, my darling, it is a water-baby, and a very wonder- ful thing it is ; and it shows how little I know of the wonders of nature, in spite of forty years' honest labour. I was just telling you that there 3775 could be no such creatures; and, behold! here is one come to confound my conceit and show me that Nature can do, and has done, beyond all that man's poor fancy can imagine. So, let us thank the Maker, and Inspirer, and Lord The Water-Babies 161 of Nature for all His wonderful and glorious stso 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 3735 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 3790 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 3795 unspeakable fright all the while; and had kept as quiet as he could, though he was called a Holothurian and a Cephalopod; for it was fixed in his little head that if a man with clothes on caught him, he might put clothes on him too.ssoo and make a dirty black chimney-sweep of him again. But, when the professor poked him, it was more than he could bear; and, between fright and rage, he turned to bay as valiantly as a mouse in a corner, and bit the professor's 3805 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, 162 The Water-Babies and thence he dived into the water and was 38io 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. saw 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, 3820 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 3825 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 3830 her such a pretty pair of wings that she could not help putting them on; and she flew with them out of the window, and over the land, and over the sea, and up through the clouds, and nobody heard or saw anything of her for a very long 3835 while. And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a water-baby. For my part, I believe The Water-Babies 163 that the naturalists get dozens of them when they are out dredging; but they say nothing about them, and throw them overboard again, 384o 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 3845 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 385o 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 3355 is most chance of curing them, and therefore they are the patients who pay her best; for she has to work on the same salary as the Emperor of China's physicians (it is a pity that all do not), no cure, no pay. 3seo So she took the poor professor in hand: and because he was not content with things as they are, she filled his head with things as they are not, to try if he would like them better; and because he did not choose to believe in a water- 3865 baby when he saw it, she rt^ade him believe in 164 The Water-Babies worse things than water-babies — in unicorns, fire-drakes, manticoras, basilisks, amphisbcenas, griffins, phoenixes, rocs, ores, dog-headed men, 3870 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 3875 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. 3880 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 3885 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 — 3890 "The subanhypaposupernal anastomoses of peri- tomic diacellurite in the encephalo-digital region of the distinguished individual of whose symptomatic phenomena we had the melancholy honour {subse- quently to a preliminary diagnostic inspection) of 3895 making an inspectorial diagnosis, presenting the The Water-Babies 165 inter exclusively quadrilateral and antinomian dia- thesis known as Bumpsterhauserf s blue follicles, we proceeded" — But what they proceeded to do My Lady never knew; for she was so frightened at the long 3900 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 3905 of paving stones? ' 'It was quite shocking! What can they think is the matter with him?" said she to the old nurse. 'That his wit's just addled; may be wi' un-3910 belief and heathenry," quoth she. 'Then why can't they say so?" And the heaven, and the sea, and the rocks, and the vales re-echoed — ''Why, indeed?" But the doctors never heard them. 391S So she made Sir John write to the Times to command the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being to put a tax on long words ; — A light tax on words over three syllables, which are necessary evils, like rats: but, like them, must 3920 be kept down judiciously. A heavy tax on words over four syllables, as heterodoxy, spontaneity, spiritualism, spuriosity, etc. And on words over five syllables (of which 1 66 The Water -Babies 3925 1 hope no one will wish to see any examples), a totally prohibitory tax. And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from three or more languages at once; words derived from two languages having become so 3930 common that there was no more hope of rooting out them than of rooting out peth-winds. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and a man of sense, jumped at the notion ; for he .saw in it the one and only plan for abolishing 3935 Schedule D: but when he brought in his bill, most of the Irish members, and (I am sorry to say) some of the Scotch likewise, opposed it most strongly, on the ground that in a free country no man was bound either to understand himself 3940 or to let others understand him. So the bill fell through on the first reading; and the Chancellor, being a philosopher, comforted him- self with the thought that it was not the first time that a woman had hit off a grand idea and 3945 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 3»5o Hippocrates to Feuchtersleben, as below, viz. — i. Hellebore, to wit — Hellebore of Mia. The Water-Babies i6y t Hellebore of G alalia. Hellebore of Sicily. And all other Hellebores, after the 3955 method of the Helleborising Helle- borists of tlie Helleboric era. But that would not do. Bmnpster- hauserfs blue follicles would not stir an inch out of his encephalo-digitahwo region. 2. Trying to find out what was the matter with him, after the method of Hippocrates, Aretoeus, 3985 Celsus, Ccelius Aurelianus, And Galen. But they found that a great deal too much trouble, as most people have since; and so had 3970 recourse to — 3. Borage. Cauteries. Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says Gordonius) "will, without doubt, 3975 do much good." But it didn't. Bezoar stone. Diamargaritum . A ram's brain boiled in spice. Oil of wormwood. 3M0 168 The Water-Babies Water of Nile. Capers. Good wine {but there was none to be got). The water of a smith's forge. 3985 Hops. Ambergris. Mandrake pillows. Dormouse fat. Hares' jars. 3990 Starvation. Camphor. Salts and senna. Musk. Opium. 3995 Strait-waistcoats. Bully ings. Bumpings. Blister ings. Bleedings. 4000 Bucketings with cold water. Knockings down. Kneeling on his chest till they broke it in, etc. etc.; after the mediceval or monkish method: but that would not 4005 do. Bumpsterhausen' s blue follicles stuck there still. Then— 4. Coaxing. The Water-Babies i6g Kissing. Champagne and turtle. *oio Red herrings and soda water Good advice. Gardening. Croquet. Musical soirees. 4015 Aunt Sally. Mild tobacco. The Saturday Review. A carriage with outriders, etc. etc. After the modern method. But that would not 4020 do. And if he had but been a convict lunatic, and had shot at the Queen, killed all his creditors to avoid paying them, or indulged in any other little amiable eccentricity of that kind, they 4025 would have given him in addition — The healthiest situation in England, on East- hampstead Plain. Free run of Windsor Forest. The Times every morning. 4030 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 4035 desperate, and fell into bad ways, viz. — lyo The Water-Babies 5. Suffumigations of sulphur. Herrwiggius his "Incomparable drink for madmen": 5o Table-turning. Morison's Pills. Homoeopathy. Parr's Life Pills. Mesmerism. <055 Pure Bosh. Exorcisms, for which they read Maleus Maleftcarum, Nideri Formicarium, Delrio, Wierus, etc. But could not get one that mentioned water- 4060 babies. Hydropathy. Madame Rachel's Elixir of Youth. The Water-Babies iyi The Poughkeepsie Seer his Prophecies. The distilled liquor of addle eggs. Pyropathy. ■ ws As successfully employed by the old inquisitors to cure the malady of thought, and now by the Persian Mollahs to cure that of rheumatism. Geopathy, or burying him. Atmopathy, or steaming him. 4070 Sympathy, after the method of Basil Valentine his Triumph of Antimony, and Kenelm Digby his Weapon- salve, which some call a hair of the dog that bit him. 4975 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, mo having no hippogriff, they were forced to use a balloon; and, falling into the North Sea, were picked up by a Yarmouth herring-boat, and came home much the wiser, and all overms scales. Antipathy, or using him like "a man and a brother." Apathy, or doing nothing at all. With all other ipathies and opathies*^ $J2 The Water-Babies which Noodle has invented, and Foodie tried, since black-fellows chipped flints at Abbeville — which is a considerable time ago, to judge <095 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 4100 believe in them, and were thinking of nothing but Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles; having, as usual, set the cart before the horse, and taken . the effect for the cause. So they were forced at last to let the poor 4105 prof essor ease his mind by writing a great book, exactly contrary to all his old opinions ; in which he proved that the moon was made of green cheese, and that all the mites in it (which you may see sometimes quite plain through a tele- 4no scope, 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 4ii5 children want a new little brother or sister. Which must be a mistake, for this one reason: that, there being no atmosphere round the moon (though some one or other says there is, at least The Water-Babies 173 on the other side, and that he has been round at the back of it to see, and found that the moon 4120 was just the shape of a Bath bun, and so wet that the man in the moon went about on Midsummer- day in Macintoshes and Cording' s boots, spearing eels and sneezing) ; that, therefore, I say, there being no atmosphere, there can be no evapora-4125 tion; and therefore, the dew-point can never fall below 71.5 below zero of Fahrenheit: and, therefore, it cannot be cold enough there about four o'clock in the morning to condense the babies' mesenteric apophthegms into their left 4130 ventricles; and, therefore, they can never catch the hooping-cough; and if they do not have hooping-cough, they cannot be babies at all; and, therefore, there are no babies in the moon. — Q.E.D. 4135 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 4140 old doctor got his book written, he felt consid- erably relieved from Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles, and a few things infinitely worse; to wit, from pride and vain-glory, and from blind- ness and hardness of heart; which are the true 4145 causes of Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles, and of a good many other ugly things besides. 174 The Water-Babies Whereon the foul flood-water in his brains ran down, and cleared to a fine coffee colour, such «5o as fish like to rise in, till very fine clean fresh- run fish did begin to rise in his brains; and he caught two or three of them (which is exceedingly fine sport, for brain rivers), and anatomised them carefully, and never mentioned what he found «55 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. Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face: Flowers laugh before thee on their beds And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong. Wordsworth, Ode to Duty. CHAPTER V BUT what became of little Tom? «eo He slipped away off the rocks into the water, as I said before. But he could not help thinking of little Ellie. He did not remember who she was; but he knew that she was a little girl, though she was a hundred times as big assies he. That is not surprising : size has nothing to do with kindred. A tiny weed may be first cousin to a great tree; and a little dog like Vick knows that Lioness is a dog too, though she is twenty times larger than herself. So Tom mo 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 «75 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 espe- cially the police cases, as you will hear very4i8o 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 «ss withes ; and inside it, looking very much ashamed 1 78 The Water-Babies of himself, sat his friend the lobster, twiddling his horns, instead of thumbs. "What, have you been naughty, and have 4i9o 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?" «95 "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. 