CHAPTER II
"A quiet, silent, rich, happy place."--_P. 35._]
A MILE off, and a thousand feet down.
So Tom found it; though it seemed as if he could have chucked a pebbleon to the back of the woman in the red petticoat who was weeding in thegarden, or even across the dale to the rocks beyond. For the bottom ofthe valley was just one field broad, and on the other side ran thestream; and above it, grey crag, grey down, grey stair, grey moor walledup to heaven.
A quiet, silent, rich, happy place; a narrow crack cut deep into theearth; so deep, and so out of the way, that the bad bogies can hardlyfind it out. The name of the place is Vendale; and if you want to see itfor yourself, you must go up into the High Craven, and search fromBolland Forest north by Ingleborough, to the Nine Standards and CrossFell; and if you have not found it, you must turn south, and search theLake Mountains, down to Scaw Fell and the sea; and then, if you have notfound it, you must go northward again by merry Carlisle, and search theCheviots all across, from Annan Water to Berwick Law; and then, whetheryou have found Vendale or not, you will have found such a country, andsuch a people, as ought to make you proud of being a British boy.
So Tom went to go down; and first he went down three hundred feet ofsteep heather, mixed up with loose brown gritstone, as rough as a file;which was not pleasant to his poor little heels, as he came bump, stump,jump, down the steep. And still he thought he could throw a stone intothe garden.
Then he went down three hundred feet of limestone terraces, one belowthe other, as straight as if a carpenter had ruled them with his rulerand 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 sweetherbs.
Then bump down a two-foot step of limestone.
Then another bit of grass and flowers.
Then bump down a one-foot step.
Then another bit of grass and flowers for fifty yards, as steep as thehouse-roof, where he had to slide down on his dear little tail.
Then another step of stone, ten feet high; and there he had to stophimself, and crawl along the edge to find a crack; for if he had rolledover, he would have rolled right into the old woman's garden, andfrightened 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 downthrough it, with knees and elbows, as he would down a chimney, therewas another grass slope, and another step, and so on, till--oh, dear me!I wish it was all over; and so did he. And yet he thought he could throwa stone into the old woman's garden.
At last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs; white-beam with its greatsilver-backed leaves, and mountain-ash, and oak; and below them cliffand crag, cliff and crag, with great beds of crown-ferns and wood-sedge;while through the shrubs he could see the stream sparkling, and hear itmurmur on the white pebbles. He did not know that it was three hundredfeet below.
You would have been giddy, perhaps, at looking down: but Tom was not. Hewas a brave little chimney-sweep; and when he found himself on the topof a high cliff, instead of sitting down and crying for his baba (thoughhe never had had any baba to cry for), he said, "Ah, this will just suitme!" though he was very tired; and down he went, by stock and stone,sedge and ledge, bush and rush, as if he had been born a jolly littleblack ape, with four hands instead of two.
And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman coming down behind him.
But he was getting terribly tired now. The burning sun on the fells hadsucked him up; but the damp heat of the woody crag sucked him up stillmore; and the perspiration ran out of the ends of his fingers and toes,and washed him cleaner than he had been for a whole year. But, ofcourse, he dirtied everything terribly as he went. There has been agreat black smudge all down the crag ever since. And there have beenmore black beetles in Vendale since than ever were known before; all, ofcourse, 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 andscarlet leggings, as smart as a gardener's dog with a polyanthus in hismouth.
At last he got to the bottom. But, behold, it was not the bottom--aspeople usually find when they are coming down a mountain. For at thefoot of the crag were heaps and heaps of fallen limestone of every sizefrom that of your head to that of a stage-waggon, with holes betweenthem full of sweet heath-fern; and before Tom got through them, he wasout in the bright sunshine again; and then he felt, once for all andsuddenly, 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 youlive such a life as a man ought to live, let you be as strong andhealthy as you may: and when you are, you will find it a very uglyfeeling. I hope that that day you may have a stout staunch friend by youwho is not beat; for, if you have not, you had best lie where you are,and wait for better times, as poor Tom did.
