CHAPTER I

“I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined;

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

“To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think,

What man has made of man.”

WORDSWORTH.

[Picture: Little chimney-sweep]

ONCE upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, and his name was Tom.

That is a short name, and you have heard it before, so you will not have

much trouble in remembering it. He lived in a great town in the North

country, where there were plenty of chimneys to sweep, and plenty of

money for Tom to earn and his master to spend. He could not read nor

write, and did not care to do either; and he never washed himself, for

there was no water up the court where he lived. He had never been taught

to say his prayers. He never had heard of God, or of Christ, except in

words which you never have heard, and which it would have been well if he

had never heard. He cried half his time, and laughed the other half. He

cried when he had to climb the dark flues, rubbing his poor knees and

elbows raw; and when the soot got into his eyes, which it did every day

in the week; and when his master beat him, which he did every day in the

week; and when he had not enough to eat, which happened every day in the

week likewise. And he laughed the other half of the day, when he was

tossing halfpennies with the other boys, or playing leap-frog over the

posts, or bowling stones at the horses’ legs as they trotted by, which

last was excellent fun, when there was a wall at hand behind which to

hide. [Picture: Dogs] As for chimney-sweeping, and being hungry, and

being beaten, he took all that for the way of the world, like the rain

and snow and thunder, and stood manfully with his back to it till it was

over, as his old donkey did to a hail-storm; and then shook his ears and

was as jolly as ever; and thought of the fine times coming, when he would

be a man, and a master sweep, and sit in the public-house with a quart of

beer and a long pipe, and play cards for silver money, and wear

velveteens and ankle-jacks, and keep a white bull-dog with one gray ear,

and carry her puppies in his pocket, just like a man. And he would have

apprentices, one, two, three, if he could. How he would bully them, and

knock them about, just as his master did to him; and make them carry home

the soot sacks, while he rode before them on his donkey, with a pipe in

his mouth and a flower in his button-hole, like a king at the head of his

army. Yes, there were good times coming; and, when his master let him

have a pull at the leavings of his beer, Tom was the jolliest boy in the

whole town.

[Picture: Smart groom and Tom]

One day a smart little groom rode into the court where Tom lived. Tom

was just hiding behind a wall, to heave half a brick at his horse’s legs,

as is the custom of that country when they welcome strangers; but the

groom saw him, and halloed to him to know where Mr. Grimes, the

chimney-sweep, lived. Now, Mr. Grimes was Tom’s own master, and Tom was

a good man of business, and always civil to customers, so he put the

half-brick down quietly behind the wall, and proceeded to take orders.

Mr. Grimes was to come up next morning to Sir John Harthover’s, at the

Place, for his old chimney-sweep was gone to prison, and the chimneys

wanted sweeping. And so he rode away, not giving Tom time to ask what

the sweep had gone to prison for, which was a matter of interest to Tom,

as he had been in prison once or twice himself. Moreover, the groom

looked so very neat and clean, with his drab gaiters, drab breeches, drab

jacket, snow-white tie with a smart pin in it, and clean round ruddy

face, that Tom was offended and disgusted at his appearance, and

considered him a stuck-up fellow, who gave himself airs because he wore

smart clothes, and other people paid for them; and went behind the wall

to fetch the half-brick after all; but did not, remembering that he had

come in the way of business, and was, as it were, under a flag of truce.

His master was so delighted at his new customer that he knocked Tom down

out of hand, and drank more beer that night than he usually did in two,

in order to be sure of getting up in time next morning; for the more a

man’s head aches when he wakes, the more glad he is to turn out, and have

a breath of fresh air. And, when he did get up at four the next morning,

he knocked Tom down again, in order to teach him (as young gentlemen used

to be taught at public schools) that he must be an extra good boy that

day, as they were going to a very great house, and might make a very good

thing of it, if they could but give satisfaction.

And Tom thought so likewise, and, indeed, would have done and behaved his

best, even without being knocked down. For, of all places upon earth,

Harthover Place (which he had never seen) was the most wonderful, and, of

all men on earth, Sir John (whom he had seen, having been sent to gaol by

him twice) was the most awful.

[Picture: Sir John Harthover]

Harthover Place was really a grand place, even for the rich North

country; with a house so large that in the frame-breaking riots, which

Tom could just remember, the Duke of Wellington, and ten thousand

soldiers to match, were easily housed therein; at least, so Tom believed;

with a park full of deer, which Tom believed to be monsters who were in

the habit of eating children; with miles of game-preserves, in which Mr.

Grimes and the collier lads poached at times, on which occasions Tom saw

pheasants, and wondered what they tasted like; with a noble salmon-river,

in which Mr. Grimes and his friends would have liked to poach; but then

they must have got into cold water, and that they did not like at all.

In short, Harthover was a grand place, and Sir John a grand old man, whom

even Mr. Grimes respected; for not only could he send Mr. Grimes to

prison when he deserved it, as he did once or twice a week; not only did

he own all the land about for miles; not only was he a jolly, honest,

sensible squire, as ever kept a pack of hounds, who would do what he

thought right by his neighbours, as well as get what he thought right for

himself; but, what was more, he weighed full fifteen stone, was nobody

knew how many inches round the chest, and could have thrashed Mr. Grimes

himself in fair fight, which very few folk round there could do, and

which, my dear little boy, would not have been right for him to do, as a

great many things are not which one both can do, and would like very much

to do. So Mr. Grimes touched his hat to him when he rode through the

town, and called him a “buirdly awd chap,” and his young ladies “gradely

lasses,” which are two high compliments in the North country; and thought

that that made up for his poaching Sir John’s pheasants; whereby you may

perceive that Mr. Grimes had not been to a properly-inspected Government

National School.