4200 "Where did you get in?" "Through that round hole at the top." "Then why don't you get out through it?" "Because I can't": and the lobster twiddled his horns more fiercely than ever, but he was 4205 forced to confess. "I have jumped upwards, downwards, back- wards, 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." 4210 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 4215 up to me, and I'll pull you through hindfore- The Water-Babies 179 most, and then you won't stick in the spikes." But the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he couldn't hit the hole. Like a great many fox- hunters, he was very sharp as long as he was in his own country; but as soon as they get out of 4220 it they lose their heads ; and so the lobster, so to speak, lost his tail. Tom reached and clawed down the hole after him, till he caught hold of him; and then, as. was to be expected, the clumsy lobster pulled him in*** head foremost. " Hullo! here is a pretty business," said Tom. "Now take your great claws, and break the points off those spikes, and then we shall both get out easily." 423 ° "Dear me, I never thought of that," said the lobster; "and after all the experience of life that I have had!" You see, experience is of very little good unless a man, or a lobster, has wit enough to make use ^5 of it. For a good many people, like old Polonius, have seen all the world, and yet remain little better than children after all. But they had not got half the spikes away when they saw a great dark cloud over them : and lo, « 4 " 'At last he came to the great sea-serpent himself' 1 285} 286 The Water-Babies so fast, that before Tom had stood there five 6905 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 6910 on which he stood was torn off and blown up- wards, and away flew Tom a mile up through the sea, wondering what was coming next. At last he stopped — thump! and found him- self tight in the legs of the most wonderful 69i5 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 6920 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, 6925 as the madreporiform tubercle in a star-fish is. Well, it was a very strange beast; but no stranger than some dozens which you may see. "What do you want here," it cried quite peevishly, "getting in my way?" and it tried to 6930 drop Tom: but he held on tight to its claws, thinking himself safer where he was. So Tom told him who he was, and what his The Water-Babies 287 errand was. And the thing winked its one eye, and sneered: "I am too old to be taken in in that way. 6935 You are come after gold — I know you are." "Gold! What is gold?" And really Tom did not know ; but the suspicious old bogy would not believe him. But after a while Tom began to understand a 6940 little. For, as the vapours came up out of the hole, the bogy smelt them with his nostrils, and combed them and sorted them with his combs; and then, when they steamed up through them against his wings, they were changed into showers 6945 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 0950 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 6955 round and round as fast as a teetotum. But that was all in his day's work, like a fair fall with the hounds ; so all he did was to say to Tom — "Now is your time, youngster, to get down, if you are in earnest, which I don't believe." egeo "You'll soon see," said Tom; and away he "The most wonderful bogy which he had ever seen" [288] The Water-Babies 289 went, as bold as Baron Munchausen, and shot down the rushing cataract like a salmon at Ballisodare. And, when he got to the bottom, he swam till ^^ he was washed on shore safe upon the Other- end-of -Nowhere ; and he found it, to his sur- prise, as most other people do, much more like This-End-of -Somewhere than he had been in the habit of expecting. 0970 And first he went through Waste-paper-land, where all the stupid books lie in heaps, up hill and down dale, like leaves in a winter wood ; and there he saw people digging and grubbing among them, to make worse books out of bad ones, and ms 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, eoso 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 eass 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 aseeao 2 go The Water -Babies 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 6995 for little children, and sell them at wakes and fairs and tuck-shops. Very well. Let them go on. Dr. Letheby and Dr. Hassall cannot catch them, though they are setting traps for them all day long. But the fairy with the 7000 birch-rod will catch them all in time, and make them begin at one corner of their shops, and eat their way out at the other: by which time they will have got such stomach-aches as will cure them of poisoning little children. 7005 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, 7010 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 7015 themselves each as good as the President; and perhaps they were right, for every one knows his own business best. But Tom thought he would sooner have a jolly good fairy tale, about Jack the Giant-killer or Beauty and the Beast, The Water-Babies 2Qi which taught him something that he didn't know 7020 already. And next he came to the centre of Creation (the hub, they call it there), which lies in latitude 42.2 1° south, and longitude 108. 56 east. And there he found all the wise people instruct- 7025 ing mankind in the science of spirit-rapping, while their house was burning over their heads: and when Tom told them of the fire, they held an indignation meeting forthwith, and unanimously determined to hang Tom's dog for coming into 7030 their country with gunpowder in his mouth. Tom couldn't help saying that though they did fancy they had carried all the wit away with them out of Lincolnshire two hundred years ago, yet if they had had one such Lincoln- 7035 shire nobleman among them as good old Lord Yarborough, he would have called for the fire-engines before he hanged other people's dogs. But it was of no use, and the dog was hanged: and Tom couldn't even have his carcase; for 7040 they had abolished the have-his-carcase act in that country, for fear lest when rogues fell out, honest men should come by their own. And so they would have succeeded perfectly, as they always do, only that (as they also always do) they7o« failed in one little particular, viz. that the dog would not die, being a water-dog, but bit their fingers so abominably that they were forced to 2Q2 The Water-Babies let him go, and Tom likewise, as British subjects. 7050 Whereon they recommenced rapping for the spirits of their fathers ; and very much astonished the poor old spirits were when they came, and saw how, according to the laws of Mrs. Bedoneby- asyoudid, their descendants had weakened their 7055 constitution by hard living. Then came Tom to the Island of Poluprag- mosyne (which some call Rogues* Harbour ; but they are wrong; for that is in the middle of Bramshill Bushes, and the county police have 7060 cleared it out long ago). There every one knows his neighbour's business better than his own; and a very noisy place it is, as might be expected, considering that all the inhabitants are ex officio on the wrong side of the house in 7065 the "Parliament of Man, and the Federation of the World" ; and are always making wry mouths, and crying that the fairies' grapes were . sour. There Tom saw ploughs drawing horses, nails driving hammers, birds' nests taking boys, books 7070 making authors, bulls keeping china-shops, monkeys shaving cats, dead dogs drilling live lions, blind brigadiers shelfed as principals of colleges, play-actors not in the least shelfed as popular preachers; and, in short, every one set 7075 to do something which he had not learnt, because in what he had learnt, or pretended to learn, he had failed. The Water-Babies 2Q3 There stands the Pantheon of the Great Unsuccessful, from the builders of the Tower of Babel to those of the Trafalgar Fountains; in7oso which politicians lecture on the constitutions which ought to have marched, conspirators on the revolutions which ought to have succeeded, economists on the schemes which ought to have made every one's fortune, and projectors toss on the discoveries which ought to have set the Thames on fire. There cobblers lecture on orthopedy (whatsoever that may be) because they cannot sell their shoes; and poets on Esthetics (whatsoever that may be) because 7090 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 7095 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 appro- priate legend — which indeed is popular through 7100 all that land, and which, I hope, you will learn to translate in due time and to perpend likewise : — Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa puellis. When he got into the middle of the town, they all set on him at once, to show him his way; or 7105 2Q4 The Water-Babies* 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 7110 him thither, and a third cried — "You mustn't go west, I tell you; it is destruc- tion to go west." "But I am not going west, as you may see," said Tom. 7115 And another, "The east lies here, my dear; I assure you this is the east." "But I don't want to go east," said Tom. "Well, then, at all events, whichever way you are going, you are going wrong," cried they all 7120 with one voice — which was the only thing which they ever agreed about; and all pointed at once to all the thirty-and-two points of the compass, till Tom thought all the sign-posts in England had got together, and fallen fighting. 7i25 And whether he would have ever escaped out of the town, it is hard to say, if the dog had not taken it into his head that they were going to pull his master in pieces, and tackled them so sharply about the gastrocnemius muscle, that he 7130 gave them some business of their own to think of at last; and while they were rubbing their bitten calves, Tom and the dog got safe away. On the borders of that island he found Gotham, where the wise men live; the same who dragged The Water-Babies 295 the pond because the moon had fallen into it, 7135 and planted a hedge round the cuckoo, to keep spring all the year. And he found them bricking up the town gate, because it was so wide that little folks could not get through. And, when he asked why, they told him they were expanding 7140 their liturgy. So he went on ; for it was no busi- ness of his: only he could not help saying that in his country, if the kitten could not get in at the same hole as the cat, she might stay outside and mew. 7145 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 under- 7150 stand, 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 7155 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 7ieo more by next mail. And there he fell in with a deep, dark, deadly, and destructive war, waged by the princes and 2q6 The Water-Babies potentates of those parts, both spiritual and 7i65 temporal, against what do you think? One thing I am sure of. That unless I told you, you would never know; nor how they waged that war either ; for all their strategy and art military consisted in the safe and easy process of stopping 7170 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, 7175 and entreating not to be told they didn't know what: only the land being an island, and they having a dislike to the water (being a musty lot for the most part), they ran round and round the shore for ever, which (as the island was 7180 exactly of the same circumference as the planet on which we have the honour of living) was hard work, especially to those who had business to look after. But before them, as bandmaster and fugleman, ran a gentleman shearing a pig; 7i85 the melodious strains of which animal led them for ever, if not to conquest, still to flight; and kept up their spirits mightily with the thought that they would at least have the pig's wool for their pains. 7190 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 The Water-Babies 2QJ 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 7195 old fellow after all ; for he had a heart, though it was considerably overgrown with brains. He was made up principally of fish bones and parchment, put together with wire and Canada balsam; and smelt strongly of spirits, though 7200 he never drank anything but water: but spirits he used somehow, there was no denying. He had a great pair of spectacles on his nose, and a butterfly-net in one hand, and a geological hammer in the other; and was hung all over 7205 with pockets, full of collecting boxes, bottles, mi- croscopes, telescopes, barometers, ordnance maps, scalpels, forceps, photographic apparatus, and all other tackle for finding out everything about everything, and a little more too. And, most 7210 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 7215 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 7220 order to see him plainly. 