He could not get on. The sun was burning, and yet he felt chill allover. He was quite empty, and yet he felt quite sick. There was but twohundred yards of smooth pasture between him and the cottage, and yet hecould not walk down it. He could hear the stream murmuring only onefield beyond it, and yet it seemed to him as if it was a hundred milesoff.
He lay down on the grass till the beetles ran over him, and the fliessettled on his nose. I don't know when he would have got up again, ifthe gnats and the midges had not taken compassion on him. But the gnatsblew their trumpets so loud in his ear, and the midges nibbled so at hishands and face wherever they could find a place free from soot, that atlast he woke up, and stumbled away, down over a low wall, and into anarrow road, and up to the cottage door.
And a neat pretty cottage it was, with clipped yew hedges all round thegarden, and yews inside too, cut into peacocks and trumpets and teapotsand all kinds of queer shapes. And out of the open door came a noiselike that of the frogs on the Great-A, when they know that it is goingto be scorching hot to-morrow--and how they know that I don't know, andyou don't know, and nobody knows.
He came slowly up to the open door, which was all hung round withclematis and roses; and then peeped in, half afraid.
And there sat by the empty fireplace, which was filled with a pot ofsweet herbs, the nicest old woman that ever was seen, in her redpetticoat, and short dimity bedgown, and clean white cap, with a blacksilk handkerchief over it, tied under her chin. At her feet sat thegrandfather of all the cats; and opposite her sat, on two benches,twelve or fourteen neat, rosy, chubby little children, learning theirChris-cross-row; and gabble enough they made about it.
Such a pleasant cottage it was, with a shiny clean stone floor, andcurious old prints on the walls, and an old black oak sideboard full ofbright pewter and brass dishes, and a cuckoo clock in the corner, whichbegan shouting as soon as Tom appeared: not that it was frightened atTom, but that it was just eleven o'clock.
All the children started at Tom's dirty black figure,--the girls beganto cry, and the boys began to laugh, and all pointed at him rudelyenough; but Tom was too tired to care for that.
"What art thou, and what dost want?" cried the old dame. "Achimney-sweep! Away with thee! I'll have no sweeps here."
"Water," said poor little Tom, quite faint.
"Water? There's plenty i' the beck," she said, quite sharply.
"But I can't get there; I'm most clemmed with hunger and drought." AndTom 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, andtwo, and three; and then she said, "He's sick; and a bairn's a bairn,sweep or none."
"Water," said Tom.
"God forgive me!" and she put by her spectacles, and rose, and came toTom. "Water's bad for thee; I'll give thee milk." And she toddled offinto the next room, and brought a cup of milk and a bit of bread.
Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then looked up, revived.
"Where didst come from?"
said the dame.
"Over Fell, there," said Tom, and pointed up into the sky.
"Over Harthover? and down Lewthwaite Crag? Art sure thou art not lying?"
"Why should I?" said Tom, and leant his head against the post.
"And how got ye up there?"
"I came over from the Place"; and Tom was so tired and desperate he hadno heart or time to think of a story, so he told all the truth in a fewwords.
"Bless thy little heart! And thou hast not been stealing, then?"
"No."
"Bless thy little heart! and I'll warrant not. Why, God's guided thebairn, because he was innocent! Away from the Place, and over HarthoverFell, and down Lewthwaite Crag! Who ever heard the like, if God hadn'tled him? Why dost not eat thy bread?"
"I can't."
"It's good enough, for I made it myself."
"I can't," said Tom, and he laid his head on his knees, and then asked--
"Is it Sunday?"
"No, then; why should it be?"
"Because I hear the church-bells ringing so."
"Bless thy pretty heart! The bairn's sick. Come wi' me, and I'll hapthee up somewhere. If thou wert a bit cleaner I'd put thee in my ownbed, 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 tohelp him and lead him.
