The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
life; but he was sharp enough to know that he might hide in a bush, or
swarm up a tree, and, altogether, had more chance there than in the
open. If he had not known that, he would have been foolisher than a
mouse or a minnow.
But when he got into the wood, he found it a very different sort of
place from what he had fancied. He pushed into a thick cover of
rhododendrons, and found himself at once caught in a trap. The boughs
laid hold of his legs and arms, poked him in his face and his stomach,
made him shut his eyes tight (though that was no great loss, for he
could not see at best a yard before his nose); and when he got through
the rhododendrons, the hassock-grass and sedges tumbled him over, and
cut his poor little fingers afterwards most spitefully; the birches
birched him as soundly as if he had been a nobleman at Eton, and over
the face too (which is not fair swishing, as all brave boys will agree);
and the lawyers tripped him up, and tore his shins as if they had
sharks' teeth--which lawyers are likely enough to have.
"I must get out of this," thought Tom, "or I shall stay here till
somebody comes to help me--which is just what I don't want."
But how to get out was the difficult matter. And indeed I don't think he
would ever have got out at all, but have stayed there till the
cock-robins covered him with leaves, if he had not suddenly run his head
against a wall.
Now running your head against a wall is not pleasant, especially if it
is a loose wall, with the stones all set on edge, and a sharp cornered
one hits you between the eyes and makes you see all manner of beautiful
stars. The stars are very beautiful, certainly; but unfortunately they
go in the twenty-thousandth part of a split second, and the pain which
comes after them does not. And so Tom hurt his head; but he was a brave
boy, and did not mind that a penny. He guessed that over the wall the
cover would end; and up it he went, and over like a squirrel.
And there he was, out on the great grouse-moors, which the country folk
called Harthover Fell--heather and bog and rock, stretching away and
up, up to the very sky.
Now, Tom was a cunning little fellow--as cunning as an old Exmoor stag.
Why not? Though he was but ten years old, he had lived longer than most
stags, and had more wits to start with into the bargain.
He knew as well as a stag that if he backed he might throw the hounds
out. So the first thing he did when he was over the wall was to make the
neatest double sharp to his right, and run along under the wall for
nearly half a mile.
Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the steward, and the gardener, and
the ploughman, and the dairymaid, and all the hue-and-cry together, went
on ahead half a mile in the very opposite direction, and inside the
wall, leaving him a mile off on the outside; while Tom heard their
shouts die away in the woods and chuckled to himself merrily.
At last he came to a dip in the land, and went to the bottom of it, and
then he turned bravely away from the wall and up the moor; for he knew
that he had put a hill between him and his enemies, and could go on
without their seeing him.
But the Irishwoman, alone of them all, had seen which way Tom went. She
had kept ahead of every one the whole time; and yet she neither walked
nor ran. She went along quite smoothly and gracefully, while her feet
twinkled past each other so fast that you could not see which was
foremost; till every one asked the other who the strange woman was; and
all agreed, for want of anything better to say, that she must be in
league with Tom.
But when she came to the plantation, they lost sight of her; and they
could do no less. For she went quietly over the wall after Tom, and
followed him wherever he went. Sir John and the rest saw no more of her;
and out of sight was out of mind.
And now Tom was right away into the heather, over just such a moor as
those in which you have been bred, except that there were rocks and
stones lying about everywhere, and that, instead of the moor growing
flat as he went upwards, it grew more and more broken and hilly, but not
so rough but that little Tom could jog along well enough, and find time,
too, to stare about at the strange place, which was like a new world to
him.
He saw great spiders there, with crowns and crosses marked on their
backs, who sat in the middle of their webs, and when they saw Tom
coming, shook them so fast that they became invisible. Then he saw
lizards, brown and grey and green, and thought they were snakes, and
would sting him; but they were as much frightened as he, and shot away
into the heath. And then, under a rock, he saw a pretty sight--a great
brown, sharp-nosed creature, with a white tag to her brush, and round
her four or five smutty little cubs, the funniest fellows Tom ever saw.
She lay on her back, rolling about, and stretching out her legs and head
and tail in the bright sunshine; and the cubs jumped over her, and ran
round her, and nibbled her paws, and lugged her about by the tail; and
she seemed to enjoy it mightily. But one selfish little fellow stole
away from the rest to a dead crow close by, and dragged it off to hide
it, though it was nearly as big as he was. Whereat all his little
brothers set off after him in full cry, and saw Tom; and then all ran
back, and up jumped Mrs. Vixen, and caught one up in her mouth, and the
rest toddled after her, and into a dark crack in the rocks; and there
was an end of the show.
And next he had a fright; for, as he scrambled up a sandy
brow--whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock-kick--something went off in his face,
with a most horrid noise. He thought the ground had blown up, and the
end of the world come.
