The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
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_.
CHAPTER V
BUT what became of little Tom?
He slipped away off the rocks into the water, as I said before. But he
could not help thinking of little Ellie. He did not remember who she
was; but he knew that she was a little girl, though she was a hundred
times as big as he. That is not surprising: size has nothing to do with
kindred. A tiny weed may be first cousin to a great tree; and a little
dog like Vick knows that Lioness is a dog too, though she is twenty
times larger than herself. So Tom knew that Ellie was a little girl, and
thought about her all that day, and longed to have had her to play with;
but he had very soon to think of something else. And here is the account
of what happened to him, as it was published next morning in the
Waterproof Gazette, on the finest watered paper, for the use of the
great fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, who reads the news very carefully
every morning, and especially the police cases, as you will hear very
soon.
He was going along the rocks in three-fathom water, watching the pollock
catch prawns, and the wrasses nibble barnacles off the rocks, shells and
all, when he saw a round cage of green withes; and inside it, looking
very much ashamed of himself, sat his friend the lobster, twiddling his
horns, instead of thumbs.
"What, have you been naughty, and have they put you in the lock-up?"
asked Tom.
The lobster felt a little indignant at such a notion, but he was too
much depressed in spirits to argue; so he only said, "I can't get out."
"Why did you get in?"
"After that nasty piece of dead fish." He had thought it looked and
smelt very nice when he was outside, and so it did, for a lobster: but
now he turned round and abused it because he was angry with himself.
"Where did you get in?"
"Through that round hole at the top."
"Then why don't you get out through it?"
"Because I can't": and the lobster twiddled his horns more fiercely than
ever, but he was forced to confess.
"I have jumped upwards, downwards, backwards, and sideways, at least
four thousand times; and I can't get out: I always get up underneath
there, and can't find the hole."
Tom looked at the trap, and having more wit than the lobster, he saw
plainly enough what was the matter; as you may if you will look at a
lobster-pot.
"Stop a bit," said Tom. "Turn your tail up to me, and I'll pull you
through hindforemost, and then you won't stick in the spikes."
But the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he couldn't hit the hole.
Like a great many fox-hunters, he was very sharp as long as he was in
his own country; but as soon as they get out of it they lose their
heads; and so the lobster, so to speak, lost his tail.
Tom reached and clawed down the hole after him, till he caught hold of
him; and then, as was to be expected, the clumsy lobster pulled him in
head foremost.
"Hullo! here is a pretty business," said Tom. "Now take your great
claws, and break the points off those spikes, and then we shall both get
out easily."
"Dear me, I never thought of that," said the lobster; "and after all the
experience of life that I have had!"
You see, experience is of very little good unless a man, or a lobster,
has wit enough to make use of it. For a good many people, like old
Polonius, have seen all the world, and yet remain little better than
children after all.
But they had not got half the spikes away when they saw a great dark
cloud over them: and lo, and behold, it was the otter.
How she did grin and grin when she saw Tom. "Yar!" said she, "you little
meddlesome wretch, I have you now! I will serve you out for telling the
salmon where I was!" And she crawled all over the pot to get in.
Tom was horribly frightened, and still more frightened when she found
the hole in the top, and squeezed herself right down through it, all
eyes and teeth. But no sooner was her head inside than valiant Mr.
Lobster caught her by the nose and held on.
And there they were all three in the pot, rolling over and over, and
very tight packing it was. And the lobster tore at the otter, and the
otter tore at the lobster, and both squeezed and thumped poor Tom till
he had no breath left in his body; and I don't know what would have
happened to him if he had not at last got on the otter's back, and safe
out of the hole.
He was right glad when he got out: but he would not desert his friend
who had saved him; and the first time he saw his tail uppermost he
caught hold of it, and pulled with all his might.
But the lobster would not let go.
"Come along," said Tom; "don't you see she is dead?" And so she was,
quite drowned and dead.
And that was the end of the wicked otter.
But the lobster would not let go.
"Come along, you stupid old stick-in-the-mud," cried Tom, "or the
fisherman will catch you!" And that was true, for Tom felt some one
above beginning to haul up the pot.
But the lobster would not let go.
Tom saw the fisherman haul him up to the boat-side, and thought it was
all up with him. But when Mr. Lobster saw the fisherman, he gave such a
furious and tremendous snap, that he snapped out of his hand, and out of
the pot, and safe into the sea. But he left his knobbed claw behind
him; for it never came into his stupid head to let go after all, so he
just shook his claw off as the easier method. It was something of a
bull, that; but you must know the lobster was an Irish lobster, and was
hatched off Island Magee at the mouth of Belfast Lough.