She put him in an outhouse upon soft sweet hay and an old rug, and badehim sleep off his walk, and she would come to him when school was over,in an hour's time.
And so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall fast asleep at once.
But Tom did not fall asleep.
Instead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about in the strangestway, and felt so hot all over that he longed to get into the river andcool himself; and then he fell half asleep, and dreamt that he heard thelittle white lady crying to him, "Oh, you're so dirty; go and bewashed"; and then that he heard the Irishwoman saying, "Those that wishto be clean, clean they will be." And then he heard the church-bellsring so loud, close to him too, that he was sure it must be Sunday, inspite of what the old dame had said; and he would go to church, and seewhat a church was like inside, for he had never been in one, poor littlefellow, in all his life. But the people would never let him come in, allover soot and dirt like that. He must go to the river and wash first.And he said out loud again and again, though being half asleep he didnot 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 justbefore him, saying continually, "I must be clean, I must be clean." Hehad got there on his own legs, between sleep and awake, as children willoften get out of bed, and go about the room, when they are not quitewell. But he was not a bit surprised, and went on to the bank of thebrook, and lay down on the grass, and looked into the clear, clearlimestone water, with every pebble at the bottom bright and clean, whilethe little silver trout dashed about in fright at the sight of his blackface; and he dipped his hand in and found it so cool, cool, cool; and hesaid, "I will be a fish; I will swim in the water; I must be clean, Imust be clean."
So he pulled off all his clothes in such haste that he tore some ofthem, which was easy enough with such ragged old things. And he put hispoor hot sore feet into the water; and then his legs; and the farther hewent in, the more the church-bells rang in his head.
"Ah," said Tom, "I must be quick and wash myself; the bells are ringingquite 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 allservice time, for everybody who likes to come in, Churchman orDissenter; ay, even if he were a Turk or a Heathen; and if any man daredto turn him out, as long as he behaved quietly, the good old English lawwould punish that man, as he deserved, for ordering any peaceable personout of God's house, which belongs to all alike. But Tom did not knowthat, any more than he knew a great deal more which people ought toknow.
"She was the Queen of them all."--_P. 44._]
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 thecool clear water; and her shawl and her petticoat floated off her, andthe green water-weeds floated round her sides, and the whitewater-lilies floated round her head, and the fairies of the stream cameup from the bottom and bore her away and down upon their arms; for shewas the Queen of them all; and perhaps of more besides.
"Where have you been?" they asked her.
"I have been smoothing sick folks' pillows, and whispering sweet dreamsinto their ears; opening cottage casements, to let out the stifling air;coaxing little children away from gutters, and foul pools where feverbreeds; turning women from the gin-shop door, and staying men's hands asthey were going to strike their wives; doing all I can to help those whowill not help themselves; and little enough that is, and weary work forme. But I have brought you a new little brother, and watched him safeall the way here."
Then all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought that they had alittle brother coming.
"But mind, maidens, he must not see you, or know that you are here. Heis but a savage now, and like the beasts which perish; and from thebeasts which perish he must learn. So you must not play with him, orspeak to him, or let him see you: but only keep him from being harmed."
Then the fairies were sad, because they could not play with their newbrother, but they always did what they were told.
And their Queen floated away down the river; and whither she went,thither she came. But all this Tom, of course, never saw or heard: andperhaps if he had it would have made little difference in the story; forhe was so hot and thirsty, and longed so to be clean for once, that hetumbled himself as quick as he could into the clear cool stream.
And he had not been in it two minutes before he fell fast asleep, intothe quietest, sunniest, cosiest sleep that ever he had in his life; andhe dreamt about the green meadows by which he had walked that morning,and the tall elm-trees, and the sleeping cows; and after that he dreamtof nothing at all.
The reason of his falling into such a delightful sleep is very simple;and yet hardly any one has found it out. It was merely that the fairiestook him.
