CHAPTER IV
SO the salmon went up, after Tom had warned them of the wicked oldotter; and Tom went down, but slowly and cautiously, coasting along theshore. 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 notguided him, without his seeing their fair faces, or feeling their gentlehands.
And, as he went, he had a very strange adventure. It was a clear stillSeptember night, and the moon shone so brightly down through the water,that he could not sleep, though he shut his eyes as tight as possible.So at last he came up to the top, and sat upon a little point of rock,and looked up at the broad yellow moon, and wondered what she was, andthought that she looked at him. And he watched the moonlight on therippling river, and the black heads of the firs, and the silver-frostedlawns, and listened to the owl's hoot, and the snipe's bleat, and thefox's bark, and the otter's laugh; and smelt the soft perfume of thebirches, 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, withoutthe least bit of clothes on your wet back; but Tom was a water-baby, andtherefore felt cold no more than a fish.
Suddenly, he saw a beautiful sight. A bright red light moved along theriver-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; sohe swam to the shore, and met the light as it stopped over a shallow runat the edge of a low rock.
And there, underneath the light, lay five or six great salmon, lookingup at the flame with their great goggle eyes, and wagging their tails,as if they were very much pleased at it.
Tom came to the top, to look at this wonderful light nearer, and made asplash.
And he heard a voice say:
"There was a fish rose."
He did not know what the words meant: but he seemed to know the sound ofthem, and to know the voice which spoke them; and he saw on the bankthree great two-legged creatures, one of whom held the light, flaringand sputtering, and another a long pole. And he knew that they were men,and was frightened, and crept into a hole in the rock, from which hecould see what went on.
The man with the torch bent down over the water, and looked earnestlyin; and then he said:
"Tak' that muckle fellow, lad; he's ower fifteen punds; and haud yourhand steady."
Tom felt that there was some danger coming, and longed to warn thefoolish salmon, who kept staring up at the light as if he was bewitched.But before he could make up his mind, down came the pole through thewater; there was a fearful splash and struggle, and Tom saw that thepoor salmon was speared right through, and was lifted out of the water.
And then, from behind, there sprang on these three men three other men;and there were shouts, and blows, and words which Tom recollected tohave heard before; and he shuddered and turned sick at them now, for hefelt somehow that they were strange, and ugly, and wrong, and horrible.And it all began to come back to him. They were men; and they werefighting; savage, desperate, up-and-down fighting, such as Tom had seentoo many times before.
And he stopped his little ears, and longed to swim away; and was veryglad that he was a water-baby, and had nothing to do any more withhorrid dirty men, with foul clothes on their backs, and foul words ontheir lips; but he dared not stir out of his hole: while the rock shookover his head with the trampling and struggling of the keepers and thepoachers.
All of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, and a frightful flash,and a hissing, and all was still.
For into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the men; he who held thelight in his hand. Into the swift river he sank, and rolled over andover in the current. Tom heard the men above run along, seeminglylooking for him; but he drifted down into the deep hole below, and therelay quite still, and they could not find him.
Tom waited a long time, till all was quiet; and then he peeped out, andsaw the man lying. At last he screwed up his courage and swam down tohim. "Perhaps," he thought, "the water has made him fall asleep, as itdid me."
Then he went nearer. He grew more and more curious, he could not tellwhy. He must go and look at him. He would go very quietly, of course; sohe 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 hesaw, he recollected, bit by bit, it was his old master, Grimes.
Tom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he could.
"Oh dear me!" he thought, "now he will turn into a water-baby. What anasty troublesome one he will be! And perhaps he will find me out, andbeat me again."
So he went up the river again a little way, and lay there the rest ofthe night under an alder root; but, when morning came, he longed to godown again to the big pool, and see whether Mr. Grimes had turned into awater-baby yet.
