The Water-Babies

“I came over from the Place;” and Tom was so tired and desperate he had no heart or time to think of a story, so he told all the truth in a few words.

“Bless thy little heart!  And thou hast not been stealing, then?”

“No.”

“Bless thy little heart! and I’ll warrant not.  Why, God’s guided the bairn, because he was innocent!  Away from the Place, and over Harthover Fell, and down Lewthwaite Crag!  Who ever heard the like, if God hadn’t led him?  Why dost not eat thy bread?”

“I can’t.”

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

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

“Is it Sunday?”

“No, then; why should it be?”

“Because I hear the church-bells ringing so.”

“Bless thy pretty heart!  The bairn’s sick.  Come wi’ me, and I’ll hap thee up somewhere.  If thou wert a bit cleaner I’d put thee in my own bed, for the Lord’s sake.  But come along here.”

But when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired and giddy that she had to help him and lead him.

She put him in an outhouse upon soft sweet hay and an old rug, and bade him sleep off his walk, and she would come to him when school was over, in an hour’s time.

And so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall fast asleep at once.

But Tom did not fall asleep.

Instead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about in the strangest way, and felt so hot all over that he longed to get into the river and cool himself; and then he fell half asleep, and dreamt that he heard the little white lady crying to him, “Oh, you’re so dirty; go and be washed;” and then that he heard the Irishwoman saying, “Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be.”  And then he heard the church-bells ring so loud, close to him too, that he was sure it must be Sunday, in spite of what the old dame had said; and he would go to church, and see what a church was like inside, for he had never been in one, poor little fellow, in all his life.  But the people would never let him come in, all over soot and dirt like that.  He must go to the river and wash first.  And he said out loud again and again, though being half asleep he did not know it, “I must be clean, I must be clean.”

And all of a sudden he found himself, not in the outhouse on the hay, but in the middle of a meadow, over the road, with the stream just before him, saying continually, “I must be clean, I must be clean.”  He had got there on his own legs, between sleep and awake, as children will often get out of bed, and go about the room, when they are not quite well.  But he was not a bit surprised, and went on to the bank of the brook, and lay down on the grass, and looked into the clear, clear limestone water, with every pebble at the bottom bright and clean, while the little silver trout dashed about in fright at the sight of his black face; and he dipped his hand in and found it so cool, cool, cool; and he said, “I will be a fish; I will swim in the water; I must be clean, I must be clean.”

So he pulled off all his clothes in such haste that he tore some of them, which was easy enough with such ragged old things.  And he put his poor hot sore feet into the water; and then his legs; and the farther he went in, the more the church-bells rang in his head.

“Ah,” said Tom, “I must be quick and wash myself; the bells are ringing quite loud now; and they will stop soon, and then the door will be shut, and I shall never be able to get in at all.”

Tom was mistaken: for in England the church doors are left open all service time, for everybody who likes to come in, Churchman or Dissenter; ay, even if he were a Turk or a Heathen; and if any man dared to turn him out, as long as he behaved quietly, the good old English law would punish that man, as he deserved, for ordering any peaceable person out of God’s house, which belongs to all alike.  But Tom did not know that, any more than he knew a great deal more which people ought to know.

And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman, not behind him this time, but before.

For just before he came to the river side, she had stept down into the cool clear water; and her shawl and her petticoat floated off her, and the green water-weeds floated round her sides, and the white water-lilies floated round her head, and the fairies of the stream came up from the bottom and bore her away and down upon their arms; for she was the Queen of them all; and perhaps of more besides.

“Where have you been?” they asked her.

“I have been smoothing sick folks’ pillows, and whispering sweet dreams into their ears; opening cottage casements, to let out the stifling air; coaxing little children away from gutters, and foul pools where fever breeds; turning women from the gin-shop door, and staying men’s hands as they were going to strike their wives; doing all I can to help those who will not help themselves: and little enough that is, and weary work for me.  But I have brought you a new little brother, and watched him safe all the way here.”

Then all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought that they had a little brother coming.

“But mind, maidens, he must not see you, or know that you are here.  He is but a savage now, and like the beasts which perish; and from the beasts which perish he must learn.  So you must not play with him, or speak to him, or let him see you: but only keep him from being harmed.”

Then the fairies were sad, because they could not play with their new brother, but they always did what they were told.

And their Queen floated away down the river; and whither she went, thither she came.  But all this Tom, of course, never saw or heard: and perhaps if he had it would have made little difference in the story; for was so hot and thirsty, and longed so to be clean for once, that he tumbled himself as quick as he could into the clear cool stream.

And he had not been in it two minutes before he fell fast asleep, into the quietest, sunniest, cosiest sleep that ever he had in his life; and he dreamt about the green meadows by which he had walked that morning, and the tall elm-trees, and the sleeping cows; and after that he dreamt of nothing at all.

The reason of his falling into such a delightful sleep is very simple; and yet hardly any one has found it out.  It was merely that the fairies took him.