Some people think that there are no fairies. Cousin Cramchild tellslittle folks so in his Conversations. Well, perhaps there are none--inBoston, U.S., where he was raised. There are only a clumsy lot ofspirits there, who can't make people hear without thumping on the table:but they get their living thereby, and I suppose that is all they want.And Aunt Agitate, in her Arguments on political economy, says there arenone. Well, perhaps there are none--in her political economy. But it isa wide world, my little man--and thank Heaven for it, for else, betweencrinolines and theories, some of us would get squashed--and plenty ofroom in it for fairies, without people seeing them; unless, of course,they look in the right place. The most wonderful and the strongestthings in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.There is life in you; and it is the life in you which makes you grow,and move, and think: and yet you can't see it. And there is steam in asteam-engine; and that is what makes it move: and yet you can't see it;and so there may be fairies in the world, and they may be just whatmakes the world go round to the old tune of
"_C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour Qui fait le monde a la ronde:_"
and yet no one may be able to see them except those whose hearts aregoing round to that same tune. At all events, we will make believe thatthere are fairies in the world. It will not be the last time by many aone that we shall have to make believe. And yet, after all, there is noneed for that. There must be fairies; for this is a fairy tale: and howcan 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 thelogic of a great many arguments exactly like it, which you will hearbefore your beard is grey.
The ki
nd old dame came back at twelve, when school was over, to look atTom: but there was no Tom there. She looked about for his footprints;but the ground was so hard that there was no slot, as they say in dearold North Devon. And if you grow up to be a brave healthy man, you mayknow some day what no slot means, and know too, I hope, what a slot doesmean--a broad slot, with blunt claws, which makes a man put out hiscigar, and set his teeth, and tighten his girths, when he sees it; andwhat his rights mean, if he has them, brow, bay, tray, and points; andsee something worth seeing between Haddon Wood and Countisbury Cliff,with good Mr. Palk Collyns to show you the way, and mend your bones asfast as you smash them. Only when that jolly day comes, please don'tbreak your neck; stogged in a mire you never will be, I trust; for youare a heath-cropper bred and born.
So the old dame went in again quite sulky, thinking that little Tom hadtricked her with a false story, and shammed ill, and then run awayagain.
But she altered her mind the next day. For, when Sir John and the restof them had run themselves out of breath, and lost Tom, they went backagain, looking very foolish.
And they looked more foolish still when Sir John heard more of the storyfrom the nurse; and more foolish still, again, when they heard the wholestory from Miss Ellie, the little lady in white. All she had seen was apoor little black chimney-sweep, crying and sobbing, and going to getup the chimney again. Of course, she was very much frightened: and nowonder. But that was all. The boy had taken nothing in the room; by themark of his little sooty feet, they could see that he had never been offthe 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 ifhe would bring the boy quietly up to him, without beating him, that hemight be sure of the truth. For he took for granted, and Grimes too,that Tom had made his way home.
But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that evening; and he went to thepolice-office, to tell them to look out for the boy. But no Tom washeard of. As for his having gone over those great fells to Vendale, theyno more dreamed of that than of his having gone to the moon.
So Mr. Grimes came up to Harthover next day with a very sour face; butwhen 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 strongale to wash away his sorrows; and they were washed away long before SirJohn came back.
For good Sir John had slept very badly that night; and he said to hislady, "My dear, the boy must have got over into the grouse-moors, andlost himself; and he lies very heavily on my conscience, poor littlelad. But I know what I will do."
So, at five the next morning up he got, and into his bath, and into hisshooting-jacket and gaiters, and into the stableyard, like a fine oldEnglish gentleman, with a face as red as a rose, and a hand as hard as atable, and a back as broad as a bullock's; and bade them bring hisshooting pony, and the keeper to come on his pony, and the huntsman, andthe first whip, and the second whip, and the under-keeper with thebloodhound in a leash--a great dog as tall as a calf, of the colour of agravel-walk, with mahogany ears and nose, and a throat like achurch-bell. They took him up to the place where Tom had gone into thewood; and there the hound lifted up his mighty voice, and told them allhe knew.