So he went very carefully, peeping round all the rocks, and hiding underall the roots. Mr. Grimes lay there still; he had not turned into awater-baby. In the afternoon Tom went back again. He could not rest tillhe had found out what had become of Mr. Grimes. But this time Mr. Grimeswas gone; and Tom made up his mind that he was turned into awater-baby.
He might have made himself easy, poor little man; Mr. Grimes did notturn into a water-baby, or anything like one at all. But he did not makehimself easy; and a long time he was fearful lest he should meet Grimessuddenly in some deep pool. He could not know that the fairies hadcarried him away, and put him, where they put everything which fallsinto the water, exactly where it ought to be. But, do you know, what hadhappened to Mr. Grimes had such an effect on him that he never poachedsalmon any more. And it is quite certain that, when a man becomes aconfirmed poacher, the only way to cure him is to put him under waterfor twenty-four hours like Grimes.
Then Tom went on down, for he was afraid of staying near Grimes: and ashe went, all the vale looked sad. The red and yellow leaves showereddown into the river; the flies and beetles were all dead and gone; thechill autumn fog lay low upon the hills, and sometimes spread itself sothickly on the river that he could not see his way. But he felt his wayinstead, following the flow of the stream, day after day, past greatbridges, past boats and barges, past the great town, with its wharfs,and mills, and tall smoking chimneys, and ships which rode at anchor inthe stream; and now and then he ran against their hawsers, and wonderedwhat they were, and peeped out, and saw the sailors lounging on boardsmoking their pipes; and ducked under again, for he was terribly afraidof being caught by man and turned into a chimney-sweep once more. He didnot know that the fairies were close to him always, shutting thesailors' eyes lest they should see him, and turning him aside frommillraces, and sewer-mouths, and all foul and dangerous things. Poorlittle fellow, it was a dreary journey for him; and more than once helonged to be back in Vendale, playing with the trout in the brightsummer sun. But it could not be. What has been once can never come overagain. And people can be little babies, even water-babies, only once intheir lives.
Besides, people who make up their minds to go and see the world, as Tomdid, must needs find it a weary journey. Lucky for them if they do notlose heart and stop half-way, instead of going on bravely to the end asTom did. For then they will remain neither boys nor men, neither fish,flesh, nor good red-herring: having learnt a great deal too much, andyet not enough; and sown their wild oats, without having the advantageof reaping them.
But Tom was always a brave, determined, little English bull-dog, whonever knew when he was beaten; and on and on he held, till he saw a longway off the red buoy through the fog. And then he found, to hissurprise, the stream turned round, and running up inland.
It was the tide, of course: but Tom knew nothing of the tide. He onlyknew that in a minute more the water, which had been fresh, turned saltall round him. And then there came a change over him. He felt as strong,and light, and fresh, as if his veins had run champagne; and gave, hedid not know why, three skips out of
the water, a yard high, and headover heels, just as the salmon do when they first touch the noble richsalt water, which, as some wise men tell us, is the mother of all livingthings.
He did not care now for the tide being against him. The red buoy was insight, dancing in the open sea; and to the buoy he would go, and to ithe went. He passed great shoals of bass and mullet, leaping and rushingin after the shrimps, but he never heeded them, or they him; and once hepassed a great black shining seal, who was coming in after the mullet.The seal put his head and shoulders out of water, and stared at him,looking exactly like a fat old greasy negro with a gray pate. And Tom,instead of being frightened, said, "How d'ye do, sir; what a beautifulplace 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 toyou, my little man; are you looking for your brothers and sisters? Ipassed them all at play outside."
_And Tom sat upon the buoy long days_]
"Oh, then," said Tom, "I shall have playfellows at last," and he swam onto the buoy, and got upon it (for he was quite out of breath) and satthere, and looked round for water-babies: but there were none to beseen.
The sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and blew the fog away; andthe little waves danced for joy around the buoy, and the old buoy dancedwith them. The shadows of the clouds ran races over the bright blue bay,and yet never caught each other up; and the breakers plunged merrilyupon the wide white sands, and jumped up over the rocks, to see what thegreen fields inside were like, and tumbled down and broke themselvesall to pieces, and never minded it a bit, but mended themselves andjumped up again. And the terns hovered over Tom like huge whitedragon-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 fromshore to shore, and whistled sweet and wild. And Tom looked and looked,and listened; and he would have been very happy, if he could only haveseen the water-babies. Then when the tide turned, he left the buoy, andswam round and round in search of them: but in vain. Sometimes hethought he heard them laughing: but it was only the laughter of theripples. And sometimes he thought he saw them at the bottom: but it wasonly white and pink shells. And once he was sure he had found one, forhe saw two bright eyes peeping out of the sand. So he dived down, andbegan scraping the sand away, and cried, "Don't hide; I do want some oneto play with so much!" And out jumped a great turbot with his ugly eyesand mouth all awry, and flopped away along the bottom, knocking poor Tomover. And he sat down at the bottom of the sea, and cried salt tearsfrom sheer disappointment.
To have come all this way, and faced so many dangers, and yet to find nowater-babies! How hard! Well, it did seem hard: but people, even littlebabies, cannot have all they want without waiting for it, and workingfor it too, my little man, as you will find out some day.
And Tom sat upon the buoy long days, long weeks, looking out to sea, andwondering when the water-babies would come back; and yet they nevercame.
Then he began to ask all the strange things which came in out of the seaif they had seen any; and some said "Yes," and some said nothing at all.
He asked the bass and the pollock; but they were so greedy after theshrimps that they did not care to answer him a word.
Then there came in a whole fleet of purple sea-snails, floating along,each on a sponge full of foam, and Tom said, "Where do you come from,you pretty creatures? and have you seen the water-babies?"
And the sea-snails answered, "Whence we come we know not; and whither weare going, who can tell? We float out our life in the mid-ocean, withthe warm sunshine above our heads, and the warm gulf-stream below; andthat is enough for us. Yes; perhaps we have seen the water-babies. Wehave seen many strange things as we sailed along." And they floatedaway, the happy stupid things, and all went ashore upon the sands.
Then there came in a great lazy sunfish, as big as a fat pig cut inhalf; and he seemed to have been cut in half too, and squeezed in aclothes-press till he was flat; but to all his big body and big fins hehad only a little rabbit's mouth, no bigger than Tom's; and, when Tomquestioned 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 theChesapeake, and I'm afraid I've got wrong somehow. Dear me! it was allby following that pleasant warm water. I'm sure I've lost my way."
And, when Tom asked him again, he could only answer, "I've lost my way.Don't talk to me; I want to think."
But, like a good many other people, the more he tried to think the lesshe could think; and Tom saw him blundering about all day, till thecoast-guardsmen saw his big fin above the water, and rowed out, andstruck a boat-hook into him, and took him away. They took him up to thetown and showed him for a penny a head, and made a good day's work ofit. But of course Tom did not know that.
Then there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling as they went--papas,and mammas, and little children--and all quite smooth and shiny, becausethe fairies French-polish them every morning; and they sighed so softlyas they came by, that Tom took courage to speak to them: but all theyanswered was, "Hush, hush, hush;" for that was all they had learned tosay.
And then there came a shoal of basking sharks, some of them as long as aboat, and Tom was frightened at them. But they were very lazygood-natured fellows, not greedy tyrants, like white sharks and bluesharks and ground sharks and hammer-heads, who eat men, or saw-fish andthreshers and ice-sharks, who hunt the poor old whales. They came andrubbed their great sides against the buoy, and lay basking in the sunwith their backfins out of water; and winked at Tom: but he never couldget them to speak. They had eaten so many herrings that they were quitestupid; and Tom was glad when a collier brig came by and frightened themall away; for they did smell most horribly, certainly, and he had tohold his nose tight as long as they were there.
And then there came by a beautiful creature, like a ribbon of puresilver with a sharp head and very long teeth; but it seemed very sickand sad. Sometimes it rolled helpless on its side; and then it dashedaway glittering like white fire; and then it lay sick again andmotionless.
