The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
was a brave English lad, whose business is to go out and see all the
world.
And at last he saw the light, and clear clear water overhead; and up he
came a thousand fathoms, among clouds of sea-moths, which fluttered
round his head. There were moths with pink heads and wings and opal
bodies, that flapped about slowly; moths with brown wings that flapped
about quickly; yellow shrimps that hopped and skipped most quickly of
all; and jellies of all the colours in the world, that neither hopped
nor skipped, but only dawdled and yawned, and would not get out of his
way. The dog snapped at them till his jaws were tired; but Tom hardly
minded them at all, he was so eager to get to the top of the water, and
see the pool where the good whales go.
And a very large pool it was, miles and miles across, though the air was
so clear that the ice cliffs on the opposite side looked as if they were
close at hand. All round it the ice cliffs rose, in walls and spires and
battlements, and caves and bridges, and stories and galleries, in which
the ice-fairies live, and drive away the storms and clouds, that Mother
Carey's pool may lie calm from year's end to year's end. And the sun
acted policeman, and walked round outside every day, peeping just over
the top of the ice wall, to see that all went right; and now and then he
played conjuring tricks, or had an exhibition of fireworks, to amuse the
ice-fairies. For he would make himself into four or five suns at once,
or paint the sky with rings and crosses and crescents of white fire, and
stick himself in the middle of them, and wink at the fairies; and I
daresay they were very much amused; for anything's fun in the country.
And there the good whales lay, the happy sleepy beasts, upon the still
oily sea. They were all right whales, you must know, and finners, and
razor-backs, and bottle-noses, and spotted sea-unicorns with long
ivory horns. But the sperm whales are such raging, ramping, roaring,
rumbustious fellows, that, if Mother Carey let them in, there would be
no more peace in Peacepool. So she packs them away in a great pond by
themselves at the South Pole, two hundred and sixty-three miles
south-south-east of Mount Erebus, the great volcano in the ice; and
there they butt each other with their ugly noses, day and night from
year's end to year's end.
But here there were only good quiet beasts, lying about like the black
hulls of sloops, and blowing every now and then jets of white steam, or
sculling round with their huge mouths open, for the sea-moths to swim
down their throats. There were no threshers there to thresh their poor
old backs, or sword-fish to stab their stomachs, or saw-fish to rip them
up, or ice-sharks to bite lumps out of their sides, or whalers to
harpoon and lance them. They were quite safe and happy there; and all
they had to do was to wait quietly in Peacepool, till Mother Carey sent
for them to make them out of old beasts into new.
Tom swam up to the nearest whale, and asked the way to Mother Carey.
"There she sits in the middle," said the whale.
Tom looked; but he could see nothing in the middle of the pool, but one
peaked iceberg: and he said so.
"That's Mother Carey," said the whale, "as you will find when you get to
her. There she sits making old beasts into new all the year round."
"How does she do that?"
"That's her concern, not mine," said the old whale; and yawned so wide
(for he was very large) that there swam into his mouth 943 sea-moths,
13,846 jelly-fish no bigger than pins' heads, a string of salpæ nine
yards long, and forty-three little ice-crabs, who gave each other a
parting pinch all round, tucked their legs under their stomachs, and
determined to die decently, like Julius Cæsar.
"I suppose," said Tom, "she cuts up a great whale like you into a whole
shoal of porpoises?"
At which the old whale laughed so violently that he coughed up all the
creatures; who swam away again very thankful at having escaped out of
that terrible whalebone net of his, from which bourne no traveller
returns; and Tom went on to the iceberg, wondering.
And, when he came near it, it took the form of the grandest old lady he
had ever seen--a white marble lady, sitting on a white marble throne.
And from the foot of the throne there swum away, out and out into the
sea, millions of new-born creatures, of more shapes and colours than man
ever dreamed. And they were Mother Carey's children, whom she makes out
of the sea-water all day long.
He expected, of course--like some grown people who ought to know
better--to find her snipping, piecing, fitting, stitching, cobbling,
basting, filing, planing, hammering, turning, polishing, moulding,
measuring, chiselling, clipping, and so forth, as men do when they go
to work to make anything.
But, instead of that, she sat quite still with her chin upon her hand,
looking down into the sea with two great grand blue eyes, as blue as the
sea itself. Her hair was as white as the snow--for she was very very
old--in fact, as old as anything which you are likely to come across,
except the difference between right and wrong.
And, when she saw Tom, she looked at him very kindly.
"What do you want, my little man? It is long since I have seen a
water-baby here."
Tom told her his errand, and asked the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.
"You ought to know yourself, for you have been there already."
"Have I, ma'am? I'm sure I forget all about it."
"Then look at me."
And, as Tom looked into her great blue eyes, he recollected the way
perfectly.
Now, was not that strange?
"Thank you, ma'am," said Tom. "Then I won't trouble your ladyship any
more; I hear you are very busy."
"I am never more busy than I am now," she said, without stirring a
finger.
"I heard, ma'am, that you were always making new beasts out of old."
"So people fancy. But I am not going to trouble myself to make things,
my little dear. I sit here and make them make themselves."
"You are a clever fairy, indeed," thought Tom. And he was quite right.
That is a grand trick of good old Mother Carey's, and a grand answer,
which she has had occasion to make several times to impertinent people.
There was once, for instance, a fairy who was so clever that she found
out how to make butterflies. I don't mean sham ones; no: but real live
ones, which would fly, and eat, and lay eggs, and do everything that
they ought; and she was so proud of her skill that she went flying
straight off to the North Pole, to boast to Mother Carey how she could
make butterflies.
But Mother Carey laughed.
"Know, silly child," she said, "that any one can make things, if they
will take time and trouble enough: but it is not every one who, like me,
can make things make themselves."
But people do not yet believe that Mother Carey is as clever as all that
comes to; and they will not till they, too, go the journey to the
Other-end-of-Nowhere.
"And now, my pretty little man," said Mother Carey, "you are sure you
know the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere?"
Tom thought; and behold, he had forgotten it utterly.
"That is because you took your eyes off me."
Tom looked at her again, and recollected; and then looked away, and
forgot in an instant.
"But what am I to do, ma'am? For I can't keep looking at you when I am
somewhere else."
"You must do without me, as most people have to do, for nine hundred and
ninety-nine thousandths of their lives; and look at the dog instead; for
he knows the way well enough, and will not forget it. Besides, you may
meet some very queer-tempered people there, who will not let you pass
without this passport of mine, which you must hang round your neck and
take care of; and, of course, as the dog will always go behind you, you
must go the whole way backward."
"Backward!" cried Tom. "Then I shall not be able to see my way."
"On the contrary, if you look forward, you will not see a step before
you, and be certain to go wrong; but, if you look behind you, and watch
carefully whatever you have passed, and especially keep your eye on the
dog, who goes by instinct, and therefore can't go wrong, then you will
know what is coming next, as plainly as if you saw it in a
looking-glass."
Tom was very much astonished: but he obeyed her, for he had learnt
always to believe what the fairies told him.
"So it is, my dear child," said Mother Carey; "and I will tell you a
story, which will show you that I am perfectly right, as it is my custom
to be.
"Once on a time, there were two brothers. One was called Prometheus,
because he always looked before him, and boasted that he was wise
beforehand. The other was called Epimetheus, because he always looked
behind him, and did not boast at all; but said humbly, like the
Irishman, that he had sooner prophesy after the event.
"Well, Prometheus was a very clever fellow, of course, and invented all
sorts of wonderful things. But, unfortunately, when they were set to
work, to work was just what they would not do: wherefore very little has
come of them, and very little is left of them; and now nobody knows what
they were, save a few archæological old gentlemen who scratch in queer
corners, and find little there save Ptinum Furem, Blaptem Mortisagam,
Acarum Horridum, and Tineam Laciniarum.
"But Epimetheus was a very slow fellow, certainly, and went among men
for a clod, and a muff, and a milksop, and a slowcoach, and a bloke, and
a boodle, and so forth. And very little he did, for many years: but what
he did, he never had to do over again.
"And what happened at last? There came to the two brothers the most
beautiful creature that ever was seen, Pandora by name; which means, All
the gifts of the Gods. But because she had a strange box in her hand,
this fanciful, forecasting, suspicious, prudential, theoretical,
deductive, prophesying Prometheus, who was always settling what was
going to happen, would have nothing to do with pretty Pandora and her
box.
"But Epimetheus took her and it, as he took everything that came; and
married her for better for worse, as every man ought, whenever he has
even the chance of a good wife. And they opened the box between them,
of course, to see what was inside: for, else, of what possible use could
it have been to them?
"And out flew all the ills which flesh is heir to; all the children of
the four great bogies, Self-will, Ignorance, Fear, and Dirt--for
instance:
_Measles_, _Famines_,
_Monks_, _Quacks_,
_Scarlatina_, _Unpaid bills_,
_Idols_, _Tight stays_,
_Hooping-coughs_, _Potatoes_,
_Popes_, _Bad Wine_,
_Wars_, _Despots_,
_Peacemongers_, _Demagogues_,
_And, worst of all, Naughty Boys and Girls._
But one thing remained at the bottom of the box, and that was, Hope.
"So Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, as most men do in this
world: but he got the three best things in the world into the bargain--a
good wife, and experience, and hope: while Prometheus had just as much
trouble, and a great deal more (as you will hear), of his own making;
with nothing beside, save fancies spun out of his own brain, as a spider
spins her web out of her stomach.
"And Prometheus kept on looking before him so far ahead, that as he was
running about with a box of lucifers (which were the only useful things
he ever invented, and do as much harm as good), he trod on his own nose,
and tumbled down (as most deductive philosophers do), whereby he set
the Thames on fire; and they have hardly put it out again yet. So he had