Then he took them to the place where Tom had climbed the wall; and theyshoved it down, and all got through.
And then the wise dog took them over the moor, and over the fells, stepby step, very slowly; for the scent was a day old, you know, and verylight from the heat and drought. But that was why cunning old Sir Johnstarted at five in the morning.
And at last he came to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and there he bayed,and looked up in their faces, as much as to say, "I tell you he is gonedown here!"
They could hardly believe that Tom would have gone so far; and when theylooked at that awful cliff, they could never believe that he would havedared 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 shallfind him lying at the bottom." And he slapped his great hand upon hisgreat thigh, and said--
"Who will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, and see if that boy is alive? Ohthat I were twenty years younger, and I would go down myself!" And so hewould 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 hisway, what he said he meant.
Now among the lot was a little groom-boy, a very little groom indeed;and he was the same who had ridden up the court, and told Tom to come tothe Hall; and he said--
"Twenty pounds or none, I will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, if it'sonly for the poor boy's sake. For he was as civil a spoken little chapas ever climbed a flue."
So down over Lewthwaite Crag he went: a very smart groom he was at thetop, and a very shabby one at the bottom; for he tore his gaiters, andhe tore his breeches, and he tore his jacket, and he burst his braces,and he burst his boots, and he lost his hat, and what was worst of all,he lost his shirt pin, which he prized very much, for it was gold, andhe had won it in a raffle at Malton, and there was a figure at the topof 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 threemiles to the right, and back again, to get into Vendale, and to the footof the crag.
When they came to the old dame's school, all the children came out tosee. And the old dame came out too; and when she saw Sir John, shecurtsied very low, for she was a tenant of his.
"Well, dame, and how are you?" said Sir John.
"Blessings on you as broad as your back, Harthover," says she--shedidn't call him Sir John, but only Harthover, for that is the fashion inthe North country--"and welcome into Vendale: but you're no hunting thefox this time of the year?"
"I am hunting, and strange game too," said he.
"Blessings on your heart, and what makes you look so sad the morn?"
"I'm looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep, that is run away."
"Oh, Harthover, Harthover," says she, "ye were always a just man and amerciful; and ye'll no harm the poor little lad if I give you tidings ofhim?"
"Not I, not I, dame. I'm afraid we hunted him out of the house all on amiserable mistake, and the hound has brought him to the top ofLewthwaite Crag, and----"
Whereat the old dame broke out crying, without letting him finish hisstory.
"So he told me the truth after all, poor little dear! Ah, firstthoughts are best, and a body's heart'll guide them right, if they willbut hearken to it." And then she told Sir John all.
"Bring the dog here, and lay him on," said Sir John, without anotherword, and he set his teeth very hard.
And the dog opened at once; and went away at the back of the cottage,over the road, and over the meadow, and through a bit of alder copse;and there, upon an alder stump, they saw Tom's clothes lying. And thenthey knew as much about it all as there was any need to know.
And Tom?
Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this wonderful story. Tom, whenhe woke, for of course he woke--children always wake after they haveslept exactly as long as is good for them--found himself swimming aboutin the stream, being about four inches, or--that I may beaccurate--3.87902 inches long, and having round the parotid region ofhis fauces a set of external gills (I hope you understand all the bigwords) just like those of a sucking eft, which he mistook for a lacefrill, till he pulled at them, found he hurt himself, and made up hismind that they were part of himself, and best left alone.
In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.
A water-baby? You never heard of a water-baby. Perhaps not. That is thevery reason why this story was written. There are a great many things inthe world which you never heard of; and a great many more which nobodyever heard of; and a great many things, too, which nobody will ever hearof, at least until the coming of the Cocqcigrues, when man shall be themeasure of all thin
gs.
"But there are no such things as water-babies."