"Where do you come from?" asked Tom. "And why are _you_ so sick andsad?"
"I come from the warm Carolinas, and the sandbanks fringed with pines;where the great owl-rays leap and flap, like giant bats, upon the tide.But I wandered north and north, upon the treacherous warm gulf-stream,till I met with the cold icebergs, afloat in the mid ocean. So I gottangled among the icebergs, and chilled with their frozen breath. Butthe water-babies helped me from among them, and set me free again. Andnow I am mending every day; but I am very sick and sad; and perhaps Ishall never get home again to play with the owl-rays any more."
"Oh!" cried Tom. "And you have seen water-babies? Have you seen any nearhere?"
"Yes; they helped me again last night, or I should have been eaten by agreat black porpoise."
How vexatious! The water-babies close to him, and yet he could not findone.
And then he left the buoy, and used to go along the sands and round therocks, and come out in the night--like the forsaken Merman in Mr.Arnold's beautiful, beautiful poem, which you must learn by heart someday--and sit upon a point of rock, among the shining seaweeds, in thelow October tides, and cry and call for the water-babies; but he neverheard 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 awater-baby, alas! but it was a lobster; and a very distinguished lobsterhe was; for he had live barnacles on his claws, which is a great mark ofdistinction in lobsterdom, and no more to be bought for money than agood conscience or the Victoria Cross.
Tom had never seen a lobster before; and he was mightily taken with thisone; for he thought him the most curious, odd, ridiculous creature hehad ever seen; and there he was not far wrong; for all the ingeniousmen, and all the scientific men, and all the fanciful men, in the world,with all the old German bogy-painters into the bargain, could neverinvent, if all their wits were boiled into one, an
ything so curious, andso ridiculous, as a lobster.
He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and Tom delighted inwatching him hold on to the seaweed with his knobbed claw, while he cutup salads with his jagged one, and then put them into his mouth, aftersmelling at them, like a monkey. And always the little barnacles threwout their casting-nets and swept the water, and came in for their shareof whatever there was for dinner.
But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired himself off--snap! likethe leap-frogs which you make out of a goose's breast-bone. Certainly hetook the most wonderful shots, and backwards, too. For, if he wanted togo into a narrow crack ten yards off, what do you think he did? If hehad gone in head foremost, of course he could not have turned round. Sohe used to turn his tail to it, and lay his long horns, which carry hissixth 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 theyalmost came out of their sockets, and then made ready, present, fire,snap!--and away he went, pop into the hole; and peeped out and twiddledhis whiskers, as much as to say, "You couldn't do that."
Tom asked him about water-babies. "Yes," he said. He had seen themoften. But he did not think much of them. They were meddlesome littlecreatures that went about helping fish and shells which got intoscrapes. Well, for his part, he should be ashamed to be helped by littlesoft creatures that had not even a shell on their backs. He had livedquite long enough in the world to take care of himself.
He was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not very civil to Tom;and you will hear how he had to alter his mind before he was done, asconceited people generally have. But he was so funny, and Tom so lonely,that he could not quarrel with him; and they used to sit in holes in therocks, and chat for hours.
And about this time there happened to Tom a very strange and importantadventure--so important, indeed, that he was very near never finding thewater-babies at all; and I am sure you would have been sorry for that.
I hope that you have not forgotten the little white lady all this while.At least, here she comes, looking like a clean white good littledarling, as she always was, and always will be. For it befell in thepleasant short December days, when the wind always blows from thesouth-west, till Old Father Christmas comes and spreads the great whitetable-cloth, ready for little boys and girls to give the birds theirChristmas dinner of crumbs--it befell (to go on) in the pleasantDecember days, that Sir John was so busy hunting that nobody at homecould get a word out of him. Four days a week he hunted, and very goodsport he had; and the other two he went to the bench and the board ofguardians, and very good justice he did.
