One day Tom had a new adventure. He was sitting on a water-lily leaf,
he and his friend the dragon-fly, watching the gnats dance. The
dragon-fly had eaten as many as he wanted, and was sitting quite still
and sleepy, for it was very hot and bright.
The gnats danced a foot over his head quite happily, and a large black
fly settled within an inch of his nose and began washing his own face
and combing his hair with his paws. But the dragon-fly never stirred,
and kept on chatting to Tom about the times when he lived under the
water.
Suddenly Tom heard the strangest noise up the stream. He looked up
the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as the noise; a great
ball rolling over and over down the stream, seeming one moment of soft
brown fur, and the next of shining glass. Yet it was not a ball; for
sometimes it broke up and streamed away into pieces, and then it joined
again; and all the while the noise came out of it louder and louder.
Tom asked the dragon-fly what it could be; but of course, with his
short sight, he could not even see it, though it was not ten yards
away. So Tom set off to see for himself; and when he came near, the
ball turned out to be four or five beautiful otters, many times larger
than Tom, who were swimming about, and rolling and diving, and
twisting and scratching in the most charming fashion that ever was seen.
[Illustration]
But when the biggest of them saw Tom, she 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, 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 around and laughed at her.
“Come out,” said the wicked old otter, “or it will be the worse for
you.”
But Tom looked at her from between two thick roots, and shook them with
all his might.
“Come away, children,” said the otter. “It is not worth eating, after
all. It is only an eft, which nothing eats.”
“I am not an eft!” said Tom. “Efts have tails.”
“You are an eft,” said the otter. “I see your two hands quite plainly,
and I know that you have a tail.”
“I tell you I have not,” said Tom. “Look here!” and he turned his
pretty little self quite round; and sure enough, he had no more tail
than you have.
The otter might have got out of it by saying that Tom was a frog; but,
like a great many other people, when she had once said a thing she
stood to it, right or wrong.
“I say you are an eft,” said the otter, “and therefore you are, and not
fit food for gentlefolk like me and my children; you may stay there
till the salmon eat you.” She knew the salmon would not, but she wished
to frighten poor Tom.
“What are salmon?” asked Tom.
“Fish, you eft; great fish, nice to eat. They are the lords of the
fish, and we are lords of the salmon;” and she laughed again. “They
are coming soon, children, coming soon; I can smell the rain coming up
off the sea. Then hurrah for fresh salmon and plenty of eating all day
long.”
The otter grew so proud that she turned head over heels twice, and then
stood upright half out of the water, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“And where do they come from?” asked Tom.
“Out of the sea, eft,--the great wide sea, where they might stay and be
safe if they liked.”
Then the otter sailed away down the brook, and Tom saw her no more for
that time. And lucky it was for her that she did so; for no sooner was
she gone than down the bank came seven little rough terrier dogs,
snuffing and yapping, grubbing and splashing, in full cry after the
otter.
Tom hid among the water-lilies till they were gone; for he could not
guess that they were the water-fairies come to help him. But he could
not help thinking of what the otter had said about the great river and
the broad sea. As he thought, he longed to go and see them. He could
not tell why; but the more he thought, the more he grew discontented
with the narrow little stream in which he lived, and with all his
companions. He wished to get out into the wide, wide world, and enjoy
all the wonderful sights of which he was sure it was full.
Once he set off to go down the stream, but the stream was very low, and
when he came to the shallows he could not keep under water, for there
was no water left to keep under. So the sun burned his back and made
him sick; and he went back again and lay quiet in the pool for a whole
week more.
Then on the evening of a very hot day he saw a wonderful sight. He had
been very stupid all day, and so had the trout; for they would not move
an inch to take a fly, though there were thousands on the water; but
lay dozing on the bottom under the shade of the stones. Tom lay dozing
too, and was glad to cuddle their smooth, cool sides, for the water was
warm and unpleasant.
Towards evening it grew suddenly dark, and Tom looked up and saw a
blanket of black clouds lying across the valley above his head. He felt
not quite frightened, but sat very still; for everything was still.
There was not a whisper of wind nor a chirp of a bird to be heard. Next
a few drops of rain fell into the water. One hit Tom on the nose, and
made him pop his head down quickly enough. Then the thunder roared, and
the lightning flashed from cloud to cloud and cliff to cliff, till the
rocks in the stream seemed to shake.
[Illustration]
Tom looked up at it through the water, and thought it the finest thing
he ever saw in his life. Out of the water he dare not put his head; for
the rain came down by bucketsful, and the hail fell like shot on the
stream, and churned it into foam. Soon the stream rose and rushed down,
higher and higher, full of beetles and sticks and straws. Tom could
hardly stand against the stream, and hid behind a rock. But the trout
did not hide; for out they rushed from among the stones, and began
gobbling the beetles and leeches in the most greedy and quarrelsome
way; swimming about with great worms in their mouths, tugging and
kicking to get them away from each other.
By the flashes of lightning Tom saw a new sight--all the bottom of the
stream alive with great eels, turning and twisting along, all down
stream and away. They had been hiding for weeks past in the cracks of
the rocks and in burrows in the mud. Tom had hardly ever seen them
except now and then at night; but now they were all out, and went
hurrying past him so fiercely and wildly that he was quite frightened.
As they hurried past he could hear them say to each other, “We must
hurry! We must hurry! What a jolly thunder-storm! Down to the sea! Down
to the sea!”
Then the otter came by with all her brood, twining and sweeping along
as fast as the eels themselves.
She spied Tom as she came by and said, “Now is your time, eft, if you
wish to see the world. Come along, children, never mind those eels; we
shall breakfast on salmon to-morrow. Down to the sea! Down to the sea!”
Then came a flash brighter than all the rest, and by the light of
it--in the thousandth part of a second they were gone again--but he had
seen them, he was certain of it--three beautiful little white girls,
with their arms twined round each other’s necks, floating down the
torrent, as they sang, “Down to the sea! Down to the sea!”
“Oh, stay! Wait for me!” cried Tom; but they were gone. Yet he could
hear their voices clear and sweet through the roar of thunder and water
and wind, singing as they died away, “Down to the sea!”
[Illustration]
“Down to the sea?” said Tom. “Everything is going to the sea, and I
shall go, too. Good-by, trout.”
Now down the rushing stream he went, guided by the bright flashes of
the storm; past tall birch-fringed rocks, which shone out one moment
as clear as day, and the next were dark as night.
Past dark coves under the banks, from which great trout rushed out on
Tom, thinking him to be good to eat, but turned back quickly, for the
fairies sent them home again with a scolding for daring to meddle with
a water-baby. Along deep reaches, where the white water-lilies tossed
and flapped beneath the wind and hail; past sleeping villages; under
dark bridges, and away and away to the sea. Tom could not stop, and did
not care to stop; he would see the great world below, and the salmon,
and the breakers, and the wide, wide sea.--CHARLES KINGSLEY.