How do you know that? Have you been there to see? And if you had beenthere to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that there werenone. If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley Wood--as folkssometimes fear he never will--that does not prove that there are no suchthings as foxes. And as is Eversley Wood to all the woods in England, soare the waters we know to all the waters in the world. And no one has aright to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen nowater-babies existing; which is quite a different thing, mind, from notseeing water-babies; and a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps everwill do.
"But surely if there were water-babies, somebody would have caught oneat least?"
Well. How do you know that somebody has not?
"But they would have put it into spirits, or into the _IllustratedNews_, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing, andsent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see whatthey would each say about it."
Ah, my dear little man! that does not follow at all, as you will seebefore 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 nottalk about "ain't" and "can't" when you speak of this great wonderfulworld round you, of which the wisest man knows only the very smallestcorner, and is, as the great Sir Isaac Newton said, only a child pickingup pebbles on the shore of a boundless ocean.
You must not say that this cannot be, or that that is contrary tonature. You do not know what Nature is, or what she can do; and nobodyknows; not even Sir Roderick Murchison, or Professor Owen, or ProfessorSedgwick, or Professor Huxley, or Mr. Darwin, or Professor Faraday, orMr. Grove, or any other of the great men whom good boys are taught torespect. They are very wise men; and you must listen respectfully to allthey 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 whoread Aunt Agitate's Arguments, or Cousin Cramchild's Conversations; orlads who go to popular lectures, and see a man pointing at a few bigugly pictures on the wall, or making nasty smells with bottles andsquirts, for an hour or two, and calling that anatomy or chemistry--whotalk about "cannot exist," and "contrary to nature." Wise men are afraidto say that there is anything contrary to nature, except what iscontrary to mathematical truth; for two and two cannot make five, andtwo straight lines cannot join twice, and a part cannot be as great asthe whole, and so on (at least, so it seems at present): but the wisermen are, the less they talk about "cannot." That is a very rash,dangerous word, that "cannot"; and if people use it too often, the Queenof all the Fairies, who makes the clouds thunder and the fleas bite, andtakes just as much trouble about one as about the other, is apt toastonish them suddenly by showing them, that though they say she cannot,yet she can, and what is more, will, whether they approve or not.
And therefore it is, that there are dozens and hundreds of things in theworld which we should certainly have said were contrary to nature, if wedid not see them going on under our eyes all day long. If people hadnever seen little seeds grow into great plants and trees, of quitedifferent shape from themselves, and these trees again produce freshseeds, to grow into fresh trees, they would have said, "The thing cannotbe; it is contrary to nature." And they would have been quite as rightin saying so, as in saying that most other things cannot be.
Or suppose again, that you had come, like M. Du Chaillu, a travellerfrom unknown parts; and that no human being had ever seen or heard of anelephant. And suppose that you described him to people, and said, "Thisis the shape, and plan, and anatomy of the beast, and of his feet, andof his trunk, and of his grinders, and of his tusks, though they arenot tusks at all, but two fore teeth run mad; and this is the section ofhis skull, more like a mushroom than a reasonable skull of a reasonableor 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 littlehairy coney of Scripture, second cousin to a pig, and (I suspect)thirteenth or fourteenth cousin to a rabbit, yet he is the wisest of allbeasts, and can do everything save read, write, and cast accounts."People would surely have said, "Nonsense; your elephant is contrary tonature"; and have thought you were telling stories--as the Frenchthought of Le Vaillant when he came back to Paris and said that he hadshot a giraffe; and as the king of the Cannibal Islands thought of theEnglish sailor, when he said that in his country water turned to marble,and rain fell as feathers. They would tell you, the more they knew ofscience, "Your elephant is an impossible monster, contrary to the lawsof comparative anatomy, as far as yet known." To which you would answerthe less, the more you thought.
Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last twenty-five years,that a flying dragon was an impossible monster? And do we not now knowthat there are hundreds of them found fossil up and down the world?People call them Pterodactyles: but that is only because they areashamed to call them flying dragons, after denying so long that flyingdragons 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'sfancy that there cannot be such a thing as a locomotive, because henever saw one running wild in the forest. Wise men know that theirbusiness is to examine what is, and not to settle what is not. They knowthat there are elephants; they know that there have been flying dragons;and the wiser they are, the less inclined they will be to say positivelythat there are no water-babies.