Some people think that there are no fairies.  Cousin Cramchild tells little folks so in his Conversations.  Well, perhaps there are none—in Boston, U.S., where he was raised.  There are only a clumsy lot of spirits there, who can’t make people hear without thumping on the table: but they get their living thereby, and I suppose that is all they want.  And Aunt Agitate, in her Arguments on political economy, says there are none.  Well, perhaps there are none—in her political economy.  But it is a wide world, my little man—and thank Heaven for it, for else, between crinolines and theories, some of us would get squashed—and plenty of room in it for fairies, without people seeing them; unless, of course, they look in the right place.  The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.  There is life in you; and it is the life in you which makes you grow, and move, and think: and yet you can’t see it.  And there is steam in a steam-engine; and that is what makes it move: and yet you can’t see it; and so there may be fairies in the world, and they may be just what makes the world go round to the old tune of

“C’est l’amour, l’amour, l’amour
Qui fait la monde à la ronde:”

and yet no one may be able to see them except those whose hearts are going round to that same tune.  At all events, we will make believe that there are fairies in the world.  It will not be the last time by many a one that we shall have to make believe.  And yet, after all, there is no need for that.  There must be fairies; for this is a fairy tale: and how can one have a fairy tale if there are no fairies?

You don’t see the logic of that?  Perhaps not.  Then please not to see the logic of a great many arguments exactly like it, which you will hear before your beard is gray.

The kind old dame came back at twelve, when school was over, to look at Tom: but there was no Tom there.  She looked about for his footprints; but the ground was so hard that there was no slot, as they say in dear old North Devon.  And if you grow up to be a brave healthy man, you may know some day what no slot means, and know too, I hope, what a slot does mean—a broad slot, with blunt claws, which makes a man put out his cigar, and set his teeth, and tighten his girths, when he sees it; and what his rights mean, if he has them, brow, bay, tray, and points; and see something worth seeing between Haddon Wood and Countisbury Cliff, with good Mr. Palk Collyns to show you the way, and mend your bones as fast as you smash them.  Only when that jolly day comes, please don’t break your neck; stogged in a mire you never will be, I trust; for you are a heath-cropper bred and born.

So the old dame went in again quite sulky, thinking that little Tom had tricked her with a false story, and shammed ill, and then run away again.

But she altered her mind the next day.  For, when Sir John and the rest of them had run themselves out of breath, and lost Tom, they went back again, looking very foolish.

And they looked more foolish still when Sir John heard more of the story from the nurse; and more foolish still, again, when they heard the whole story from Miss Ellie, the little lady in white.  All she had seen was a poor little black chimney-sweep, crying and sobbing, and going to get up the chimney again.  Of course, she was very much frightened: and no wonder.  But that was all.  The boy had taken nothing in the room; by the mark of his little sooty feet, they could see that he had never been off the hearthrug till the nurse caught hold of him.  It was all a mistake.

So Sir John told Grimes to go home, and promised him five shillings if he would bring the boy quietly up to him, without beating him, that he might be sure of the truth.  For he took for granted, and Grimes too, that Tom had made his way home.

But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that evening; and he went to the police-office, to tell them to look out for the boy.  But no Tom was heard of.  As for his having gone over those great fells to Vendale, they no more dreamed of that than of his having gone to the moon.

So Mr. Grimes came up to Harthover next day with a very sour face; but when he got there, Sir John was over the hills and far away; and Mr. Grimes had to sit in the outer servants’ hall all day, and drink strong ale to wash away his sorrows; and they were washed away long before Sir John came back.

For good Sir John had slept very badly that night; and he said to his lady, “My dear, the boy must have got over into the grouse-moors, and lost himself; and he lies very heavily on my conscience, poor little lad.  But I know what I will do.”

So, at five the next morning up he got, and into his bath, and into his shooting-jacket and gaiters, and into the stableyard, like a fine old English gentleman, with a face as red as a rose, and a hand as hard as a table, and a back as broad as a bullock’s; and bade them bring his shooting pony, and the keeper to come on his pony, and the huntsman, and the first whip, and the second whip, and the under-keeper with the bloodhound in a leash—a great dog as tall as a calf, of the colour of a gravel-walk, with mahogany ears and nose, and a throat like a church-bell.  They took him up to the place where Tom had gone into the wood; and there the hound lifted up his mighty voice, and told them all he knew.

Then he took them to the place where Tom had climbed the wall; and they shoved it down, and all got through.

And then the wise dog took them over the moor, and over the fells, step by step, very slowly; for the scent was a day old, you know, and very light from the heat and drought.  But that was why cunning old Sir John started at five in the morning.

And at last he came to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and there he bayed, and looked up in their faces, as much as to say, “I tell you he is gone down here!”

They could hardly believe that Tom would have gone so far; and when they looked at that awful cliff, they could never believe that he would have dared to face it.  But if the dog said so, it must be true.

“Heaven forgive us!” said Sir John.  “If we find him at all, we shall find him lying at the bottom.”  And he slapped his great hand upon his great thigh, and said -

“Who will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, and see if that boy is alive?  Oh that I were twenty years younger, and I would go down myself!”  And so he would have done, as well as any sweep in the county.  Then he said -

“Twenty pounds to the man who brings me that boy alive!” and as was his way, what he said he meant.