2Q8 The Water-Babies Tom told him who he was; and the giant pulled out a bottle and a cork instantly, to collect him with. 7225 But Tom was too sharp for that, and dodged between his legs and in front of him; and then the giant could not see him at all. "No, no, no!" said Tom, "I've not been round the world, and through the world, and up to 7230 Mother Carey's Haven, beside being caught in a net and called a Holothurian and a Cephalopod, to be bottled up by any old giant like you." And when the giant understood what a great traveller Tom had been, he made a truce with 7235 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, 7240 quite simply — for he was the simplest, pleasant- est, honestest, kindliest old Dominie Sampson of a giant that ever turned the world upside down without intending it — "ah, you lucky lit- tle dog! If I had only been where you have been, 7245 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 7250 a chance." The Water-Babies 2qq "Turn into a baby, eh? If I could do that, and know what was happening to me for but one hour, I should know everything then, and be at rest. But I can't; I can't be a little child again; and I suppose if I could, it would be no 7255 use, because then I should then know nothing about what was happening to me. Ah, you lucky little dog!" said the poor old giant. "But why do you run after all these poor people?" said Tom, who liked the giant very?26o 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, 7265 and calling me a malignant and a turbaned Turk, who beat a Venetian and traduced the State — goodness only knows what they mean, for I never read poetry — and hunting me round and round — though catch me they can't, for 7270 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 7273 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?" joo The Water-Babies 72so ''Because I can't. You see, I am one of the sons of Epimetheus, and must go backwards, if I am to go at all." "But why don't you stop, and let them come up to you?" 7285 "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 7290 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 7295 motto; and I have thriven by it for some hundred years. Now I must go on. Dear me, while I have been talking to you, at least nine new species have escaped me." And on went the giant, behind before, like a 7300 bull in a china-shop, till he ran into the steeple of the great idol temple (for they are all idolaters in those parts, of course, else they would never be afraid .of giants), and knocked the upper half clean off, hurting himself horribly about the small 7305 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 The Water-Babies joi his spectacles, and pulled out his pocket-magni- ner 5 and cried — 7310 "An entirely new Oniscus, and three obscure Podurellae! Besides a moth which M. le Roi des Papillons (though he, like all Frenchmen, is given to hasty inductions) says is confined to the limits of the Glacial Drift. This is most 7315 important!" And down he sat on the nave of the temple (not being a man of the world) to examine his Podurellae. Whereon (as was to be expected) the roof caved in bodily, smashing the idols, and 7320 sending the priests flying out of doors and win- dows, like rabbits out of a burrow when a ferret goes in. But he never heeded; for out of the dust flew a bat, and the giant had him in a moment. 7325 "Dear me! This is even more important! Here is a cognate species to that which Macgilli- waukie 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 7330 difference of climate ! ' ' And having bagged his bat, up he got, and on he went; while all the people ran, being in none the better humour for having their temple smashed for the sake of three obscure species 7335 of Podurella, and a Buddhist bat. "Well," thought Tom, "this is a veiy pretty $02 The Water-Babies quarrel, with a good deal to be said on both sides. But it is no business of mine." 7340 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 con- 7345 tinually being a baby. So the giant ran round after the people, and the people ran round after the giant, and they are running unto this day for aught I know, or do not know ; and will run till either he, or they, or both, 7350 turn into little children. And then, as Shake- speare says (and therefore it must be true) — Jack shall have Gill, Nought shall go ill, The man shall have his mare again, and all go well. 7355 Then Tom came to a very famous island, which was called, in the days of the great travel- ler Captain Gulliver, the Isle of Laputa. But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has named it over again, the Isle of Tomtoddies, all heads and no bodies. 7360 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 7365 he came nearer still, he began to hear words among the noise; which vvas the Tomtoddies' The Water-Babies 3°3 song which they sing morning and evening, and all night too, to their great idol Examination— I can't learn my lesson: the examiner's coming! And that was the only song which they knew. 7370 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 7375 he looked round for the people of the island : but instead of men, women, and children, he found nothing but turnips and radishes, beet and mangold wurzel, without a single green leaf among them, and half of them burst and decayed, 7380 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 you73 85 show me how to extract this square root?" And another, "Can you tell me the distance between a Lyrae and fi Camelopardis?" And another, "What is the latitude and longitude of Snooksville, in Noman's County, 7390 Oregon, U.S.?" And another, "What was the name of Mutius Sc£evola's thirteenth cousin's grandmother's maid's cat?" J04 The Water-Babies 7395 And another, ''How long would it take a school-inspector of average activity to tumble head over heels from London to York?" And another, "Can you tell me the name of a place that nobody ever heard of, where nothing 7iooever happened, in a country which has not been discovered yet?" And another, "Can you show me how to correct this hopelessly corrupt passage of Grai- diocolosyrtus Tabenniticus, on the cause why 7405 crocodiles have no tongues?" And so on, and so on, and so on, till one would have thought they were all trying for tide-waiters' places, or cornetcies in the heavy dragoons. "And what good on earth will it do you if I did 7410 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 7415 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 7420 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." The Water-Babies joj Tom told him that he did not know General Information, nor any officers in the army; only 7425 he had a friend once that went for a drummer: but he could tell him a great many strange things which he had seen in his travels. So he told him prettily enough, while the poor turnip listened very carefully ; and the more he 7430 listened, the more he forgot, and the more water ran out of him. Tom thought he was crying: but it was only his poor brains running away, from being worked so hard; and as Tom talked, the unhappy turnip 7435 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. 7440 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 7445 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 7450 why it couldn't learn or hardly even speak was, that there was a great worm inside it eating out jo6 The Water-Babies all its bJains. But even they are no foolisher than some hundred score of papas and mammas, 7453 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 ; 746o and at last he stumbled over a respectable old stick lying half covered with earth. But a very stout and worthy stick it was, for it belonged to good Roger Ascham in old time, and had carved on its head King Edward the Sixth, 7465 with the Bible in his hand. "You see," said the stick, "there were as pretty little children once as you could wish to see, and might have been so still if they had been only left to grow up like human beings, and then 7470 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, 7475 working, working, working, learning week-day lessons all week-days, and Sunday lessons all Sunday, and weekly examinations every Satur- day, and monthly examinations every month, and yearly examinations every year, everything 7480 seven times over, as if once was not enough, and enough as good as a feast — till their brains grew The Water -Babies 307 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 7435 they should have anything green about them." "Ah!" said Tom, "if dear Mrs. Doasyouwould- bedoneby 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." 7490 "It would be no use," said the stick. "They can't play now, if they tried. Don't you see how their legs have turned to roots and grown into the ground, by never taking any exercise, but sapping and moping always in the same 7495 place? But here comes the Examiner-of -all- Examiners. So you had better get away, I warn you, or he will examine you and your dog into the bargain, and set him to examine all the other dogs, and you to examine all the ""other water- 7500 babies. There is no escaping out of his hands, for his nose is nine thousand miles long, and can go down chimneys, and through keyholes, upstairs, downstairs, in my lady's chamber, examining all little boys, and the little boys' 7505 tutors likewise. But when he is thrashed — so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has promised me— I shall have the thrashing of him: and if I don't lay it on with a will it's a pity." Tom went off: but rather slowly and surlily; 7510 jo8 The Water-Babies 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 7515 little children's shoulders, like the Scribes and Pharisees of old, and not touching the same with one of his fingers; for he had plenty of money, and a fine house to live in, and so forth; which was more than the poor little turnips had. 7520 But when he got near, he looked so big and burly and dictatorial, and shouted so loud to Tom, to come and be examined, that Tom ran for his life, and the dog too. And really it was time; for the poor turnips, in their hurry and 7525 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. 7530 As he went down to the shore he passed the poor turnip's new tomb. But Mrs. Bedoneby- asyoudid had taken away the epitaph about talents and precocity and development, and put' up one of her own instead which Tom thought 7535 much more sensible: — Instruction sore long time I bore, And cramming was in vain; Till heaven did please my woes to ease, With water on the brain. The Water-Babies jog So Tom jumped into the sea, and swam on his 7540 way, singing: — Farewell, Tomtoddies all; I thank my stars That nought I know save those three royal r's: Reading and riting sure, with rithmetick, Will help a lad of sense through thin and thick. 7545 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, 7550 where the folks were all heathens, and worshipped a howling ape. And there he found a little boy sitting in the middle of the road, and crying bitterly. "What are you crying for?" said Tom. 7555 " 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!" 