No water-babies, indeed? Why, wise men of old said that everything onearth had its double in the water; and you may see that that is, if notquite true, still quite as true as most other theories which you arelikely to hear for many a day. There are land-babies--then why notwater-babies? _Are there not water-rats, water-flies, water-crickets,water-crabs, water-tortoises, water-scorpions, water-tigers andwater-hogs, water-cats and water-dogs, sea-lions and sea-bears,sea-horses and sea-elephants, sea-mice and sea-urchins, sea-razors andsea-pens, sea-combs and sea-fans; and of plants, are there notwater-grass, and water-crowfoot, water-milfoil, and so on, without end?_
"But all these things are only nicknames; the water things are notreally akin to the land things."
That's not always true. They are, in millions of cases, not only of thesame family, but actually the same individual creatures. Do not even youknow that a green drake, and an alder-fly, and a dragon-fly, live underwater till they change their skins, just as Tom changed his? And if awater animal can continually change into a land animal, why should nota land animal sometimes change into a water animal? Don't be put down byany of Cousin Cramchild's arguments, but stand up to him like a man, andanswer him (quite respectfully, of course) thus:--
If Cousin Cramchild says, that if there are water-babies, they must growinto water-men, ask him how he knows that they do not? and then, how heknows that they must, any more than the Proteus of the Adelsberg cavernsgrows into a perfect newt.
If he says that it is too strange a transformation for a land-baby toturn into a water-baby, ask him if he ever heard of the transformationof Syllis, or the Distomas, or the common jelly-fish, of which M.Quatrefages says excellently well--"Who would not exclaim that a miraclehad come to pass, if he saw a reptile come out of the egg dropped by thehen in his poultry-yard, and the reptile give birth at once to anindefinite number of fishes and birds? Yet the history of the jelly-fishis quite as wonderful as that would be." Ask him if he knows about allthis; and if he does not, tell him to go and look for himself; andadvise him (very respectfully, of course) to settle no more what strangethings cannot happen, till he has seen what strange things do happenevery day.
If he says that things cannot degrade, that is, change downwards intolower forms, ask him, who told him that water-babies were lower thanland-babies? But even if they were, does he know about the strange
degradation of the common goose-barnacles, which one finds sticking onships' bottoms; or the still stranger degradation of some cousins oftheirs, of which one hardly likes to talk, so shocking and ugly it is?
And, lastly, if he says (as he most certainly will) that thesetransformations only take place in the lower animals, and not in thehigher, say that that seems to little boys, and to some grown people, avery strange fancy. For if the changes of the lower animals are sowonderful, and so difficult to discover, why should not there be changesin the higher animals far more wonderful, and far more difficult todiscover? And may not man, the crown and flower of all things, undergosome change as much more wonderful than all the rest, as the GreatExhibition is more wonderful than a rabbit-burrow? Let him answer that.And if he says (as he will) that not having seen such a change in hisexperience, he is not bound to believe it, ask him respectfully, wherehis microscope has been? Does not each of us, in coming into this world,go through a transformation just as wonderful as that of a sea-egg, or abutterfly? and do not reason and analogy, as well as Scripture, tell usthat that transformation is not the last? and that, though what we shallbe, we know not, yet we are here but as the crawling caterpillar, andshall be hereafter as the perfect fly. The old Greeks, heathens as theywere, saw as much as that two thousand years ago; and I care very littlefor Cousin Cramchild, if he sees even less than they. And so forth, andso forth, till he is quite cross. And then tell him that if there areno water-babies, at least there ought to be; and that, at least, hecannot answer.
