The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
you no fibs, my little man; for he is a Scotchman, and fears God, and
not the priest; and, as you talk with him, you will be surprised more
and more at his knowledge, his sense, his humour, his courtesy; and you
will find out--unless you have found it out before--that a man may learn
from his Bible to be a more thorough gentleman than if he had been
brought up in all the drawing-rooms in London.
No. It was none of these, the salmon stream at Harthover. It was such a
stream as you see in dear old Bewick; Bewick, who was born and bred upon
them. A full hundred yards broad it was, sliding on from broad pool to
broad shallow, and broad shallow to broad pool, over great fields of
shingle, under oak and ash coverts, past low cliffs of sandstone, past
green meadows, and fair parks, and a great house of grey stone, and
brown moors above, and here and there against the sky the smoking
chimney of a colliery. You must look at Bewick to see just what it was
like, for he has drawn it a hundred times with the care and the love of
a true north countryman; and, even if you do not care about the salmon
river, you ought, like all good boys, to know your Bewick.
At least, so old Sir John used to say, and very sensibly he put it too,
as he was wont to do:
"If they want to describe a finished young gentleman in France, I hear,
they say of him, '_Il sait son Rabelais._' But if I want to describe one
in England, I say, '_He knows his Bewick._' And I think that is the
higher compliment."
But Tom thought nothing about what the river was like. All his fancy
was, to get down to the wide wide sea.
And after a while he came to a place where the river spread out into
broad still shallow reaches, so wide that little Tom, as he put his head
out of the water, could hardly see across.
And there he stopped. He got a little frightened. "This must be the
sea," he thought. "What a wide place it is! If I go on into it I shall
surely lose my way, or some strange thing will bite me. I will stop here
and look out for the otter, or the eels, or some one to tell me where I
shall go."
So he went back a little way, and crept into a crack of the rock, just
where the river opened out into the wide shallows, and watched for some
one to tell him his way: but the otter and the eels were gone on miles
and miles down the stream.
There he waited, and slept too, for he was quite tired with his night's
journey; and, when he woke, the stream was clearing to a beautiful amber
hue, though it was still very high. And after a while he saw a sight
which made him jump up; for he knew in a moment it was one of the things
which he had come to look for.
Such a fish! ten times as big as the biggest trout, and a hundred times
as big as Tom, sculling up the stream past him, as easily as Tom had
sculled down.
Such a fish! shining silver from head to tail, and here and there a
crimson dot; with a grand hooked nose and grand curling lip, and a grand
bright eye, looking round him as proudly as a king, and surveying the
water right and left as if all belonged to him. Surely he must be the
salmon, the king of all the fish.
Tom was so frightened that he longed to creep into a hole; but he need
not have been; for salmon are all true gentlemen, and, like true
gentlemen, they look noble and proud enough, and yet, like true
gentlemen, they never harm or quarrel with any one, but go about their
own business, and leave rude fellows to themselves.
The salmon looked at him full in the face, and then went on without
minding him, with a swish or two of his tail which made the stream boil
again. And in a few minutes came another, and then four or five, and so
on; and all passed Tom, rushing and plunging up the cataract with strong
strokes of their silver tails, now and then leaping clean out of water
and up over a rock, shining gloriously for a moment in the bright sun;
while Tom was so delighted that he could have watched them all day long.
And at last one came up bigger than all the rest; but he came slowly,
and stopped, and looked back, and seemed very anxious and busy. And Tom
saw that he was helping another salmon, an especially handsome one, who
had not a single spot upon it, but was clothed in pure silver from nose
to tail.
"My dear," said the great fish to his companion, "you really look
dreadfully tired, and you must not over-exert yourself at first. Do rest
yourself behind this rock"; and he shoved her gently with his nose, to
the rock where Tom sat.
You must know that this was the salmon's wife. For salmon, like other
true gentlemen, always choose their lady, and love her, and are true to
her, and take care of her and work for her, and fight for her, as every
true gentleman ought; and are not like vulgar chub and roach and pike,
who have no high feelings, and take no care of their wives.
Then he saw Tom, and looked at him very fiercely one moment, as if he
was going to bite him.
"What do you want here?" he said, very fiercely.
"Oh, don't hurt me!" cried Tom. "I only want to look at you; you are so
handsome."
"Ah?" said the salmon, very stately but very civilly. "I really beg your
pardon; I see what you are, my little dear. I have met one or two
creatures like you before, and found them very agreeable and
well-behaved. Indeed, one of them showed me a great kindness lately,
which I hope to be able to repay. I hope we shall not be in your way
here. As soon as this lady is rested, we shall proceed on our journey."
What a well-bred old salmon he was!
"So you have seen things like me before?" asked Tom.
"Several times, my dear. Indeed, it was only last night that one at the
river's mouth came and warned me and my wife of some new stake-nets
which had got into the stream, I cannot tell how, since last winter, and
showed us the way round them, in the most charmingly obliging way."
"So there are babies in the sea?" cried Tom, and clapped his little
hands. "Then I shall have some one to play with there? How delightful!"
"Were there no babies up this stream?" asked the lady salmon.
"No! and I grew so lonely. I thought I saw three last night; but they
were gone in an instant, down to the sea. So I went too; for I had
nothing to play with but caddises and dragon-flies and trout."
"Ugh!" cried the lady, "what low company!"
"My dear, if he has been in low company, he has certainly not learnt
their low manners," said the salmon.
"No, indeed, poor little dear: but how sad for him to live among such
people as caddises, who have actually six legs, the nasty things; and
dragon-flies, too! why they are not even good to eat; for I tried them
once, and they are all hard and empty; and, as for trout, every one
knows what they are." Whereon she curled up her lip, and looked
dreadfully scornful, while her husband curled up his too, till he looked
as proud as Alcibiades.
"Why do you dislike the trout so?" asked Tom.
"My dear, we do not even mention them, if we can help it; for I am sorry
to say they are relations of ours who do us no credit. A great many
years ago they were just like us: but they were so lazy, and cowardly,
and greedy, that instead of going down to the sea every year to see the
world and grow strong and fat, they chose to stay and poke about in the
little streams and eat worms and grubs; and they are very properly
punished for it; for they have grown ugly and brown and spotted and
small; and are actually so degraded in their tastes, that they will eat
our children."
"And then they pretend to scrape acquaintance with us again," said the
lady. "Why, I have actually known one of them propose to a lady salmon,
the little impudent little creature."
"I should hope," said the gentleman, "that there are very few ladies of
our race who would degrade themselves by listening to such a creature
for an instant. If I saw such a thing happen, I should consider it my
duty to put them both to death upon the spot." So the old salmon said,
like an old blue-blooded hidalgo of Spain; and what is more, he would
have done it too. For you must know, no enemies are so bitter against
each other as those who are of the same race; and a salmon looks on a
trout, as some great folks look on some little folks, as something just
too much like himself to be tolerated.
"Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things
We murder to dissect.
"Enough of science and of art:
Close up these barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives."
WORDSWORTH.
CHAPTER IV
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