7560 "Ah," said the little boy, "that is very kind of you ; but I don't feel that it has made any impression." Tom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on him, fettle him over the head with a brick, 7565 or anything else whatsoever which would give him the slightest comfort. But he only thanked Tom very civilly, in jio The Water-Babies fine long words which he had heard other folk 7570 use, and which, therefore, he thought were fit and proper to use himself; and cried on till his papa and mamma came, and sent off for the Powwow man immediately. And a very good- natured gentleman and lady they were, though 7575 they were heathens; and talked quite pleasantly to Tom about his travels, till the Powwow man arrived, with his thunderbox under his arm. And a well-fed, ill-favoured gentleman he was, as ever served Her Majesty at Portland. Tom 7580 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 7585 was squibs and crackers; and when he cried (which he did whenever it paid him), it was boiling pitch ; and some of it was sure to stick. "Here we are again!" cried he, like the clown in a pantomime. "So you can't feel frightened, 7590 my little dear — eh? I'll do that for you. I'll make an impression on you! Yah! Boo! Whirroo! Hullabaloo!" And he rattled, thumped, brandished his thun- derbox, yelled, shouted, raved, roared, stamped, 7595 and danced corrobory like any black fellow ; and then he touched a spring in the thunderbox, and out popped turnip-ghosts and magic-lanthorns The Water-Babies ju and pasteboard bogies and spring-heeled Jacks, and sallaballas, with such a horrid din, clatter, clank, roll, rattle, and roar, that the little boy7eoo turned up the whites of his eyes, and fainted right away. And at that his poor heathen papa and mamma were as much delighted as if they had found a gold mine; and fell down upon their knees 7eo5 before the Powwow man, and gave him a palan- quin with a pole of solid silver and curtains of cloth of gold ; and carried him about in it on their own backs: but as soon as they had taken him up, the pole stuck to their shoulders, and they76io could not set him down any more, but carried him willynilly, as Sinbad carried the old man of the sea: which was a pitiable sight to see; for the father was a very brave officer, and wore two swords and a blue button; and the mother was7ei5 as pretty a lady as ever had pinched feet like a Chinese. But you see, they had chosen to do a foolish thing just once too often; so, by the laws of Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, they had to go on doing it whether they chose or not, till the 7620 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, 7625 "wouldn't you like to be frightened, my little 312 The Water-Babies dear? For I can see plainly that you are a very wicked, naughty, graceless, reprobate boy." "You're another," quoth Tom, very sturdily. 7630 And when the man ran at him, and cried "Boo!" Tom ran at him in return, and cried "Boo!" like- wise, 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 7835 turned tail, thunderbox and all, with a "Woof!" like an old sow on the common; and ran for his life, screaming, "Help! thieves! murder! fire! He is going to kill me ! I am a ruined man ! He will murder me; and break, burn, and destroy 7640 my precious and invaluable thunderbox; and then you will have no more thunder-showers in the land. Help! help! help!" At which the papa and mamma and all the people of Oldwivesfabledom flew at Tom, 7645 shouting, "Oh, the wicked, imptident, 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 7650 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 7655 again as fast as they were made, because he The Water-Babies 313 was a water-baby. However, he was very glad when he was safe out of the country, for the noise there made him all but deaf. Then he came to a very quiet place, called Leaveheavenalone. And there the sun wasveeo 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 7663 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, 76?o considering — and considering — and considering — And at last, after innumerable adventures, each more wonderful than the last, he saw before him a huge building, much bigger, and — what is most surprising — a little uglier than a certain 7675 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 7680 between the walls, in order that any gentleman who has been confined during Her Majesty's pleasure may be unconfined during his own pleasure, and take a walk in the neighbouring J14 The Water-Babies 7685 park to improve his spirits, after an hour's light and wholesome labour with his dinner-fork or one of the legs of his iron bedstead. No. The walls of this building were built on an entirely different principle, which need not be 7690 described, as it has not yet been discovered. Tom walked towards this great building, wondering what it was, and having a strange fancy that he might find Mr. Grimes inside it, till he saw running toward him, and shouting 7695 "Stop!" three or four people, who, when they came nearer, were nothing else than policemen's truncheons, running along without legs or arms. Tom was not astonished. He was long past that. Besides, he had seen the naviculae in the 7700 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 trun- 7705 cheon came up and asked his business, he showed Mother Carey's pass; and the truncheon looked at it in the oddest fashion; for he had one eye in the middle of his upper end, so that when he looked at anything, being quite stiff, he had to 7710 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 police- men, and their truncheons, ought to be), he was The Water-Babies jjc always in a position of stable equilibrium, whichever way he put himself. 7715 "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 7720 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. 7725 "Because we are not like those clumsy-made truncheons in the land-world, which cannot go without having a whole man to carry them about. We do our own work for ourselves; and do it very well, though I say it who should not." 7730 "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 7735 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 7740 the muzzle with slugs, who was the porter; and Tom started back a little at the sight of him. 31 6 The Water -Babies "What case is this?" he asked in a deep voice, . out of his broad bell mouth. 7745 "If you please, sir, it is no case; only a young gentleman from her ladyship, who wants to see Grimes, the master-sweep." "Grimes?" said the blunderbuss. And he pulled in his muzzle, perhaps to look over his 7750 prison-lists. "Grimes is up chimney No. 345," he said from inside. "So the young gentleman had better go on to the roof." Tom looked up at the enormous wall, which 7755 seemed at least ninety miles high, and wondered how he should ever get up: but, when he hinted that to the truncheon, it settled the matter in a moment. For it whisked round, and gave him such a shove behind as sent him up to the roof in no 7760 time, with his little dog under his arm. And there he walked along the leads, till he met another truncheon, and told him his errand. "Very good," it said. "Come along: but it will be of no use. He is the most unremorseful, 7765 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 7770 must want sweeping very much. But he was sur- prised to see that the soot did not stick to his feet, The Water -Babies 317 or dirty them in the least. Neither did the live . coals, which were lying about in plenty, burn him; for, being a water-baby, his radical humours were of a moist and cold nature, as you may read 7775 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 just7?8o showing, stuck poor Mr. Grimes, so sooty, and bleared, and ugly, that Tom could hardly bear to look at him. And in his mouth was a pipe ; but it was not a-light ; though he was pulling at it with all his might. 7785 ' '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." 7790 "Keep a civil tongue, and attend!" said the truncheon ; and popped up just like Punch, hitting Grimes such a crack over the head with itself, that his brains rattled inside like a dried walnut in its shell. He tried to get his hands out, and rub the 7795 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?" . 7800 ji8 The Water-Babies Tom assured him he had not, but only wanted to help him. "I don't want anything except beer, and that I can't get ; and a light to this bothering pipe, and 7805 that I can't get either." "I'll get you one," said Tom; and he took up a live coal (there were plenty lying about) and put it to Grimes' pipe : but it went out instantly. "It's no use," said the truncheon, leaning itself 78io up against the chimney and looking on. "I tell you, it is no use. His heart is so cold that it freezes everything that comes near him. You will see that presently, plain enough." "Oh, of course, it's my fault. Everything's 7815 always my fault," said Grimes. "Now don't go to hit me again" (for the truncheon started up- right, and looked very wicked); "you know, if my arms were only free, you daren't hit me then." The truncheon leant back against the chimney, 7820 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 7825 1 help you to get out of this chimney?" said Tom. "No," interposed the truncheon; "he has come to the place where everybody must help them- selves; and he will find it out, I hope, before he has done with me." The Water-Babies jig ' 'Oh, yes," said Grimes, "of course it's me. Did 7330 I ask to be brought here into the prison? Did I ask to be set to sweep your foul chimneys? Did I ask to have lighted straw put under me to make me go up? Did I ask to stick fast in the very first chimney of all, because it was 7835 so shamefully clogged up with soot ? Did I ask to stay here — I don't know how long — a hundred years, I do believe, and never get my pipe, nor my beer, nor nothing fit for a beast, let alone a man?" "No," answered a solemn voice behind. "No784o more did Tom, when you behaved to him in the very same way." It was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. And, when the truncheon saw her, it started bolt upright — Attention! — and made such a low bow, that if it 7845 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 badvsso 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 tsss he could not move one. And then he tried to wipe Mr. Grimes' face: but the soot would not come off. 320 The Water-Babies "Oh, dear!" he said. "I have come all this 7860 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 7865 hail's coming on soon, and it will beat the eyes out of your little head." "What hail?" "Why, hail that falls every evening here; and, till it comes close to me, it's like so much warm 7870 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 7875 shed when she prayed for you by her bedside ; but your cold heart froze it into hail. But she is gone to heaven now, and will weep no more for her graceless son." Then Grimes was silent awhile; and then he 7880 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 7885 bad ways." "Did she keep the school in Vendale?" asked Tom. And then he told Grimes all the story of The Water -Babies 321 his going to her house, and how she could not abide the sight of a chimney-sweep, and then how kind she was, and how he turned into a water-baby, mo "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 7895 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 Vendale79oo 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, 7905 and never feared the face of man, nor of worse neither. But I'm beat now, and beat I must be. I've made my bed, and I must lie on it. Foul I would be, and foul I am, as an Irishwoman said to me once; and little I heeded it. It's all my 7910 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 7915 Tom half fancied she was her sister. 322 The Water-Babies 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, 7920 anci 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. 7925 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. 4 'Will you obey me if I give you a chance?" 7930 "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; 7935 for I'm beat, and that's the truth." "Be it so then — you may come out. But remember, disobey me again, and into a worse place still you go." "I beg pardon, ma'am, but I never disobeyed 7940 you that I know of. I never had the honour of setting eyes upon you till I came to these ugly quarters." "Never saw me? Who said to you, Those that will be foul, foul they will be?" 7945 Grimes looked up ; and Tom looked up too ; for The Water-Babies 323 the voice was that of the Irishwoman who met them the day that they went out together to Harthover. "I gave you your warning then : but you gave it yourself a thousand times before and since. Every bad word that you said — every cruel 7950 and mean thing that you did — every time that you got tipsy — every day that you went dirty — you were disobeying me, whether you knew it or not." "If I'd only known, ma'am " "You knew well enough that you were disobey- 7955 ing something, though you did not know it was me. But come out and take your chance. Per- haps 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, 7900 he looked as clean and respectable as a master- sweep need look. "Take him away," said she to the truncheon, "and give him his ticket-of -leave." "And what is he to do, ma'am?" 7955 "Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will find some very steady men working out their time there, who will teach him his business: but mind, if that crater gets choked again, and there is an earthquake in consequence, bring them 7970 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. 