And when he opened his eyes (for he shut them very tight) it was
only an old cock-grouse, who had been washing himself in sand,
like an Arab, for want of water; and who, when Tom had all but
trodden on him, jumped up with a noise like the express train,
leaving his wife and children to shift for themselves, like an
old coward, and went off, screaming "Cur-ru-u-uck, cur-ru-u-uck--murder,
thieves, fire--cur-u-uck-cock-kick--the end of the world is
come--kick-kick-cock-kick." He was always fancying that the end of the
world was come, when anything happened which was farther off than the
end of his own nose. But the end of the world was not come, any more
than the twelfth of August was; though the old grouse-cock was quite
certain of it.
So the old grouse came back to his wife and family an hour afterwards,
and said solemnly, "Cock-cock-kick; my dears, the end of the world is
not quite come; but I assure you it is coming the day after
to-morrow--cock." But his wife had heard that so often that she knew all
about it, and a little more. And, besides, she was the mother of a
family, and had seven little poults to wash and feed every day; and that
made her very practical, and a little sharp-tempered; so all she
answered was: "Kick-kick-kick--go and catch spiders, go and catch
spiders--kick."
So Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why; but he liked the great wide
strange place, and the cool fresh bracing air. But he went more and more
slowly as he got higher up the hill; for now the ground grew very bad
indeed. Instead of soft turf and springy heather, he met great patches
of flat limestone rock, just like ill-made pavements, with deep cracks
between the stones and ledges, filled with ferns; so he had to hop from
stone to stone, and now and then he slipped in between, and hurt his
little bare toes, though they were tolerably tough ones; but still he
would go on and up, he could not tell why.
What would Tom have said if he had seen, walking over the moor behind
him, the very same Irishwoman who had taken his part upon the road? But
whether it was that he looked too little behind him, or whether it was
that she kept out of sight behind the rocks and knolls, he never saw
her, though she saw him.
And now he began to get a little hungry, and very thirsty; for he had
run a long way, and the sun had risen high in heaven, and the rock was
as hot as an oven, and the air danced reels over it, as it does over a
limekiln, till everything round seemed quivering and melting in the
glare.
But he could see nothing to eat anywhere, and still less to drink.
The heath was full of bilberries and whimberries; but they were only in
flower yet, for it was June. And as for water, who can find that on the
top of a limestone rock? Now and then he passed by a deep dark
swallow-hole, going down into the earth, as if it was the chimney of
some dwarf's house underground; and more than once, as he passed, he
could hear water falling, trickling, tinkling, many many feet below. How
he longed to get down to it, and cool his poor baked lips! But, brave
little chimney-sweep as he was, he dared not climb down such chimneys as
those.
So he went on and on, till his head spun round with the heat, and he
thought he heard church-bells ringing, a long way off.
"Ah!" he thought, "where there is a church there will be houses and
people; and, perhaps, some one will give me a bit and a sup." So he set
off again, to look for the church; for he was sure that he heard the
bells quite plain.
And in a minute more, when he looked round, he stopped again, and said,
"Why, what a big place the world is!"
And so it was; for, from the top of the mountain he could see--what
could he not see?
Behind him, far below, was Harthover, and the dark woods, and the
shining salmon river; and on his left, far below, was the town, and the
smoking chimneys of the collieries; and far, far away, the river widened
to the shining sea; and little white specks, which were ships, lay on
its bosom. Before him lay, spread out like a map, great plains, and
farms, and villages, amid dark knots of trees. They all seemed at his
very feet; but he had sense to see that they were long miles away.
And to his right rose moor after moor, hill after hill, till they faded
away, blue into blue sky. But between him and those moors, and really at
his very feet, lay something, to which, as soon as Tom saw it, he
determined to go, for that was the place for him.
A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow, and filled with wood;
but through the wood, hundreds of feet below him, he could see a clear
stream glance. Oh, if he could but get down to that stream! Then, by the
stream, he saw the roof of a little cottage, and a little garden set out
in squares and beds. And there was a tiny little red thing moving in the
garden, no bigger than a fly. As Tom looked down, he saw that it was a
woman in a red petticoat. Ah! perhaps she would give him something to
eat. And there were the church-bells ringing again. Surely there must be
a village down there. Well, nobody would know him, or what had happened
at the Place. The news could not have got there yet, even if Sir John
had set all the policemen in the county after him; and he could get down
there in five minutes.
Tom was quite right about the hue-and-cry not having got thither; for he
had come without knowing it, the best part of ten miles from Harthover;
but he was wrong about getting down in five minutes, for the cottage was
more than a mile off, and a good thousand feet below.
However, down he went, like a brave little man as he was, though he was
very footsore, and tired, and hungry, and thirsty; while the
church-bells rang so loud, he began to think that they must be inside
his own head, and the river chimed and tinkled far below; and this was
the song which it sang:--
_Clear and cool, clear and cool,
By laughing shallow, and dreaming pool;
Cool and clear, cool and clear,