It befell (to go on a second time) that Sir John, hunting all day, anddining at five, fell asleep every evening, and snored so terribly thatall 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 thana 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 everyevening to their hearts' content. So she started for the seaside withall the children, in order to put herself and them into condition bymild applications of iodine. She might as well have stayed at home andused Parry's liquid horse-blister, for there was plenty of it in thestables; and then she would have saved her money, and saved the chance,also, of making all the children ill instead of well (as hundreds aremade), by taking them to some nasty smelling undrained lodging, and thenwondering how they caught scarlatina and diphtheria: but people won't bewise enough to understand that till they are dead of bad smells, andthen it will be too late; besides, you see, Sir John did certainly snorevery loud.
But where she went to nobody must know, for fear young ladies shouldbegin to fancy that there are water-babies there! and so hunt and howkafter them (besides raising the price of lodgings), and keep them inaquariums, as the ladies at Pompeii (as you may see by the paintings)used to keep Cupids in cages. But nobody ever heard that they starvedthe Cupids, or let them die of dirt and neglect, as English young ladiesdo by the poor sea-beasts. So nobody must know where My Lady went.Letting water-babies die is as bad as taking singing birds' eggs; for,though there are thousands, ay, millions, of both of them in the world,yet there is not one too many.
Now it befell that, on the very shore, and over the very rocks, whereTom was sitting with his friend the lobster, there walked one day thelittle white lady, Ellie herself, and with her a very wise manindeed--Professor Ptthmllnsprts.
He was, as I said, a very great naturalist; a very worthy, kind,good-natured little old gentleman; and very fond of children; and verygood to all the world as long as it was good to him. Only one fault hehad, which cock-robins have likewise, as you may see if you look out ofthe nursery window--that, when any one else found a curious worm, hewould hop round them, and peck them, and set up his tail, and bristle uphis feathers, just as a cock-robin would; and declare that he found theworm first; and that it was his worm; and, if not, that then it was nota worm at all.
He had met Sir John at Scarborough, or Fleetwood, or somewhere or other(if you don't care where, nobody else does), and had made acquaintancewith him, and become very fond of his children. Now, Sir John knownothing about sea-cockyolybirds, and cared less, provided the fishmongersent him good fish for dinner; and My Lady knew as little: but shethought it proper that the children should know something. For in thestupid old times, you must understand, children were taught to know onething, and to know it well; but in these enlightened new times they aretaught to know a little about everything, and to know it all ill; whichis a great deal pleasanter and easier, and therefore quite right.
So Ellie and he were walking on the rocks, and he was showing her aboutone in ten thousand of all the beautiful and curious things which are tobe seen there. But little Ellie was not satisfied with them at all. Sheliked much better to play with live children, or even with dolls, whichshe could pretend were alive; and at last she said honestly, "I don'tcare about all these things, because they can't play with me, or talk tome. If there were little children now in the water, as there used to be,and I could see them, I should like that."
"Children in the water, you strange little duck?" said the professor.
"Yes," said Ellie. "I know there used to be children in the water, andmermaids too, and mermen. I saw them all in a picture at home, of abeautiful lady sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and babies flyinground her, and one sitting in her lap; and the mermaids swimming andplaying, and the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells; and it is called'The Triumph of Galatea;' and there is a burning mountain in thepicture behind. It hangs on the great staircase, and I have looked at itever since I was a baby, and dreamt about it a hundred times; and it isso beautiful that it must be true."
But the professor had not the least notion of allowing that things weretrue, merely because people thought them beautiful.
Now little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; for she onlyasked the same question over again.
"But why are there not water-babies?"
I trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at that momenton the edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt one of his corns sadly,that he answered quite sharply, forgetting that he was a scientific man,and therefore ought to have known that he couldn't know; and that he wasa logician, and therefore ought to have known that he could not prove auniversal negative--I say, I trust and hope it was because the musselhurt his corn, that the professor answered quite sharply:
"Because there ain't."