324 The Water-Babies 7975 And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweeping the crater of Etna to this very day. "And now," said the fairy to Tom, "your work here is done. You may as well go back again." "I should be glad enough to go," said Tom, 7980 "but how am I to get up that great hole again, now the steam has stopped blowing?" "I will take you up the backstairs: but I must bandage your eyes first ; for I never allow anybody to see those backstairs of mine." 7985 "I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, ma'am, if you bid me not." "Aha! So you think, my little man. But you would soon forget your promise if you got back into the land-world. For, if people only 7990 once found out that you had been up my back- stairs, 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 7995 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 sooo petting, and ©beying, and worshipping quacks who told us they had the key of the backstairs, and could smuggle us up them; and in spite of all our disappointments, we will honour, and The Water-Babies 32$ glorify, and adore, and beatify, and translate, and apotheotise you likewise, on the chance ofsoos your knowing something about the backstairs, that we may all go on pilgrimage to it ; and, even if we cannot get up it, lie at the foot of it, and cry — 'Oh, backstairs, precious backstairs, comfortable backstairs, soio invaluable backstairs, humane backstairs, requisite backstairs, reasonable backstairs, necessary backstairs, long-sought backstairs, good-natured backstairs, coveted backstairs, cosmopolitan backstairs, aristocratic backstairs, sois comprehensive backstairs, respectable backstairs, accommodating backstairs, gentlemanlike backstairs, well-bred backstairs, ladylike backstairs, commercial backstairs, orthodox backstairs, economical backstairs, probable backstairs, 8020 practical backstairs, credible backstairs, logical backstairs, demonstrable backstairs, deductive backstairs, irrefragable backstairs, potent backstairs, all-but-omnipotent backstairs, 8025 &c. Save us from the consequences of our own actions, and from the cruel fairy, Mrs. Bedoneby- asyoudid ! ' Do not you think that you would be a little tempted then to tell what you know, 8030 laddie?" 326 The Water-Babies 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, 8035 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 sow 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 8045 too; for he had not, as he thought, moved a single step. But, when he looked round him, there could be no doubt that he was safe up the backstairs, whatsoever they may be, which no man is going to tell you, for the plain reason that 8050 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 8055 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 sooo slumbered in the shade; and they moved their The Water-Babies 327 ^ood old lips, and sang their morning hymn amid their dreams. But among all the songs one came across the water more sweet and clear than all; for it was the song of a young girl's voice. And what was the song which she sang? Ah, soeo my little man, I am too old to sing that song, and you too young to understand it. But have patience, and keep your eye single, and your hands clean, and you will learn some day to sing it yourself, without needing any man to teach you. 8070 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, andso75 behold it was Ellie. "Oh, Miss Ellie," said he, "how you are grown!" "Oh, Tom," said she, "how you are grown too!" And no wonder ; they were both quite grown up — he into a tall man, and she into a beautiful soco woman. "Perhaps I may be grown," she said. "I have had time enough; for I have been sitting here waiting for you many a hundred years, till I thought you were never coming." soss "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 J28 The Water-Babies 8090 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, 8095 children. Are you never going to look at me again ?" "We have been looking at you all this while," they said. And so they thought they had been. "Then look at me once more," said she. woo They looked — and both of them cried out at once, "Oh, who are you, after all?" "You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbe- doneby." "No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid ; 8105 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 siio 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!" ens 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." The Water-Babies 32Q And they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, and they changed again and again into every 8120 hue, as the light changes in a diamond. 4 'Now read my name," said she, at last. And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, blazing light: but the children could not read her name; for they were dazzled, and hidsm their faces in their hands. "Not yet, young things, not yet," said she, smiling; and then she turned to Ellie. "You may take him home with you now on Sundays, Ellie. He has won his spurs in thesi3o great battle, arid 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 8135 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 lit- sho tie 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 yousus know that no one ever marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a prince or a princess? jjo The Water-Babies "And Tom's dog?" Oh, you may see him any clear night in July; 8150 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 8155 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, gieo at least, we may learn, and that is this — when we see efts in the pond, never to throw stones at them, or catch them with crooked pins, or put them into vivariums with sticklebacks, that the sticklebacks may prick them in their poor little stomachs, andtm make them jump out of the glass into somebody's work-box, and so come to a bad end. For these efts are nothing else but the water-babies who are stupid and dirty, and will not learn their lessons and keep themselves clean; and, therefore (as comparative sno anatomists will tell you fifty years hence, though they are not learned enough to tell you now), their skulls grow flat, their jaws grow out, and their brains grow small, and their tails grow long, and they lose all their ribs (which I am sure you would sus not like to do), and their skins grow dirty and spotted, and they never get into the clear rivers, much less into the great wide sea, but hang about in dirty ponds, and live in the mud, and eat worms, as they deserve to do. siso 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 {331] 332 The Water-Babies wake up, and be ashamed of their nasty, dirty, lazy, to& stupid life, and try to amend, and become something better once more. For, perhaps, if they do so, then after ^79A 2 3 y^ ars , nine months, thirteen days, two hours, and twenty -one minutes (for aught that appears to be contrary), if they work very hard and mo wash very hard all that time, their brains may grow bigger, and their jaws grow smaller, and their ribs come back, and their tails wither off, and they will turn into water-babies again, and perhaps after that into land-babies; and after that perhaps into 8i95 grown men. You know they won't f Very well, I daresay you know best. But you see, some folks have a great liking for those poor little efts. They never did anybody any harm-, or could if they tried; and their 8200 only fault is, that they do no good — any more than some thousands of their betters. But what with ducks, and what with pike, and what with stickle- backs, and what with water-beetles, and what with naughty boys, they are il sae sair hadden doun" as 8205 the Scotsmen say, that it is a wonder how they live; and some folks can't help hoping, with good Bishop Butler, that they may have another chance, to make things fair and even, somewhere, somewhen, somehow. Meanwhile, do yjm learn your lessons, and 8210 thank God that you have plenty of cold water to wash in; and wash in it too, like a true English- man. And then, if my story is not true, something The Water-Babies 333 better is; and if I am not quite right, still you will be, as long as you stick to hard work and cold water. But remember always, as I told you at -first, thatwu this is all a fairy tale, and only fun and pretence: and, therefore, you are not to believe a word of it, even if it is true. % 354 Notes German word, meaning bristle-head, or tousle-pat e, or silly fellow. It is the name of a comical book in German, full of funny pictures and verses. Two pages of it tell of a little girl left alone in the house, who finds the box of matches. The cats, Minz and Maunz, warn her to let them alone, and cry "Meow, meo" all the time; she lights a match, and they cry "Meow, meo" still worse while she sets her clothes on fire, and is burned till nothing is left but a pile of ashes and her shoes. They keep on crying "Meow, meo," and weep till their tears run like a brook. 2183. Hover. A retreat or shelter, especially an otter's lair. 2183. Floushed. Splashed. 2304. Blondin, Leotard. French tight-rope per- formers. The former visited America in 1859 and walked a rope stretched across the great chasm below Niagara Falls. 2389. Houdin , Robin , Frikell. Famous magicians of the last century. Houdin was a Frenchman, Robin a Hollander, Frikell a German. Each one of them published his autobiography with some account of how he performed his tricks. That of Houdin is particularly interesting. 2397. St. Vitus' s dance. A nervous disease which causes twitching of the muscles. 2467. Zoological Gardens. A place where wild animals are kept on exhibition. 2469. Cordery's Moor. Probably an uninclosed tract near the Eversley home. 2470. Withy pollard. A tree which has had its top cut off so that it puts out a thick bunch of shoots (withes), as a willow. 2540. Cheshire cat. Where else have you read about her? It is said that in the county of Cheshire (Chester), England, cheese used to be molded in the form of a cat with a grinning mouth. Notes 355 2577. Burn. Sometimes spelled "bourn," or * 'bourne." Guess what it means. 2688. Swirling banks. Banks under which the water whirls. 2693. Strid. A narrow passage between high banks. 2707. Squatter. Splash. 2758. Cythrawl Sassenach. Cythrawl (or Cyth- raul)= Satan. Sassenach = Saxons, that is, the Eng- lish. The phrase signifies "English devils." Fan Quei is probably quite as uncomplimentary. 2764. Cymry (or Kymry) = Welsh. The name by which the Welsh people call themselves. 2768. Winchester. A city of Hampshire County, England. 2772. Salisbury. The capital of Wiltshire, Eng- land. There is a great cathedral there, whose spire is referred to. The River Avon flows through Salis- bury and on south, through a portion of Hampshire, entering the British Channel at Christchurch. (This is not the River Avon of Stratford.) The writer means by this passage that if the salmon were properly protected by the government they would not all be fished out before they had a chance to ascend as far as Salisbury. 2781. Arthur Clough. Arthur Hugh Clough(i8i9~ 1861), an English poet. 2792. Spate. Overflow, freshet. 2794. Up the cataract. The salmon ascend the rivers, leaping the cataracts. 2810. Gilly. The field servant of a sportsman. 2823. Bewick. Thomas Bewick (17 53-1828) was an English wood engraver. His History of British Birds, its pictures engraved by himself and the reading matter supplied by another, was for seventy years or more the most important popular work on orni- thology in England. All sportsmen and lovers of 356 Notes nature in the country were acquainted with it. 2841. "II sait son Rabelais." "He knows his Rabelais." Francois Rabelais was a famous French humorist (1483-1553). 2968. Alcibiades. A famous Athenian general, who lived over 400 years before Christ. 2979. Grown ugly, etc. Do you remember the "doctrine of this wonderful fairy tale" ? (P. 95.) 2992. Hidalgo, A nobleman of Spain. Chapter IV 3055. Muckle. Large. 3160. Hawsers. What is a hawser? and a buoy? 3300. To the Chesapeake. What "pleasant warm water" had the strange fish followed? Take your map and trace his journey. 3319. French-polish. Polish with liquid shoe dressing. 