The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
living up in trees, and making nests to keep off the rain. And
underneath the trees lions were prowling about.
"Why," said Ellie, "the lions seem to have eaten a good many of them,
for there are very few left now."
"Yes," said the fairy; "you see it was only the strongest and most
active ones who could climb the trees, and so escape."
"But what great, hulking, broad-shouldered chaps they are," said Tom;
"they are a rough lot as ever I saw."
"Yes, they are getting very strong now; for the ladies will not marry
any but the very strongest and fiercest gentlemen, who can help them up
the trees out of the lions' way."
And she turned over the next five hundred years. And in that they were
fewer still, and stronger, and fiercer; but their feet had changed shape
very oddly, for they laid hold of the branches with their great toes, as
if they had been thumbs, just as a Hindoo tailor uses his toes to thread
his needle.
The children were very much surprised, and asked the fairy whether that
was her doing.
"Yes, and no," she said, smiling. "It was only those who could use their
feet as well as their hands who could get a good living: or, indeed, get
married; so that they got the best of everything, and starved out all
the rest; and those who are left keep up a regular breed of
toe-thumb-men, as a breed of short-horns, or skye-terriers, or fancy
pigeons is kept up."
"But there is a hairy one among them," said Ellie.
"Ah!" said the fairy, "that will be a great man in his time, and chief
of all the tribe."
And, when she turned over the next five hundred years, it was true.
For this hairy chief had had hairy children, and they hairier children
still; and every one wished to marry hairy husbands, and have hairy
children too; for the climate was growing so damp that none but the
hairy ones could live: all the rest coughed and sneezed, and had sore
throats, and went into consumptions, before they could grow up to be men
and women.
Then the fairy turned over the next five hundred years. And they were
fewer still.
"Why, there is one on the ground picking up roots," said Ellie, "and he
cannot walk upright."
No more he could; for in the same way that the shape of their feet had
altered, the shape of their backs had altered also.
"Why," cried Tom, "I declare they are all apes."
"Something fearfully like it, poor foolish creatures," said the fairy.
"They are grown so stupid now, that they can hardly think: for none of
them have used their wits for many hundred years. They have almost
forgotten, too, how to talk. For each stupid child forgot some of the
words it heard from its stupid parents, and had not wits enough to make
fresh words for itself. Beside, they are grown so fierce and suspicious
and brutal that they keep out of each other's way, and mope and sulk in
the dark forests, never hearing each other's voice, till they have
forgotten almost what speech is like. I am afraid they will all be apes
very soon, and all by doing only what they liked."
And in the next five hundred years they were all dead and gone, by bad
food and wild beasts and hunters; all except one tremendous old fellow
with jaws like a jack, who stood full seven feet high; and M. Du Chaillu
came up to him, and shot him, as he stood roaring and thumping his
breast. And he remembered that his ancestors had once been men, and
tried to say, "Am I not a man and a brother?" but had forgotten how to
use his tongue; and then he had tried to call for a doctor, but he had
forgotten the word for one. So all he said was "Ubboboo!" and died.
And that was the end of the great and jolly nation of the Doasyoulikes.
And, when Tom and Ellie came to the end of the book, they looked very
sad and solemn; and they had good reason so to do, for they really
fancied that the men were apes, and never thought, in their simplicity,
of asking whether the creatures had hippopotamus majors in their brains
or not; in which case, as you have been told already, they could not
possibly have been apes, though they were more apish than the apes of
all aperies.
"But could you not have saved them from becoming apes?" said little
Ellie, at last.
"At first, my dear; if only they would have behaved like men, and set to
work to do what they did not like. But the longer they waited, and
behaved like the dumb beasts, who only do what they like, the stupider
and clumsier they grew; till at last they were past all cure, for they
had thrown their own wits away. It is such things as this that help to
make me so ugly, that I know not when I shall grow fair."
"And where are they all now?" asked Ellie.
"Exactly where they ought to be, my dear."
"Yes!" said the fairy, solemnly, half to herself, as she closed the
wonderful book. "Folks say now that I can make beasts into men; by
circumstance, and selection, and competition, and so forth. Well,
perhaps they are right; and perhaps, again, they are wrong. That is one
of the seven things which I am forbidden to tell, till the coming of the
Cocqcigrues; and, at all events, it is no concern of theirs. Whatever
their ancestors were, men they are; and I advise them to behave as such,
and act accordingly. But let them recollect this, that there are two
sides to every question, and a downhill as well as an uphill road; and,
if I can turn beasts into men, I can, by the same laws of circumstance,
and selection, and competition, turn men into beasts. You were very near
being turned into a beast once or twice, little Tom. Indeed, if you had
not made up your mind to go on this journey, and see the world, like an
Englishman, I am not sure but that you would have ended as an eft in a
pond."
"Oh, dear me!" said Tom; "sooner than that, and be all over slime, I'll
go this minute, if it is to the world's end."