Which was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as you mustknow, the professor ought to have said, if he was so angry as to sayanything of the kind--Because there are not: or are none: or are none ofthem; or because they do not exist.
_He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly,with Tom all entangled in the meshes_]
And he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, that, as itbefell, he caught poor little Tom. He felt the net very heavy; andlifted it out quickly, wit
h Tom all entangled in the meshes.
"Dear me!" he cried. "What a large pink Holothurian; with hands, too! Itmust be connected with Synapta."
And he took him out.
"It has actually eyes!" he cried. "Why, it must be a Cephalopod! This ismost extraordinary!"
"No, I ain't!" cried Tom, as loud as he could; for he did not like to becalled bad names.
"It is a water-baby!" cried Ellie; and of course it was.
"Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!" said the professor; and he turned awaysharply.
There was no denying it. It was a water-baby: and he had said a momentago that there were none. What was he to do?
He would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom home in a bucket. Hewould not have put him in spirits. Of course not. He would have kept himalive, and petted him (for he was a very kind old gentleman), andwritten a book about him, and given him two long names, of which thefirst would have said a little about Tom, and the second all abouthimself.
There was a wise old heathen once, who said, "Maxima debetur puerisreverentia"--The greatest reverence is due to children; that is, thatgrown people should never say or do anything wrong before children, lestthey should set them a bad example.--But some people, and I am afraidthe professor was one of them, interpret that in a strange, curious,one-sided, left-handed, topsy-turvy, inside-out-behind-before fashion;for they make it mean, that you must show your respect for children, bynever confessing yourself in the wrong to them, even if you know thatyou are so, lest they should lose confidence in their elders.
Now, if the professor had said to Ellie, "Yes, my darling, it is awater-baby, and a very wonderful thing it is; and it shows how little Iknow of the wonders of nature, in spite of forty years' honest labour. Iwas just telling you that there could be no such creatures; and, behold!here is one come to confound my conceit and show me that Nature can do,and has done, beyond all that man's poor fancy can imagine. So, let usthank the Maker, and Inspirer, and Lord of Nature for all His wonderfuland glorious works, and try and find out something about this one;"--Ithink that, if the professor had said that, little Ellie would havebelieved him more firmly, and respected him more deeply, and loved himbetter, than ever she had done before. But he was of a differentopinion. He hesitated a moment. He longed to keep Tom, and yet he halfwished he never had caught him; and at last he quite longed to get ridof him. So he turned away and poked Tom with his finger, for want ofanything better to do; and said carelessly, "My dear little maid, youmust have dreamt of water-babies last night, your head is so full ofthem." Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable fright allthe while; and had kept as quiet as he could, though he was called aHolothurian and a Cephalopod; for it was fixed in his little head thatif a man with clothes on caught him, he might put clothes on him too,and make a dirty black chimney-sweep of him again. But, when theprofessor poked him, it was more than he could bear; and, between frightand rage, he turned to bay as valiantly as a mouse in a corner, and bitthe professor's finger till it bled.
"Oh! ah! yah!" cried he; and glad of an excuse to be rid of Tom, droppedhim on to the seaweed, and thence he dived into the water and was gonein a moment.
"But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak!" cried Ellie. "Ah, it isgone!" And she jumped down off the rock to try and catch Tom before heslipped into the sea.
Too late! and what was worse, as she sprang down, she slipped, and fellsome six feet with her head on a sharp rock, and lay quite still.
The professor picked her up, and tried to waken her, and called to her,and cried over her, for he loved her very much: but she would not wakenat 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 therequite still; only now and then she woke up and called out about thewater-baby: but no one knew what she meant, and the professor did nottell, for he was ashamed to tell.
And, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies came flying in atthe window and brought her such a pretty pair of wings that she couldnot help putting them on; and she flew with them out of the window, andover the land, and over the sea, and up through the clouds, and nobodyheard or saw anything of her for a very long while.
The Water-Babies Page 6