3370. Merman. The poem, "The Forsaken Mer- man," by Matthew Arnold, the English poet and essayist (182 2-1 888), is weird and musical. Children find it interesting. '3384. Victoria Cross. A bronze Maltese cross given by the British sovereign to brave soldiers or sailors. Established by Queen Victoria in 1856. It has the motto, "For Valour." See Mrs. Ewing's The Story of a Short Life. 3416. Present, fire, snap! How do you pronounce the first word ? 3491. Applications of iodine. Seabathing. There is iodine in sea salt. 3507. Aquariums. How do they resemble a cage ? 3508. Pompeii. A city at the base of Mt. Vesu- vius, destroyed and buried by an eruption, 79 a.d. Much of it has been uncovered during the Hast cen- tury, and gives us a very good opportunity to see Notes 357 just how the Romans lived nearly two thousand years ago. 3521. Ptthmllnsprts. Pronounce, Put-t hem-all-in- spirits. Naturalists put specimens of small animals into alcohol to preserve them. 3524. Curasao. One of the Dutch West Indies. 3526. Petropaulowski (Petropaulovsk). A town in Siberia. So the professor's father had been exiled from Russia for political reasons. 3559. Cockyolybirds. Any small birds. 3591. Galatea. A sea nymph. There is a famous painting in the Farnese Gallery in Rome entitled "The Triumph of Galatea," by Raphael. It is a fresco; that is, painted on the plaster of the wall. The figures are life size. Ellie's description would answer for it except that there is no volcano, and the cupids are in the air instead of in the water. 3591. Burning mountain. Probably Etna, a vol- cano in Sicily. 3599. B alias. A tribe of savages. 3609. Hippopotamus majors. There is a little lump in a certain part of the human brain which is called the "hippocampus major." To make a dis- cussion of the sort he is telling of appear ridiculous, Kingsley blunders over the name. 3637. Lord Dundreary. A character in Taylor's play, Our American Cousin. He is a good-natured, empty-headed fellow. 3650. Nymphs, satyrs, etc. These are all super- natural beings, created by the fancy of different races. Nymphs, satyrs, and fauns are found in the Greek mythology; leprechaunes, cluricaunes, and banshees in the Irish; rutins in the French; magots in the Japanese; afrits, marids, and jinns in the Arabian; peris in the Persian; deevs in the Hindu. The others are English or German. 3661. Sadducee, Pharisee. Two sects of the Jews 358 Notes frequently referred to in the New Testament. The Sadducees did not believe in spirits or angels. The Pharisees were very self-righteous; they laid great stress on exact obedience to every detail of the law of Moses. 3677. Succinct compendium. A short summing up. 3713. Holothurian, Synapta, Cephalopod. Names of small sea animals. 3745. Maxima debetur, etc. Quoted from Juvenal, a Latin poet, who lived in the first century a.d. In the correct form it is puero (to a child), not pueris. 3844. Bumps, nativity, lunars. In old times the astrologers used to tell a person's fortune by examin- ing the heavens; for the sun, moon, and stars were thought to influence the characters and lives of human beings. For instance, Autolycus, in Shak- spere's play, The Winter's Tale, excuses himself for being a thief by saying that he was born "under Mercury." To "cast the nativity" of a person means to reckon what must have been the position of the stars at the time of his birth. To "take his lunars" means to calculate the moon's influence on him. In modern times there have been many who believed that character could be told by the position and size of the bumps of the skull. 3867. Unicorn, etc. A list of fabulous animals. Unicorn, an imaginary animal with the body of a horse, and having a straight horn sticking out of his forehead; fire-drake, a fiery dragon; mantibora (or manticore), imagined as having a human head, a lion's body, and a scorpion's tail; basilisk, sl winged serpent whose breath or glance brought death; amphisbcena, a serpent having a head at each end of the body; griffin, half lion, half eagle; phoenix a bird like an eagle, with red and gold plumage (once in 500 years it burned itself on the altar and Notes 35Q rose from the ashes young and beautiful); roc, an enormous bird of prey described in the Arabian Nights; ore, a dragon; Geryon, a giant. 3916. Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Minister of Finance in the British Cabinet. 3931. Peth-winds. Path-winds, that is, very swift winds. The two words which form this compound word are from different languages, Anglo-Saxon and Gothic. r 3935- Schedule D. The things or property that may be taxed are usually arranged, according to kinds, in lists called schedules. Kingsley pictures the chancellor as being in favor of this new law about taxing long words because it made it possible to get rid of a troublesome schedule. Then he goes on to poke fun at the Irish members of Parliament for always opposing everything. 3950. Hippocrates. A Greek physician who lived in the fourth century B.C. He is called the "Father of Medicine." 3950. Feuchtersleben. A modern German physi- cian and author. No attempt will be made to interpret the avalanche of nonsense which completes the chapter. Chapter V 4213. Lobster-pot. Did you ever see one ? 4236. Polonius. An old courtier in Shakspere's Hamlet. 4283. Bull. A comic blunder in speech. The Irish are said to be more apt than others to make such mistakes. Kingsley here applies the word to an act. 4310. Valetta. The fortress and capital of the island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea. Nix Mangiare stairs. The second word is the Italian j6o Notes verb meaning "to eat." The phrase is probably- intended to mean Nothing-to-eat Stairs, that is, stairs where beggars loaf. Valetta is an up-and- down-hill city, with innumerable stairs. Often a street is built of wide stone steps. 4319. Mewstone. A rock near shore frequented by gulls. 4347. Treacle. The sirup which drains off in making white sugar. 4375. Barbican. An opening in the wall of a fortress; here a water gate. 4483. St. Brandan. A half mythical priest of early Christian days in Ireland. 4486. Kerry. In what part of Ireland? 4486. Hermits. How do they live? 4490. Potheen (or poteen) . Illegally made whisky. 4491., Shillelagh (or shillalah). A stout cudgel, a club. 4499. Blasquets. A group of islands in the Atlantic west of Kerry (spelled also Blaskets). 4505. Hooker. A clumsy fishing boat. 4541. Plato. A Greek philosopher who died 350 years before Christ. In his book, Timceus, Plato gives the legend of Atlantis, a fabled island to the west of the Straits of Gibraltar, whose warriors threatened the great nations of the Mediterranean. They were repulsed by the Athenians, and afterwards the island sank and was lost in the great ocean which is named for it. 4550. Connemara. The western part of Galway, Ireland. 4551. Turk waterfall. Falls in a small stream near Eversley. 4556. Basalt. A kind of rock. 4557. Staff a. One of the Hebrides, where Fin- gal's cave is. 4558. Kynance. A cove in the southwest coast Notes 361 of Cornwall, England, where the beautiful serpentine rock is found. 4561. Ca'pri. An island south of the Bay of Naples. The scenery of this little island is of rare beauty. The shores are high, rocky cliffs in which there are several caves, the most famous being the Blue Grotto. The entrance is but three feet high in calm weather, and just the width of a rowboat. Each wave closes the entrance. Inside there is a wonderful blue light. The water looks like liquid silver, and the drops from the oars are like soft-hued pearls. 4561. Adelsberg. An Austrian town near which is a stalactite grotto. 4580. Fourier. A French socialist writer (1772- 1837). Some of his ideas were so peculiar as to make people think he was a little insane. 4590. Nereids. Sea nymphs. Look up Nereidae and Naididae in your natural history. 4593. Amphitrite. The wife of Neptune, god of the sea. 4616. Yataghan, a Turkish sword; crees (o-r crease), a Malayan dagger; ghoorka sword, a sword from Nepaul, India; tuck, a narrow rapier; gisarine (also spelled gisarme, guisarme, geserne, etc.), a spear or poleax. 4687. Sea-bullseyes . A bullseye is a thick, round lump of peppermint candy ; toffee, taffy ; ices, ice cream. 4696. Nice. Find it on the French coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The earlier form of the name was Nicaea, from Nike, the Greek goddess of Victory. The town was at the start a Greek colony. 4698. Frutta di mare (Italian) = fruits of the sea; fruits de mer (French) = fruits of the sea. 4701. Potentate. A reference to Louis Napo- leon (Napoleon III) of France. He was a nephew of the great Napoleon Bonaparte, and was emperor 362 , Notes of the French for about twenty years. In i860 he took possession of Nice and the territory around it, which had been part of the kingdom of Sardinia. This change is what is meant by the phrase "seem- ingly desirous of inheriting the blessing pronounced on those who remove their neighbor's landmarks." For this blessing(?), see Deuteronomy, xxvii, 17. 4872. Pope Gregory (540-604). There have been sixteen popes of this name. The one referred to here was the first, and became Saint Gregory after his death. He was a man of much ability and very active in many ways. He arranged the music to be sung in the Roman Catholic churches; the Gregorian chants are in use to the present day. He trained the choristers, which Kingsley here refers to; though we are not sure that he used a lash in teaching, it certainly was customary. There is a famous story about him. One day in the market at Rome he saw some very beautiful captives exposed for sale into slavery, and asked who they were. "Angli," was the reply (meaning "English"). "Non Angli, sed Angeli (Not Angles, but angels)," said the Pope. 4896. Imposition. A task set for a student as a punishment. 4927. Butties. Foremen of mining gangs. 4929. Nailers. Foremen in a nail factory. 4986. Pussy. Another spelling for pursy (fat). Chapter VI 5 1 2 1 . America. Who were the ' 'naughty people ' ' in America in 1862 when this was written? 5122. People in the Bible. Deuteronomy , xxxii ,15. 5126. Lollipops. A kind of taffy, or, in the plural, sweets of any kind. 5205. Ishmael. Genesis, xvi, 12. 5226. Inquisitors. Members of the Inquisition. Notes 363 This was a court or council appointed by the pope for the purpose of examining persons accused of heresy, that is, of holding religious beliefs different from those of the church. The victim was first cast into prison. Then, perhaps after a long delay, he was brought before the Inquisition and ordered to confess. If he refused he was handed over to be tortured, sometimes repeatedly and with increasing cruelty. The details of these tortures are too sicken- ing to repeat here. Then the prisoner was brought before the council again; and now for the first time he heard the charges against him, and was allowed to say something for himself. The trial almost always went against the accused and he was sentenced to hopeless imprisonment, or exile, or frequently to be burned at the stake. His property was confiscated and his family reduced to poverty. Torquemada, the first Inquisitor-General in Spain, between the years 1480 and 1498 condemned 98,800 persons. The Inquisition was established by Pope Gregory IX in 1229 and was not entirely suppressed until 1834. 5226. Kings of Naples. A reference, probably, to Francis II of Naples, whose kingdom consisted of the lower part of Italy. He abused his prisoners of state most shamefully. When the Italian patriot, Garibaldi, led the revolution of i860, Francis II was deposed and Victor Emanuel became king of the whole of Italy. 5228. "We have trained up the child" etc. See Proverbs, xxii, 6. 5353. Test out of Overton Pool. Probably the spray at the foot of a small waterfall. "Test" in some parts of England means "mist." 5397. Penny postmen. Letter carriers. 5537. Spiritual causes , etc. See note on thumping on the table (p. 355). 5541. Odds. To fit, to make even. 364 Notes 5558. Make his own bed, etc. What do we call expressions like these, which grow up from what everybody thinks and says? 5612. Flapdoodle. The food on which fools are said to be nourished. 5614. Peter Simple. A novel by Captain Frederick Marry at, who has never been surpassed as a writer of stirring sea stories. His best are Mr. Midshipman Easy, Peter Simple, Japhet in Search of a Father, and Jacob Faithful. All are of intense interest to boys. 5621. Tufa. A kind of limestone. 