The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
stick fast in the very first chimney of all, because it was so
shamefully clogged up with soot? Did I ask to stay here--I don't know
how long--a hundred years, I do believe, and never get my pipe, nor my
beer, nor nothing fit for a beast, let alone a man?"
"No," answered a solemn voice behind. "No more did Tom, when you behaved
to him in the very same way."
It was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. And, when the truncheon saw her, it
started bolt upright--Attention!--and made such a low bow, that if it
had not been full of the spirit of justice, it must have tumbled on its
end, and probably hurt its one eye. And Tom made his bow too.
"Oh, ma'am," he said, "don't think about me; that's all past and gone,
and good times and bad times and all times pass over. But may not I help
poor Mr. Grimes? Mayn't I try and get some of these bricks away, that he
may move his arms?"
"You may try, of course," she said.
So Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks: but he could not move one. And
then he tried to wipe Mr. Grimes' face: but the soot would not come off.
"Oh, dear!" he said. "I have come all this way, through all these
terrible places, to help you, and now I am of no use at all."
"You had best leave me alone," said Grimes; "you are a good-natured
forgiving little chap, and that's truth; but you'd best be off. The
hail's coming on soon, and it will beat the eyes out of your little
head."
"What hail?"
"Why, hail that falls every evening here; and, till it comes close to
me, it's like so much warm rain: but then it turns to hail over my head,
and knocks me about like small shot."
"That hail will never come any more," said the strange lady. "I have
told you before what it was. It was your mother's tears, those which
she shed when she prayed for you by her bedside; but your cold heart
froze it into hail. But she is gone to heaven now, and will weep no more
for her graceless son."
Then Grimes was silent awhile; and then he looked very sad.
"So my old mother's gone, and I never there to speak to her! Ah! a good
woman she was, and might have been a happy one, in her little school
there in Vendale, if it hadn't been for me and my bad ways."
"Did she keep the school in Vendale?" asked Tom. And then he told Grimes
all the story of his going to her house, and how she could not abide the
sight of a chimney-sweep, and then how kind she was, and how he turned
into a water-baby.
"Ah!" said Grimes, "good reason she had to hate the sight of a
chimney-sweep. I ran away from her and took up with the sweeps, and
never let her know where I was, nor sent her a penny to help her, and
now it's too late--too late!" said Mr. Grimes.
And he began crying and blubbering like a great baby, till his pipe
dropped out of his mouth, and broke all to bits.
"Oh, dear, if I was but a little chap in Vendale again, to see the clear
beck, and the apple-orchard, and the yew-hedge, how different I would go
on! But it's too late now. So you go along, you kind little chap, and
don't stand to look at a man crying, that's old enough to be your
father, and never feared the face of man, nor of worse neither. But I'm
beat now, and beat I must be. I've made my bed, and I must lie on it.
Foul I would be, and foul I am, as an Irishwoman said to me once; and
little I heeded it. It's all my own fault: but it's too late." And he
cried so bitterly that Tom began crying too.
"Never too late," said the fairy, in such a strange soft new voice that
Tom looked up at her; and she was so beautiful for the moment, that Tom
half fancied she was her sister.
No more was it too late. For, as poor Grimes cried and blubbered on, his
own tears did what his mother's could not do, and Tom's could not do,
and nobody's on earth could do for him; for they washed the soot off his
face and off his clothes; and then they washed the mortar away from
between the bricks; and the chimney crumbled down; and Grimes began to
get out of it.
Up jumped the truncheon, and was going to hit him on the crown a
tremendous thump, and drive him down again like a cork into a bottle.
But the strange lady put it aside.
"Will you obey me if I give you a chance?"
"As you please, ma'am. You're stronger than me--that I know too well,
and wiser than me, I know too well also. And, as for being my own
master, I've fared ill enough with that as yet. So whatever your
ladyship pleases to order me; for I'm beat, and that's the truth."
"Be it so then--you may come out. But remember, disobey me again, and
into a worse place still you go."
"I beg pardon, ma'am, but I never disobeyed you that I know of. I never
had the honour of setting eyes upon you till I came to these ugly
quarters."
"Never saw me? Who said to you, Those that will be foul, foul they will
be?"
Grimes looked up; and Tom looked up too; for the voice was that of the
Irishwoman who met them the day that they went out together to
Harthover. "I gave you your warning then: but you gave it yourself a
thousand times before and since. Every bad word that you said--every
cruel and mean thing that you did--every time that you got tipsy--every
day that you went dirty--you were disobeying me, whether you knew it or
not."
"If I'd only known, ma'am----"
"You knew well enough that you were disobeying something, though you did
not know it was me. But come out and take your chance. Perhaps it may be
your last."
So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, if it had not been for
the scars on his face, he looked as clean and respectable as a
master-sweep need look.
"Take him away," said she to the truncheon, "and give him his
ticket-of-leave."
"And what is he to do, ma'am?"
"Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will find some very steady
men working out their time there, who will teach him his business: but
mind, if that crater gets choked again, and there is an earthquake in
consequence, bring them all to me, and I shall investigate the case very
severely."
So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking as meek as a drowned
worm.
And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweeping the crater of Etna
to this very day.
"And now," said the fairy to Tom, "your work here is done. You may as
well go back again."
"I should be glad enough to go," said Tom, "but how am I to get up that
great hole again, now the steam has stopped blowing?"
"I will take you up the backstairs: but I must bandage your eyes first;
for I never allow anybody to see those backstairs of mine."
"I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, ma'am, if you bid me
not."
"Aha! So you think, my little man. But you would soon forget your
promise if you got back into the land-world. For, if people only once
found out that you had been up my backstairs, you would have all the
fine ladies kneeling to you, and the rich men emptying their purses
before you, and statesmen offering you place and power; and young and
old, rich and poor, crying to you, 'Only tell us the great backstairs
secret, and we will be your slaves; we will make you lord, king,
emperor, bishop, archbishop, pope, if you like--only tell us the secret
of the backstairs. For thousands of years we have been paying, and
petting, and obeying, and worshipping quacks who told us they had the
key of the backstairs, and could smuggle us up them; and in spite of all
our disappointments, we will honour, and glorify, and adore, and
beatify, and translate, and apotheotise you likewise, on the chance of
your knowing something about the backstairs, that we may all go on
pilgrimage to it; and, even if we cannot get up it, lie at the foot of
it, and cry--
'_Oh, backstairs_,
_precious backstairs_, _comfortable backstairs_,
_invaluable backstairs_, _humane backstairs_,
_requisite backstairs_, _reasonable backstairs_,
_necessary backstairs_, _long-sought backstairs_,
_good-natured backstairs_, _coveted backstairs_,
_cosmopolitan backstairs_, _aristocratic backstairs_,
_comprehensive backstairs_, _respectable backstairs_,
_accommodating backstairs_, _gentlemanlike backstairs_,
_well-bred backstairs_, _ladylike backstairs_,
_commercial backstairs_, _orthodox backstairs_,
_economical backstairs_, _probable backstairs_,
_practical backstairs_, _credible backstairs_,
_logical backstairs_, _demonstrable backstairs_,
_deductive backstairs_, _irrefragable backstairs_,
_potent backstairs_,
_all-but-omnipotent backstairs_,
_&c._
Save us from the consequences of our own actions, and from the cruel
fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid!' Do not you think that you would be a
little tempted then to tell what you know, laddie?"
Tom thought so certainly. "But why do they want so to know about the
backstairs?" asked he, being a little frightened at the long words, and
not understanding them the least; as, indeed, he was not meant to do, or
you either.
"That I shall not tell you. I never put things into little folks' heads
which are but too likely to come there of themselves. So come--now I
must bandage your eyes." So she tied the bandage on his eyes with one
hand, and with the other she took it off.
"Now," she said, "you are safe up the stairs." Tom opened his eyes very
wide, and his mouth too; for he had not, as he thought, moved a single
step. But, when he looked round him, there could be no doubt that he was
safe up the backstairs, whatsoever they may be, which no man is going to
tell you, for the plain reason that no man knows.
The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, high and sharp
against the rosy dawn; and St. Brandan's Isle reflected double in the
still broad silver sea. The wind sang softly in the cedars, and the
water sang among the caves: the sea-birds sang as they streamed out into
the ocean, and the land-birds as they built among the boughs; and the
air was so full of song that it stirred St. Brandan and his hermits, as
they slumbered in the shade; and they moved their good old lips, and
sang their morning hymn amid their dreams. But among all the songs one
came across the water more sweet and clear than all; for it was the song
of a young girl's voice.
And what was the song which she sang? Ah, my little man, I am too old to
sing that song, and you too young to understand it. But have patience,
and keep your eye single, and your hands clean, and you will learn some
day to sing it yourself, without needing any man to teach you.
And as Tom neared the island, there sat upon a rock the most graceful
creature that ever was seen, looking down, with her chin upon her hand,
and paddling with her feet in the water. And when they came to her she
looked up, and behold it was Ellie.
"Oh, Miss Ellie," said he, "how you are grown!"
"Oh, Tom," said she, "how you are grown too!"
And no wonder; they were both quite grown up--he into a tall man, and
she into a beautiful woman.
"Perhaps I may be grown," she said. "I have had time enough; for I have
been sitting here waiting for you many a hundred years, till I thought
you were never coming."
"Many a hundred years?" thought Tom; but he had seen so much in his
travels that he had quite given up being astonished; and, indeed, he
could think of nothing but Ellie. So he stood and looked at Ellie, and
Ellie looked at him; and they liked the employment so much that they
stood and looked for seven years more, and neither spoke nor stirred.
At last they heard the fairy say: "Attention, children. Are you never
going to look at me again?"
"We have been looking at you all this while," they said. And so they
thought they had been.