And meanwhile, my dear little man, till you know a great deal more aboutnature than Professor Owen and Professor Huxley put together, don't tellme about what cannot be, or fancy that anything is too wonderful to betrue. "We are fearfully and wonderfully made," said old David; and so weare; and so is everything around us, down to the very deal table. Yes;much more fearfully and wonderfully made, already, is the table, as itstands now, nothing but a piece of dead deal wood, than if, as foxessay, and geese believe, spirits could make it dance, or talk to you byrapping on it.
Am I in earnest? Oh dear no! Don't you know that this is a fairy tale,and all fun and pretence; and that you are not to believe one word ofit, even if it is true?
But at all events, so it happened to Tom. And, therefore, the keeper,and the groom, and Sir John made a great mistake, and were very unhappy(Sir John at least) without any reason, when they found a black thing inthe water, and said it was Tom's body, and that he had been drowned.They were utterly mistaken. Tom was quite alive; and cleaner, andmerrier, than he ever had been. The fairies had washed him, you see, inthe swift river, so thoroughly, that not only his dirt, but his wholehusk and shell had been washed quite off him, and the pretty little realTom was washed out of the inside of it, and swam away, as a caddis doeswhen its case of stones and silk is bored through, and away it goes onits back, paddling to the shore, there to split its skin, and fly awayas a caperer, on four fawn-coloured wings, with long legs and horns.They are foolish fellows, the caperers, and fly into the candle atnight, if you leave the door open. We will hope Tom will be wiser, nowhe has got safe out of his sooty old shell.
But good Sir John did not understand all this, not being a fellow of theLinnaean Society; and he took it into his head that Tom was drowned. Whenthey looked into the empty pockets of his shell, and found no jewelsthere, nor money--nothing but three marbles, and a brass button with astring to it--then Sir John did something as like crying as ever he didin his life, and blamed himself more bitterly than he need have done. Sohe cried, and the groom-boy cried, and the huntsman cried, and the damecried, and the little girl cried, and the dairymaid cried, and the oldnurse cried (for it was somewhat her fault), and my lady cried, forthough people have wigs, that is no reason why they should not havehearts; but the keeper did not cry, though he had been so good-naturedto Tom the morning before; for he was so dried up with running afterpoachers, that you could no more get tears out of him than milk out ofleather: and Grimes did not cry, for Sir John gave him ten pounds, andhe drank it all in a week. Sir John sent, far and wide, to find Tom'sfather and mother: but he might have looked till Doomsday for them, forone was dead, and the other was in Botany Bay. And the little girl wouldnot play with her dolls for a whole week, and never forgot poor littleTom. And soon my lady put a pretty little tombstone over Tom's shell inthe little churchyard in Vendale, where the old dalesmen all sleep sideby side between the limestone crags. And the dame decked it withgarlands every Sunday, till she grew so old that she could not stirabroad; then the little children decked it for her. And always she sangan 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 lessfor that; for it was very sweet, and very sad; and that was enough forthem. And these are the words of it:--
_When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away; Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day._
_When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown; And all the sport is stale, lad, And all the wheels run down; Creep home, and take your place there, The spent and maimed among: God grant you find one face there, You loved when all was young._
Those are the words: but they are only the body of it: the soul of thesong was the dear old woman's sweet face, and sweet voice, and the sweetold air to which she sang; and that, alas! one cannot put on paper. Andat last she grew so stiff and lame, that the angels were forced to carryher; and they helped her on with her wedding-dress, and carried her upover Harthover Fells, and a long way beyond that too; and there was anew schoolmistress in Vendale, and we will hope that she was notcertificated.
And all the while Tom was swimming about in the river, with a prettylittle lace-collar of gills about his neck, as lively as a grig, and asclean as a fresh-run salmon.
Now if you don't like my story, then go to the schoolroom and learn yourmultiplication-table, and see if you like that better. Some people, nodoubt, would do so. So much the better for us, if not for them. It takesall sorts, they say, to make a world.
"He prayeth well who loveth well Both men and bird and beast; He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small: For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all."
COLERIDGE.
The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby Page 2