Tom asked the lobster why he never thought of letting go. He said very
determinedly that it was a point of honour among lobsters. And so it is,
as the Mayor of Plymouth found out once to his cost--eight or nine
hundred years ago, of course; for if it had happened lately it would be
personal to mention it.
For one day he was so tired with sitting on a hard chair, in a grand
furred gown, with a gold chain round his neck, hearing one policeman
after another come in and sing, "What shall we do with the drunken
sailor, so early in the morning?" and answering them each exactly alike:
"Put him in the round house till he gets sober, so early in the
morning"--
That, when it was over, he jumped up, and played leap-frog with the
town-clerk till he burst his buttons, and then had his luncheon, and
burst some more buttons, and then said: "It is a low spring-tide; I
shall go out this afternoon and cut my capers."
Now he did not mean to cut such capers as you eat with boiled mutton. It
was the commandant of artillery at Valetta who used to amuse himself
with cutting them, and who stuck upon one of the bastions a notice, "No
one allowed to cut capers here but me," which greatly edified the
midshipmen in port, and the Maltese on the Nix Mangiare stairs. But all
that the mayor meant was that he would go and have an afternoon's fun,
like any schoolboy, and catch lobsters with an iron hook.
So to the Mewstone he went, and for lobsters he looked. And when he came
to a certain crack in the rocks he was so excited that, instead of
putting in his hook, he put in his hand; and Mr. Lobster was at home,
and caught him by the finger, and held on.
"Yah!" said the mayor, and pulled as hard as he dared: but the more he
pulled, the more the lobster pinched, till he was forced to be quiet.
Then he tried to get his hook in with his other hand; but the hole was
too narrow.
Then he pulled again; but he could not stand the pain.
Then he shouted and bawled for help: but there was no one nearer him
than the men-of-war inside the breakwater.
Then he began to turn a little pale; for the tide flowed, and still the
lobster held on.
Then he turned quite white; for the tide was up to his knees, and still
the lobster held on.
Then he thought of cutting off his finger; but he wanted two things to
do it with--courage and a knife; and he had got neither.
Then he turned quite yellow; for the tide was up to his waist, and still
the lobster held on.
Then he thought over all the naughty things he ever had done; all the
sand which he had put in the sugar, and the sloe-leaves in the tea, and
the water in the treacle, and the salt in the tobacco (because his
brother was a brewer, and a man must help his own kin).
Then he turned quite blue; for the tide was up to his breast, and still
the lobster held on.
Then, I have no doubt, he repented fully of all the said naughty things
which he had done, and promised to mend his life, as too many do when
they think they have no life left to mend. Whereby, as they fancy, they
make a very cheap bargain. But the old fairy with the birch rod soon
undeceives them.
And then he grew all colours at once, and turned up his eyes like a duck
in thunder; for the water was up to his chin, and still the lobster held
on.
And then came a man-of-war's boat round the Mewstone, and saw his head
sticking up out of the water. One said it was a keg of brandy, and
another that it was a cocoa-nut, and another that it was a buoy loose,
and another that it was a black diver, and wanted to fire at it, which
would not have been pleasant for the mayor: but just then such a yell
came out of a great hole in the middle of it that the midshipman in
charge guessed what it was, and bade pull up to it as fast as they
could. So somehow or other the Jack-tars got the lobster out, and set
the mayor free, and put him ashore at the Barbican. He never went
lobster-catching again; and we will hope he put no more salt in the
tobacco, not even to sell his brother's beer.
And that is the story of the Mayor of Plymouth, which has two
advantages--first, that of being quite true; and second, that of having
(as folks say all good stories ought to have) no moral whatsoever: no
more, indeed, has any part of this book, because it is a fairy tale, you
know.
And now happened to Tom a most wonderful thing; for he had not left the
lobster five minutes before he came upon a water-baby.
A real live water-baby, sitting on the white sand, very busy about a
little point of rock. And when it saw Tom it looked up for a moment, and
then cried, "Why, you are not one of us. You are a new baby! Oh, how
delightful!"
And it ran to Tom, and Tom ran to it, and they hugged and kissed each
other for ever so long, they did not know why. But they did not want any
introductions there under the water.
At last Tom said, "Oh, where have you been all this while? I have been
looking for you so long, and I have been so lonely."
"We have been here for days and days. There are hundreds of us about the
rocks. How was it you did not see us, or hear us when we sing and romp
every evening before we go home?"
Tom looked at the baby again, and then he said: