[Illustration: "He watched the moonlight on the rippling river." _P.
101._]
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 adventure. It was a clear still
September 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, and
thought that she looked at him. And he watched the moonlight 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 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, 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 beautiful sight. A bright 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
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.
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 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 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:
"Tak' that muckle fellow, lad; he's ower fifteen 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 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 three men three other men;
and there were shouts, and blows, and words which Tom recollected 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, 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 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 his head with the trampling and struggling of the keepers and the
poachers.
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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 never touch a fish or a
head of game which belongs 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: 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 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, following 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 against their hawsers, and wondered
what they were, and peeped out, and saw the sailors lounging 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 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 a dreary journey for him; and more than once 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.
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 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.
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, 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 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, 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 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 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 grey pate. And Tom,
instead of being frightened, said, "How d'ye do, sir; what a beautiful
place 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."
"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.
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 clouds ran races over the bright blue bay,
and yet never caught each other up; and the breakers 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 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 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 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 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 and
mouth all awry, and flopped away along the bottom, knocking poor Tom
over. And he sat down at the bottom of the sea, and cried salt tears
from sheer disappointment.
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 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.
Then he began to ask all the strange things which came 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 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 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 mid-ocean, with
the warm sunshine above our heads, and the warm gulf-stream below; and
that 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 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 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 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 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
coastguardsmen saw his big fin above the water, 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.
Then there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling as they went--papas,
and mammas, and little children--and all quite smooth and shiny,
because the fairies French-polish them every 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, 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 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 back-fins out of water; and winked at Tom: but he never could
get them to speak. 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 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 it dashed
away glittering like white fire; and then it lay sick again and
motionless.
"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 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 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."
"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 porpoise."
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.
Arnold's beautiful, beautiful poem, which you must learn by heart some
day--and sit upon a point of rock, among the shining seaweeds, in the
low October tides, and cry and call for the water-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 playfellow. It was not a
water-baby, alas! but it was 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 conscience or the Victoria Cross.
[Illustration: "Tom had never seen a lobster before."--_P. 113._]
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 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.
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. 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.
But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired himself off--snap! like
the leap-frogs which you make out of a goose's breast-bone. Certainly he
took the most wonderful shots, and backwards, 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 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
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."
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, 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 not very civil to Tom;
and you will hear how he had to alter his mind before he was done, as
conceited 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 the
rocks, and chat for hours.
And about this time there happened to Tom a very strange and important
adventure--so important, indeed, that he was very near never finding the
water-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 little
darling, as she always was, and always will be. For it befell in the
pleasant short December 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
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, 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 hunting season, which forces a man to make interest with
the footman for cold beef and beer as soon 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 put herself and them into
condition by mild 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 she would have saved her money, and saved
the chance, also, of making all the children 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 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 howk
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 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 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 friend the lobster, there walked one day the
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 Curaçao (of
course you have learnt your geography, and therefore know why); and 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 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
_Necrobioneopalæonthydrochthonanthropopithekology_ in the new university
which 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 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
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 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, 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 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-cockyolybirds, and cared less, provided the fishmonger
sent him good fish for dinner; 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 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 of all the beautiful and curious things which are to
be seen there. But little Ellie was not satisfied 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 she said honestly, "I don't
care about all these 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, 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, and
mermaids too, and 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 swimming and
playing, and the mermen trumpeting 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 staircase, and I have looked at it ever
since I was a baby, and dreamt about it a hundred times; and 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 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 see, hear,
taste, or handle.
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; 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 important differences between you and an ape, such as
being able to speak, and make machines, and 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, 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-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 a 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 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 discovered 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 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; 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_,
_archangels_, _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 certain great divine, and a very clever
divine was he, called him a regular Sadducee; and probably he was quite
right. Whereon the professor, in return, called him a regular Pharisee;
and probably he was quite right too. But they did not quarrel in the
least; for, when men are men 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 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 professor 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-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
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 moment
on 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 was
a logician, and therefore ought to have 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."
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: 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.
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."
And he took him out.
"It has actually eyes!" he cried. "Why, it must be a Cephalopod! This is
most extraordinary!"
"No, I ain't!" cried Tom, as loud as he could; for he did not like to be
called bad names.
"It is a water-baby!" cried Ellie; and of course it was.
"Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!" said the professor; and he turned away
sharply.
There was no denying it. It was a water-baby: and he had said a moment
ago that there 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 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
Ptthmllnsprtsianum, 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 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 greatest reverence is due to children; that is, that
grown people should never say or do anything wrong before children, lest
they should set them a bad example.--Cousin Cramchild says it means,
"The greatest respectfulness is expected 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 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 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 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.
Now, if the professor had said to Ellie, "Yes, my darling, it is a
water-baby, and a very wonderful 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 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 of Nature for all His
wonderful and glorious 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 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 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 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,
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 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, and thence he dived into the water and was gone
in a moment.
[Illustration: "The fairies came flying in at the window and brought her
such a pretty pair of wings."--_P. 126._]
"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.