5649. Necessity is the mother of . Can you supply the last word? 5836. Selection. See notes on Huxley, Darwin, etc. (pp. 357 and 358). Chapter VII 5866. Mother Carey. Perhaps originally Mater Cara (Latin for * 'Mother dear"). The stormy petrels are called Mother Carey's chickens, and are dear to the sailors, as they warn them of an approach- ing storm. When it snows, "Mother Carey is pluck- ing her goose." 5966. G air fowl (or garefowl). The great awk, only recently extinct. 5974. Bedizened. Gaudily dressed. 6072. Skerry. Rock or reef. 6075. The land rocked, etc. What was taking place under the sea? 6093. Noblesse oblige (French). "Noble birth imposes obligations," which means that any one who comes of a fine family is under obligation to be good and noble in character. 6106. Deceased sister's husband. This has refer- ence to an English law which forbade a widower to marry the sister of his deceased wife. Notes 365 6192. Victualled. Means what? 6194. Hakluyt. An English historian(i553-i6i6). His Voyages and Discoveries is curious reading. 6197. The old order changeth, etc. This is the beginning of King Arthur's last speech in " The Passing of Arthur," Tennyson's Idyls of the King. 6217. Hoodie-crows. Hooded crows (Scotch). 6234. Hokany-baro. Probably a game or a dance. 6257. Scaul. Scold. 6303. Ness. Allfowlness. 6308. In season. The game laws protect birds from being shot except at a certain season of the year. 6326. Jan Mayen's Land. A volcanic island between Iceland and Spitzenbergen. 6339. Great-coat. What name do Americans pre- fer for this garment? 6340. Copper boiler, in the Gulf of Mexico. Ex- plain this. 6377. Weather side. Which is it? 6401. Molly-mock (mock =mow, a grimace). The albatross. 6438. Right whales and horse-whales. The right whale yields whalebone and whale oil. Horse-whale is an old name for the walrus, a word which comes to us from Old Swedish (hval= whale; ross = horse). 6466. Explain the "ice giants" and "the white gate" (1. 6477). 6568. Peacepool. Some people believe that at the North Pole there is an open sea, free from ice and storms. Explain "the sun . . . walked round out- side," and "an exhibition of fireworks." 6588. Julius Ccesar. The greatest Roman: great as a soldier, as a statesman, and as an historian. He was assassinated by political enemies in the senate house of Rome, 44 B.C. At first he attempted to defend himself; but when he saw one whom he had j66 Notes loved among the murderers, he folded his arms and resisted no more. See Shakspere's Julius C&sar, Act III, sc. ii, 11. 188-193. 6595. Bourne. Limits, boundaries. the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourne No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of. Shakspere's Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, 11. 78-82. 6706. Prometheus. According to the Greek myth Prometheus stole fire from heaven to give to men. The use of fire is the first great step in civiliza- tion. Prometheus means forethought; Epimetheus, afterthought. 6721. Ptinum Furem, etc. Nonsense. 6771. Lucifers. Matches. The gift of fire which Prometheus brought. 6775. Thames on -fire. Englishmen say of some one who is trying to do something too great for his talents, "He'll never set the Thames on fire." 6778. A vulture by him. The old Greek poets represented Prometheus as the benefactor of mankind. Jupiter was angry with him for having brought so many gifts from heaven to aid the human race, and therefore punished him by chaining him to a great rock on Mount Caucasus, with a vulture forever feeding on his liver. 6822. Projectors , schemers ; prestigitators , j uggler s , cheats. 6824. Mother Shipton. An Englishwoman of the time of Henry VIII (1509-1547), who was famous for her prophecies. One of them, in regard to events far in the future, ended with the lines: "The world unto an end shall come In eighteen hundred and eighty-one." Notes j6? 6825. Merlin, often called the Prince of Enchant- ers, is a character in British legends of the sixth century. He comes into Tennyson's Idyls 0} the King, Spenser's Faerie Queen, and many of the old English ballads. 6825. Thomas the Rhymer. An early Scotch poet, prophet, and magician; Sir Walter Scott calls him "the Merlin of Scotland." His time is given as the latter part of the thirteenth century. 6826. Gerbertus. Pope (Silvester II) four years, 999-1003, at a time when civilization seemed likely to be lost in ignorance and superstition. He was suspected of being a magician on account of his great learning. 6826. Rabanus Maurus. German churchman, archbishop of Mainz in the ninth century. 6826. Nostradamus. French astrologer (1503- 1566), who published an annual book of prophecies. 6827. Zadkiel. Pen name of a certain Lieutenant Morrison, author of The Prophetic Almanac. 6827. Raphael. Pen name of an English writer on astrology early in the nineteenth century. 6827. Moore. Francis Moore, another almanac author like the three preceding. 6827. Old Nixon. An "old brutal desperado," is a character in Scott's novel, Redgauntlet. He was a traitor to the family which he served. 6835. Cambridge. Great university in England. 6836. Senior Wrangler. The student who takes the highest honors in mathematics in the university. Chapter VIII 6861. World-pap. Pap is soft, doughy material. 6925. Madreporiform tubercle. Coral-like bony lump. 6962. Baron Munchausen. The hero of a story of 368 Notes travels and wonderful adventures. In one, for instance, the baron encounters a great snowstorm and ties his horse to a church steeple which looks like a post. Over night the snow melts and the horse is seen dangling by the halter from the church spire. The story was written by a German named Raspe (1737-17 94) to ridicule the baron, who was a real person, a cavalry officer fond of telling extravagant stories about himself. 6964. Ballisodare (or Bally). An Irish village. 6980. Tuck. Sweetmeats, candies. 6982. Everton. The town near which Kingsley lived. 6985. Sloes. Berries of the blackthorn; whin- berries, similar to our huckleberries; hips, rose berries; haws, berries of the hawthorn. 6995. Wakes. A wake is a watch over a dead body from the time of death till burial. Among the Irish peasantry it is a great occasion, when there is much eating and drinking. 7009. Squeeky, etc. Names made up to ridicule the popular books of the time when The Water- Babies was written; as for instance, Queechy, The Lamplighter, and The Wide, Wide World. 7023. The hub. Boston, Massachusetts, is often called "the Hub" or "the Hub of the Universe," from a sentence in Dr. Holmes' Autocrat of the Breakfast Table: "Boston State-house is the hub of the solar system." For the United States it has always been the intellectual center. There is no doubt Kingsley here means to poke fun at Boston's pretensions. The latitude of Boston is 42°2i'72* north; its longitude 7i°3'3o" west from Greenwich. Subtract the latter from 180 (or half the circle) and you have io8°56'. The original settlers of Boston came from the English Boston in Lincolnshire in 1630. 7040. Have his carcase. This is an old joke, Notes j6q referring to the Habeas Corpus Act. This Act pro- vides that any one who is imprisoned can insist on being brought before a judge and having his accuser state why he is detained. This is to prevent imprison- ment on suspicion. At times of great public excite- ment and danger it has sometimes been necessary to suspend the Act, as during the Civil War, when President Lincoln suspended it in order to arrest traitors in the North. 7056. Polupragmosyne. A Greek word which means "meddling a good deal with other people's affairs." 7064. Ex officio. Because of his office, or posi- tion. 7065. "Parliament of Man, and the Federation of the World." Quoted from Tennyson's Locksley Hall, I.128. 7078. Pantheon. A temple commemorating great men. Originally, a temple dedicated to all gods (Greek). There are two famous temples of this name: the Pantheon at Rome, now a Christian church, and the Pantheon at Paris. 7079. Tower of Babel. See Genesis, xi, 1-9. 7080. Trafalgar Fountains. Two fountains in Trafalgar Square in London. This square is named in honor of Lord Nelson, England's greatest admiral, who in 1805 won a famous victory over the combined French and Spanish fleets off the coast of Portugal, Cape Trafalgar. It was when this battle was about to begin that Nelson commanded the following signal to be given: "England expects every man to d© his duty." The admiral himself received a fatal wound in the battle, and was forever enshrined in the hearts of Englishmen. 7088. Orthopedy. The correction of deformities. 7090. Aesthetics. The science of beauty and taste. 7094. Papist. Roman Catholic. j yo Notes • <. 7094. Penny-a-liners. Those who do cheap writ- ing for the papers. 7103. Victrix causa, etc. "The victorious cause was pleasing to the gods, but the vanquished to maidens" ("to Cato," in the original). From the Roman poet, Lucan (39-65 a.d.). 7129. Gastrocnemius muscle. In what part of the body? Read on. 7149. Mokes. Donkeys. 7 151. Lucius. A character in an old story by Apuleius, the Latin writer. In this story, The Golden Ass, Lucius is turned into an ass and has many adventures before he recovers his human form again. 7184. Fugleman. Leader of soldiers in military exercise. 7236. Pick his brains. Learn all he could by questioning. 7241. Dominie Sampson. A poor schoolmaster in Scott's novel, Guy Mannering. He quoted Latin frequently and always expressed astonishment by exclaiming, "Prodigious!" 7266. A malignant and a turbaned Turk. Quoted from Shakspere's Othello, Act V, sc. ii, 1. 353. 7274. Mr. Joseph Ady. An eminent English physician. It is customary in England to call a physician "Mister." 731 1. Oniscus. A wood louse. 7312. Podurellce. Plural of Podurella, a spring-tail. 7312. M. le Roi des Papillons. Mr. the King of the Butterflies, that is, some scientist who knows all about insects. 7315. Glacial Drift. The soil, stones, etc., that have been dragged along by a glacier and finally deposited. The limit of the European glaciers is across the middle of Europe, from east to west, roughly speaking. 7328. Buddhist temples. Temples devoted to the Notes 371 religion founded by Buddha, which prevails in cen- tral and southern Asia. The Thibetans are Bud- dhists. 7350. Shakespeare says. The quotation is from A Midsummer -night 's Dream, Act III, sc. ii, 1. 461. 7357. Laputa. A flying island described in Gul- liver's Travels. 7379. Mangold wurzel. Mangel wurzel, a kind of beet. 7388. a Lyres and Camelopardis ( = Camelopar- dalis). Constellations. Lyra has fifty stars, Cam- elopardalis eighty-three. The Greek letters, here alpha (<*) and beta (/?), are used in their regular order to indicate the size or brilliancy of the stars. 7392. Mutius Sccevola. A legendary Roman hero who, when threatened with torture, held his hand in the fire to show his contempt of suffering. 7403. Graidiocolosyrtus , etc. Nonsense. 7407. Tide-waiter. A revenue officer. 7463. Roger Ascham. An English scholar and author of the sixteenth century. His chief work is The Schoolmaster. 7495. Sapping and moping. Studying and taking in. 7528. Alder shot. A town in the northeast corner of Hampshire, England, near Eversley, where there is a permanent military camp and barracks. 7547. John Bunyan (1628-1688). An English- man, author of Pilgrim's Progress. 7565. Fettle. To beat. 7573. Powwow man. An American Indian con- jurer or medicine man. 7595. Corrobory (or Corroboree). A war dance of native Australians (black fellows). 7599. Sallaballa. A fantastic word, Kingsley's fun. 7612. Sinbad. Sinbad the Sailor, a character in The Arabian Night's Entertainment. He is a traveling 372 Notes merchant who relates tales of his many wonderful adventures. 7665. Chantilly. A small French town, twenty- five miles north of Paris. A beautiful kind of lace is made there. 7666. Crystal Palace. See note on Great Exhi- bition (p. 359). 7696. Policemen's truncheons. Give another name for them. 7699. Naviculce. Plural of navicula, a tiny sea plant. 7714. Stable equilibrium. Balance. 7740. Blunderbuss. An old-fashioned gun. 7774. Radical humours. The ancient and medie- val physiologists imagined the body to be made of four humors (fluids or semifluids), called the radical humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. 7776. Lemnius. Simon Lemnius (15 10-15 50), a Swiss author, and educator. 7776. Cardan. Jerome Cardan (1501-1576), an Italian physician. 7776. Van Helmont. Jan Baptista Van Helmont (1 578-1644), a Flemish chemist and physiologist. He invented the word "gas," taking it from the German word "Gheist" (spirit, ghost). 7792. Punch. Of the Punch and Judy show. 7800. Atomy. A tiny thing, an atom. 7966. Etna. What and where? 