"And Nature, the old Nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying, 'Here is a story book
Thy father hath written for thee.
"'Come wander with me,' she said,
'Into regions yet untrod,
And read what is still unread
In the Manuscripts of God.'
"And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old Nurse,
Who sang to him night and day
The rhymes of the universe."
LONGFELLOW.
CHAPTER VII
"NOW," said Tom, "I am ready to be off, if it's to the world's end."
"Ah!" said the fairy, "that is a brave, good boy. But you must go
farther than the world's end, if you want to find Mr. Grimes; for he is
at the Other-end-of-Nowhere. You must go to Shiny Wall, and through the
white gate that never was opened; and then you will come to Peacepool,
and Mother Carey's Haven, where the good whales go when they die. And
there Mother Carey will tell you the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere,
and there you will find Mr. Grimes."
"Oh, dear!" said Tom. "But I do not know my way to Shiny Wall, or where
it is at all."
"Little boys must take the trouble to find out things for themselves, or
they will never grow to be men; so that you must ask all the beasts in
the sea and the birds in the air, and if you have been good to them,
some of them will tell you the way to Shiny Wall."
"Well," said Tom, "it will be a long journey, so I had better start at
once. Good-bye, Miss Ellie; you know I am getting a big boy, and I must
go out and see the world."
"I know you must," said Ellie; "but you will not forget me, Tom. I shall
wait here till you come."
And she shook hands with him, and bade him good-bye. Tom longed very
much again to kiss her; but he thought it would not be respectful,
considering she was a lady born; so he promised not to forget her: but
his little whirl-about of a head was so full of the notion of going out
to see the world, that it forgot her in five minutes: however, though
his head forgot her, I am glad to say his heart did not.
So he asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the birds in the air, but
none of them knew the way to Shiny Wall. For why? He was still too far
down south.
Then he met a ship, far larger than he had ever seen--a gallant
ocean-steamer, with a long cloud of smoke trailing behind; and he
wondered how she went on without sails, and swam up to her to see. A
school of dolphins were running races round and round her, going three
feet for her one, and Tom asked them the way to Shiny Wall: but they did
not know. Then he tried to find out how she moved, and at last he saw
her screw, and was so delighted with it that he played under her quarter
all day, till he nearly had his nose knocked off by the fans, and
thought it time to move. Then he watched the sailors upon deck, and the
ladies, with their bonnets and parasols: but none of them could see him,
because their eyes were not opened,--as, indeed, most people's eyes are
not.
At last there came out into the quarter-gallery a very pretty lady, in
deep black widow's weeds, and in her arms a baby. She leaned over the
quarter-gallery, and looked back and back toward England far away; and
as she looked she sang:
I.
"_Soft soft wind, from out the sweet south sliding,
Waft thy silver cloud-webs athwart the summer sea;
Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining
Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me._
II.
"_Deep deep Love, within thine own abyss abiding,
Pour Thyself abroad, O Lord, on earth and air and sea;
Worn weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding,
Shield from sorrow, sin, and shame my helpless babe and me._"
Her voice was so soft and low, and the music of the air so sweet, that
Tom could have listened to it all day. But as she held the baby over the
gallery rail, to show it the dolphins leaping and the water gurgling in
the ship's wake, lo! and behold, the baby saw Tom.
He was quite sure of that; for when their eyes met, the baby smiled and
held out his hands; and Tom smiled and held out his hands too; and the
baby kicked and leaped, as if it wanted to jump overboard to him.
"What do you see, my darling?" said the lady; and her eyes followed the
baby's till she too caught sight of Tom, swimming about among the
foam-beads below.
She gave a little shriek and start; and then she said, quite quietly,
"Babies in the sea? Well, perhaps it is the happiest place for them";
and waved her hand to Tom, and cried, "Wait a little, darling, only a
little: and perhaps we shall go with you and be at rest."
And at that an old nurse, all in black, came out and talked to her, and
drew her in. And Tom turned away northward, sad and wondering; and
watched the great steamer slide away into the dusk, and the lights on
board peep out one by one, and die out again, and the long bar of smoke
fade away into the evening mist, till all was out of sight.
And he swam northward again, day after day, till at last he met the King
of the Herrings, with a curry-comb growing out of his nose, and a sprat
in his mouth for a cigar, and asked him the way to Shiny Wall; so he
bolted his sprat head foremost, and said:
"If I were you, young gentleman, I should go to the Allalonestone, and
ask the last of the Gairfowl. She is of a very ancient clan, very nearly
as ancient as my own; and knows a good deal which these modern upstarts
don't, as ladies of old houses are likely to do."
Tom asked his way to her, and the King of the Herrings told him very
kindly, for he was a courteous old gentleman of the old school,
though he was horribly ugly, and strangely bedizened too, like the old
dandies who lounge in the club-house windows.