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, 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 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 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 while.
And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a water-baby. For
my part, I believe that the naturalists get dozens of them when they are
out dredging; but they say nothing about them, and throw them overboard
again, 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 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 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 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.
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-baby when he saw it, she made him believe in worse
things than water-babies--in _unicorns_, _fire-drakes_, _manticoras_,
_basilisks_, _amphisbænas_, _griffins_, _ph[oe]nixes_, _rocs_, _orcs_,
_dog-headed men_, _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 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.
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 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--
"_The subanhypaposupernal anastomoses of peritomic diacellurite in the
encephalo digital region of the distinguished individual of whose
symptomatic ph[oe]nomena we had the melancholy honour (subsequently to a
preliminary diagnostic inspection) of making an inspectorial diagnosis,
presenting the interexclusively quadrilateral and antinomian diathesis
known as Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles, we proceeded_"--
But what they proceeded to do My Lady never knew; for she was so
frightened at the long 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 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' unbelief 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.
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 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 I 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
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 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 or to let others understand him.
So the bill fell through on the first reading; and the Chancellor,
being a philosopher, comforted himself with the thought that it was not
the first time that a woman had hit off a grand idea and 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 Hippocrates to
Feuchtersleben, as below, viz.--
1. _Hellebore, to wit_--
_Hellebore of Æta._
_Hellebore of Galatia._
_Hellebore of Sicily._
_And all other Hellebores, after the method of the
Helleborising Helleborists of the Helleboric era.
But that would not do. Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles
would not stir an inch out of his encephalo digital
region._
2. _Trying to find out what was the matter with him, after the
method of_
_Hippocrates_,
_Aretæus_,
_Celsus_,
_C[oe]lius Aurelianus_,
_And Galen_.
But they found that a great deal too much trouble, as most people have
since; and so had recourse to--
3. _Borage._
_Cauteries._
Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says Gordonius)
"will, without doubt, do much good." But it didn't.
_Bezoar stone._
_Diamargaritum._
_A ram's brain boiled in spice._
_Oil of wormwood._
_Water of Nile._
_Capers._
_Good wine (but there was none to be got)._
_The water of a smith's forge._
_Hops._
_Ambergris._
_Mandrake pillows._
_Dormouse fat._
_Hares' ears._
_Starvation._
_Camphor._
_Salts and senna._
_Musk._
_Opium._
_Strait-waistcoats._
_Bullyings._
_Bumpings._
_Blisterings._
_Bleedings._
_Bucketings with cold water._
_Knockings down._
_Kneeling on his chest till they broke it in,
etc. etc.; after the mediæval or monkish
method: but that would not do. Bumpsterhausen's
blue follicles stuck there still._
Then--
4. _Coaxing._
_Kissing._
_Champagne and turtle._
_Red herrings and soda water._
_Good advice._
_Gardening._
_Croquet._
_Musical soirées._
_Aunt Sally._
_Mild tobacco._
_The Saturday Review._
_A carriage with outriders, etc. etc._
After the modern method. But that would not 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 would have given him in
addition--
The healthiest situation in England, on Easthampstead Plain.
Free run of Windsor Forest.
The _Times_ every morning.
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 desperate, and fell into bad ways, viz.--
5. _Suffumigations of sulphur._
_Herrwiggius his "Incomparable drink for madmen"_:
Only they could not find out what it was.
_Suffumigation of the liver of the fish * * *_
Only they had forgotten its name, so Dr. Gray could not well procure
them a specimen.
_Metallic tractors._
_Holloway's Ointment._
_Electro-biology._
_Valentine Greatrakes his Stroking Cure._
_Spirit-rapping._
_Holloway's Pills._
_Table-turning._
_Morison's Pills._
_Hom[oe]opathy._
_Parr's Life Pills._
_Mesmerism._
_Pure Bosh._
_Exorcisms, for which they read Maleus Maleficarum, Nideri
Formicarium, Delrio, Wierus, etc._
But could not get one that mentioned water-babies.
_Hydropathy._
_Madame Rachel's Elixir of Youth._
_The Poughkeepsie Seer his Prophecies._
_The distilled liquor of addle eggs._
_Pyropathy._
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._
_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._
_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, 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 over
scales._
_Antipathy, or using him like "a man and a brother."_
_Apathy, or doing nothing at all._
_With all other ipathies and opathies which Noodle has invented,
and Foodle tried, since black-fellows chipped flints at
Abbéville--which is a considerable time ago, to judge 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 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 professor 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 telescope, 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 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 on the other side, and that he has been round at the back of it to
see, and found that the moon 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 evaporation; 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 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.
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 old doctor got his book
written, he felt considerably relieved from Bumpsterhausen's blue
follicles, and a few things infinitely worse; to wit, from pride and
vain-glory, and from blindness and hardness of heart; which are the true
causes of Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles, and of a good many other ugly
things besides. Whereon the foul flood-water in his brains ran down, and
cleared to a fine coffee colour, such 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 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_.