8004. Beatify, make happy; translate, exalt to heaven; apotheotise (apotheosize), to place among the gods. 8006. Backstairs, etc. This means that all sorts of people would be glad to find some way of sneaking out of difficulties that they have got into by their faults, instead of being brave enough to admit they have done wrong and take the consequences. 8068. Eye single. A pure and noble way of Notes 373 looking at things. Look up Matthew, vi, 22 and 23, and Psalms, xxix, 4. 8164. Vivariums. Parks or ponds for animals or water creatures. 8204. "Sae sair hadden dottn (Scotch). "So sorely held down," that is, abused. 8206. Bishop Butler. A noted English divine (1692-1752), author of Analogy of Religion. Principal Books of Charles Kingsley Books for Children: Glaucus; or the Wonders of the Shore. The Heroes; or Greek Fairy Tales for my Children. The Water-Babies; a Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. Madame How and Lady Why; or First Lessons in Earth Lore. The first and last of these books present some of the curious and wonderful facts of nature in an entertain- ing way. In The Heroes Kingsley has put into a delightful form several of the old Greek myths. Books for Adults: Alton Locke; Tailor and Poet. Yeast; a Problem. Hypatia; or New Foes with an Old Face. Westward Ho! Two Years Ago. Hereward the Wake. The Roman and the Teuton. Poems. Of the above all are novels except the Poems and The Roman and the Teuton; the latter is a series of lectures delivered at Cambridge, the opening one giving the title to the volume. This is a splendid essay on a romantic and picturesque period of history. Yeast, Alton Locke, and Two Years Ago are novels written to illustrate the problems of laboring men and their employers. Westward Ho! is a romance of [374] A Reading List 375 adventure in the New World, dated in Queen Eliza- beth's reign. Hereward the Wake (or Hereward, the Last of the English, which is another title sometimes used), while a little slow of interest at the start, is a fine picture of life in England at the time of the Norman conquest. Hypatia is an absorbing story of early Christian history in Alexandria, but is not likely to interest young children. In Westward Ho! and Hereward, however, boys who are fond of stories of adventure will find much to enjoy. Kingsley's best poetry is contained in a few of his shorter poems. His "The Three Fishers," "The Sands o' Dee," and "Clear and Cool" are excellent examples of this type. FT! rffs A PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY '«) A'delsberg (g=k) A'djr afrit (i«e) A'gra Al'ci bi'tf des (s — z) Al'der mire Am'phis bce'na (oe = Am'phi tri'te a nas't6 mos ing (s = z) As'cham (ch=k) At lan'tis Bal'li so dare' Bal't«s (plural) bd salt' (salt =solt) bas'i lisk (bas =baz) Bew'ick (bew=bu) Bias quets *Blon din' (bloN da**') Bee 6'tian (oe = e; tian = shan) B6U'a*d both'ie (ie=i) Bud'dhist (u = 6t>) buird'ly (uir = iir) Cam'bridge (kam'brij) ca mel'6 par'dal is Ca'pri (i = e) Car'dan Car lisle' (s silent) Cat'd; combs ceiph'd 16 pod (ceph =sef) *Chan til ly' (shan te ye') cha/ri va'ri (ch = sh ; i = £) Chesh'ire CheViot (o=u) Cin'que-cen'to (cheN'kwa-chen'to) Clive (kliv) Clough (kluf) Clu'ricawne (u = 6o; cawne=kon) cock'y ol'y (k6k'i-ol'i) Cocq'ci grues (cq =k) Con'ne" mar'a Cor'der y (kor'der i) cor rob'o ry (ko rob'6 re') Count is bur $' Cu ra cao' (koo ra so') Cym'ry (kim'ri) Cyth'rawl (cyth=kith) Dev'on (o = u) Dis't6 md Dor'ic fDu Chail lu' (dii sha yii') El e phan'ta *The French nasal sound which is used in these words cannot be repre- sented by letters. It is as though one started to sound ng but stopped before the utterance. fThis pronunciation is only approximate. The sounds should be given in class by some one who speaks French. {376} A Pronouncing Vocabulary 377 Ept me'theus (eu = u) Er'6 bus Et'na E'ton (o = ii) Eu'nice (u'nfe) Ex cheq'uer (Sks chSk'er) FSr'a day fSl'ISt fFou ri er'(fod r6 a') Frfk'ell Gal'tf te'# GaPway (gal=gdl) gas'troc ne'm! us (c =k) Ger ber'tus (g hard) Ge ry on (je'ri 6n) Ghoor'ka (goor) gil'iy (jii'i) gi sar'fae (g soft) grade'ly Grai'd* 6 co'lo s^r'tus) Greg'6 rf Gull* ver H&k'luyt (ld6t) hi dal'go hSk'a nf bar'o hSl'd thu'ri an *Hou din' (hoo daN') hy'drd tec'non In'gle bor ough (iN'g'l bur'*) Ish'ma SI Jan Ma'yen (j =y) Ky'nance La pu'ta LSrn'n* us fLe o tard'(d silent) lep'rg chaun' (K6n) Lewth'waite (ew = 6"o) fLe" vai llant' (va yaN') Lm nas'an (ae = e) lu'ten Ly'rae (li're) Ma gee' (g hard) mag'St Mal'ton (a = 6; o=u) Man gi a 're (gee ah 'ray) man'ti co'rd mar'id Mun chau'sen (au = 6 ; s =z) Mur'chison (o=»u) Mu ti us Saev'6 Id (ti =she; '> saev=sev) Na'both nd:vfc'ulae (c=k;ae = &) Ne'rS id Nice (nes) NSs'tra da'mws O nis'ctts (c =k) 6r'th6 pe df PalkCSlljfas (alk=6k) f(des) Pa pi lions' (i =e; yoN') Par'the" n6n Peish'ta more (ei=e) Pe tr6 pau low' ski (pe = py&; w=v;i = e) Phce'nix (fg'niks) *The French nasal sound which is used in these words cannot be repre- sented by letters. It is as though one started to sound ng but stopped before the utterance. fThis pronunciation is only approximate. The sounds should be given in class by some one who speaks French. 378 A Pronouncing Vocabulary Phyl lod'o ce (fflod'd-se) Pla'td P6durel'lae (aj=e) P6 16'nS us P61 u prag rno's^- n€ pttl'y an'thws Pom pe'ii (pa/ye) p6 theen' (then) Pr6 me'theus (eu =u) Pro'teus (eu = u) Psa man 'the (ps =s) Pter 6 dac't$r les (pt = t) fQuatre fages' (katr fazh') Ra ba'nus Mau'rus (nus=nd"6s; au=ou) fRabelais'Crab'lS') Ra'pha el (raf a £1) JSome one who speaks German Salis'bur y (solz'ber i) Sal'la-balla JSas'se nach (ch =k) Scar'bor ough (sc =sk) (bur 6) shil le'lagh (le = la ; lagh = la) strd mash' Stru'wel pe'ter (pe=pa) Sjfllfe S? nap'ta Tab en n?fi cus TSj md h&l' Traf al gar' trea'cle (tre'k'l) tu'fd (u = 6o) Va leVta yat'a ghan (gan) Zad'k? el may be asked to illustrate this sound. SUGGESTIONS l b TEACHE RS CHARLES KINGSLEY.one of the most remark- able men of his day, deserved for many reasons the fame that accompanies greatness, yet at the same time he was so gently modest, so per- sistently industrious, and so full of self-sacrifice and love for all living creatures that the personal power and influence of the man seemed almost to eclipse his shining talents. It is the man himself that gleams through all his work; and the personal element, so valuable to children, is strikingly dominant in The Water-Babies. Bearing this in mind, the teacher should attempt something of an analysis of Tom's character as it is developed in the course of the story. The opening chapters picture vividly in him the ruling traits of the Anglo-Saxon: independence, courage in the face of danger, unconquerable energy such as yields only with the body's breath, and a sense of justice, which, blind and feeble as it shows itself in its lower forms, yet is capable of a glorious expansion. It will be noted that at the beginning the gentler, tenderer phases of character are only hinted at in Tom's longing "to get over a gate and pick buttercups," his liking for the Irishwoman, his sad wonder at the picture of Christ, his astonishment and awe at the beauty and purity of little Ellie, and his first shame at his own dirt and misery. These early stirrings of the esthetic and moral natures in himself — closely linked in this little savage as they are in every child — [ 379 ] j8o Suggestions to Teachers are by no means so real to his perceptions as the robuster virtues of courage and determination, whose power and value in his own life he has already come to recognize. Yet it is to the development of these tender little filaments of beauty and love that the story now turns. Tom continues to use his sturdy English virtues. But they are not the end; they are rather the means, the tools with which he carves out an ideal at first but dimly perceived and in no wise comprehended. Not every young reader will see at once why it is that Tom so suddenly finds the longed-for water-babies that have been around him all the time. But some one or two of every ten will know that his own kind act was the only thing that could and did open his eyes and give him what he most desired, and what was, indeed, waiting to be his as soon as he should take the right step. It is the great lesson of altruism made so simple that any child may read it and gradually come to understand it. From this point on we have the same lesson over and over again — the doing a hard thing because it is the only right thing to do ; the lesson of obedience to duty, no matter how stern and ill-favored, with its heavenly reward of love and beauty. The two sisters, who are after all but one and the same, symbolize for the child the greatest of all truths. That the beauty of love and self-sacrifice in all our lives is in its essence one with the divine love of the Creator of all things, comes out simply and naturally in the picture of Mother Carey at the Peacepool. All these thoughts in their simplest forms will grow out of this wonderful effort of a wonderful story- teller. Not all children can receive them; happy the favored few. But the story itself embodies them so perfectly, in a form of artistic charm so fine and true, that its image on the mind and heart will remain Suggestions to Teachers 381 with the reader for many years; and some day a reminiscent mood will flash the glowing picture before him again, its inner meaning clear and unmistakable. To a teacher who loves natural history The Water- Babies offers great opportunities. Pictures or speci- mens of most of the creatures mentioned are usually obtainable and will be of help. It is almost too easy to branch off into nature lessons with this book — too easy, because the real value of the book rests rather in its ethical teaching. As literature, also, it is a fine example of an exalted idea clothed in the simple but princely garb of Anglo-Saxon English. Its fas- cination lies in the sweep and rush of the narrative which compels attention; and, perhaps quite as much, too, in the occasional interludes of rest found in passages of great poetic beauty. As an example of the former, witness the chase after Tom in the first chapter; and of the latter, in the same chapter, the description of the view from the top of the mountain and the exquisite poem, "Clear and Cool," or, in Chapter IV, what Tom saw and heard as he sat on the buoy. But it will be noted that it is most fre- quently the touch of emotion which gives beauty to many a plain phrase. The book is long enough to bear some elisions in class reading. Whenever it is thought best to shorten , the omitted portions should be read by the pupils in private, and questions asked to cover the ground. The teacher will find it profitable to read to the class "The Three Fishers," "The Sands o' Dee," and "Andromeda"; the latter is particularly fascinating read aloud, reproducing in English, as it does, the long sonorous roll of the Greek hexameter. Matthew Arnold's poem, "The Forsaken Merman," referred to on page 145, should be read at that point. The lessons of Kingsley's own life are not such as generally appeal to children . Those chiefly valuable to j82 Suggestions to Teachers them are the tremendous earnestness and industry of the man, united, as they always were, with perfect cheerfulness and an unbounded enthusiasm. It was this union of earnest, kindly endeavor with such hope- ful and buoyant enthusiasm as the world rarely sees that made his life an inspiration and revelation to many. It is suggested that the following portions of The Water-Babies be read outside of class: From line 428, "For the attics were Anglo-Saxon," to line 484, "and show good sport with his hounds." From line 161 7, "But a water-baby is contrary to nature," to line 1837, "You are not to believe one word of it, even if it is true." From line 3598, "For at that rate, he said," to line 3686, "she only asked the same question over again," From line 3880, "So all the doctors in the country were called in," to line 4159, "even though one has to pay a heavy price for the blessing." From line 697 1 , "And first he went through Waste- paper-land," to line 7354, "The man shall have his mare again, and all go well." For biographical study the following books are recommended : Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memories of his Life, edited by his wife. Kingsley and the Christian Social Movement, by Charles W. Stubbs. Famous Leaders among Men (Sketch of Charles Kingsley), by Sarah K. Bolton. 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