The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
"Then look at me once more," said she.
They looked--and both of them cried out at once, "Oh, who are you, after
all?"
"You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby."
"No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid; but you are grown quite
beautiful now!"
"To you," said the fairy. "But look again."
"You are Mother Carey," said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice; for he
had found out something which made him very happy, and yet frightened
him more than all that he had ever seen.
"But you are grown quite young again."
"To you," said the fairy. "Look again."
"You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to Harthover!"
And when they looked she was neither of them, and yet all of them at
once.
"My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there."
And they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, and they changed again
and again into every hue, as the light changes in a diamond.
"Now read my name," said she, at last.
And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, blazing light: but
the children could not read her name; for they were dazzled, and hid
their faces in their hands.
"Not yet, young things, not yet," said she, smiling; and then she turned
to Ellie.
"You may take him home with you now on Sundays, Ellie. He has won his
spurs in the great battle, and become fit to go with you and be a man;
because he has done the thing he did not like."
So Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and sometimes on week-days, too;
and he is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads, and
steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth;
and knows everything about everything, except why a hen's egg don't turn
into a crocodile, and two or three other little things which no one will
know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues. And all this from what he
learnt when he was a water-baby, underneath the sea.
"And of course Tom married Ellie?"
My dear child, what a silly notion! Don't you know that no one ever
marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a prince or a princess?
"And Tom's dog?"
Oh, you may see him any clear night in July; for the old dog-star was so
worn out by the last three hot summers that there have been no dog-days
since; so that they had to take him down and put Tom's dog up in his
place. Therefore, as new brooms sweep clean, we may hope for some warm
weather this year. And that is the end of my story.
MORAL
_And now, my dear little man, what should we learn from this parable?_
_We should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things, I am not exactly
sure which: but one thing, at least, we may learn, and that is
this--when we see efts in the pond, never to throw stones at them, or
catch them with crooked pins, or put them into vivariums with
sticklebacks, that the sticklebacks may prick them in their poor little
stomachs, and make them jump out of the glass into somebody's work-box,
and so come to a bad end. For these efts are nothing else but the
water-babies who are stupid and dirty, and will not learn their lessons
and keep themselves clean; and, therefore (as comparative anatomists
will tell you fifty years hence, though they are not learned enough to
tell you now), their skulls grow flat, their jaws grow out, and their
brains grow small, and their tails grow long, and they lose all their
ribs (which I am sure you would not like to do), and their skins grow
dirty and spotted, and they never get into the clear rivers, much less
into the great wide sea, but hang about in dirty ponds, and live in the
mud, and eat worms, as they deserve to do._
_But that is no reason why you should ill-use them: but only why you
should pity them, and be kind to them, and hope that some day they will
wake up, and be ashamed of their nasty, dirty, lazy, stupid life, and
try to amend, and become something better once more. For, perhaps, if
they do so, then after 379,423 years, nine months, thirteen days, two
hours, and twenty-one minutes (for aught that appears to the contrary),
if they work very hard and wash very hard all that time, their brains
may grow bigger, and their jaws grow smaller, and their ribs come back,
and their tails wither off, and they will turn into water-babies again,
and perhaps after that into land-babies; and after that perhaps into
grown men._
_You know they won't? Very well, I daresay you know best. But you see,
some folks have a great liking for those poor little efts. They never
did anybody any harm, or could if they tried; and their only fault is,
that they do no good--any more than some thousands of their betters. But
what with ducks, and what with pike, and what with sticklebacks, and
what with water-beetles, and what with naughty boys, they are "sae sair
hadden doun," as the Scotsmen say, that it is a wonder how they live;
and some folks can't help hoping, with good Bishop Butler, that they may
have another chance, to make things fair and even, somewhere, somewhen,
somehow._
_Meanwhile, do you learn your lessons, and thank God that you have
plenty of cold water to wash in; and wash in it too, like a true
Englishman. And then, if my story is not true, something better is; and
if I am not quite right, still you will be, as long as you stick to hard
work and cold water._
_But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all a fairy
tale, and only fun and pretence: and, therefore, you are not to believe
a word of it, even if it is true._
THE END
_Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh._
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Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 6, "piert" was retained as a spelling for "pert".