Now, I dare say, you never got up at three o’clock on a midsummer

morning. Some people get up then because they want to catch salmon; and

some because they want to climb Alps; and a great many more because they

must, like Tom. But, I assure you, that three o’clock on a midsummer

morning is the pleasantest time of all the twenty-four hours, and all the

three hundred and sixty-five days; and why every one does not get up

then, I never could tell, save that they are all determined to spoil

their nerves and their complexions by doing all night what they might

just as well do all day. But Tom, instead of going out to dinner at

half-past eight at night, and to a ball at ten, and finishing off

somewhere between twelve and four, went to bed at seven, when his master

went to the public-house, and slept like a dead pig; for which reason he

was as piert as a game-cock (who always gets up early to wake the maids),

and just ready to get up when the fine gentlemen and ladies were just

ready to go to bed.

[Picture: Grimes and Tom] So he and his master set out; Grimes rode the

donkey in front, and Tom and the brushes walked behind; out of the court,

and up the street, past the closed window-shutters, and the winking weary

policemen, and the roofs all shining gray in the gray dawn.

They passed through the pitmen’s village, all shut up and silent now, and

through the turnpike; and then the were out in the real country, and

plodding along the black dusty road, between black slag walls, with no

sound but the groaning and thumping of the pit-engine in the next field.

But soon the road grew white, and the walls likewise; and at the wall’s

foot grew long grass and gay flowers, all drenched with dew; and instead

of the groaning of the pit-engine, they heard the skylark saying his

matins high up in the air, and the pit-bird warbling in the sedges, as he

had warbled all night long.

All else was silent. For old Mrs. Earth was still fast asleep; and, like

many pretty people, she looked still prettier asleep than awake. The

great elm-trees in the gold-green meadows were fast asleep above, and the

cows fast asleep beneath them; nay, the few clouds which were about were

fast asleep likewise, and so tired that they had lain down on the earth

to rest, in long white flakes and bars, among the stems of the elm-trees,

and along the tops of the alders by the stream, waiting for the sun to

bid them rise and go about their day’s business in the clear blue

overhead.

On they went; and Tom looked, and looked, for he never had been so far

into the country before; and longed to get over a gate, and pick

buttercups, and look for birds’ nests in the hedge; but Mr. Grimes was a

man of business, and would not have heard of that.

Soon they came up with a poor Irishwoman, trudging along with a bundle at

her back. She had a gray shawl over her head, and a crimson madder

petticoat; so you may be sure she came from Galway. She had neither

shoes nor stockings, and limped along as if she were tired and footsore;

but she was a very tall handsome woman, with bright gray eyes, and heavy

black hair hanging about her cheeks. And she took Mr. Grimes’ fancy so

much, that when he came alongside he called out to her:

[Picture: The poor Irishwomen] “This is a hard road for a gradely foot

like that. Will ye up, lass, and ride behind me?”

But, perhaps, she did not admire Mr. Grimes’ look and voice; for she

answered quietly:

“No, thank you: I’d sooner walk with your little lad here.”

“You may please yourself,” growled Grimes, and went on smoking.

So she walked beside Tom, and talked to him, and asked him where he

lived, and what he knew, and all about himself, till Tom thought he had

never met such a pleasant-spoken woman. And she asked him, at last,

whether he said his prayers! and seemed sad when he told her that he knew

no prayers to say.

Then he asked her where she lived, and she said far away by the sea. And

Tom asked her about the sea; and she told him how it rolled and roared

over the rocks in winter nights, and lay still in the bright summer days,

for the children to bathe and play in it; and many a story more, till Tom

longed to go and see the sea, and bathe in it likewise.

At last, at the bottom of a hill, they came to a spring; not such a

spring as you see here, which soaks up out of a white gravel in the bog,

among red fly-catchers, and pink bottle-heath, and sweet white orchis;

nor such a one as you may see, too, here, which bubbles up under the warm

sandbank in the hollow lane by the great tuft of lady ferns, and makes

the sand dance reels at the bottom, day and night, all the year round;

not such a spring as either of those; but a real North country limestone

fountain, like one of those in Sicily or Greece, where the old heathen

fancied the nymphs sat cooling themselves the hot summer’s day, while the

shepherds peeped at them from behind the bushes. Out of a low cave of

rock, at the foot of a limestone crag, the great fountain rose, quelling,

and bubbling, and gurgling, so clear that you could not tell where the

water ended and the air began; and ran away under the road, a stream

large enough to turn a mill; among blue geranium, and golden

globe-flower, and wild raspberry, and the bird-cherry with its tassels of

snow.

And there Grimes stopped, and looked; and Tom looked too. Tom was

wondering whether anything lived in that dark cave, and came out at night

to fly in the meadows. But Grimes was not wondering at all. Without a

word, he got off his donkey, and clambered over the low road wall, and

knelt down, and began dipping his ugly head into the spring—and very

dirty he made it.

Tom was picking the flowers as fast as he could. The Irishwoman helped

him, and showed him how to tie them up; and a very pretty nosegay they

had made between them. But when he saw Grimes actually wash, he stopped,

quite astonished; and when Grimes had finished, and began shaking his

ears to dry them, he said:

“Why, master, I never saw you do that before.”

“Nor will again, most likely. ’Twasn’t for cleanliness I did it, but for

coolness. I’d be ashamed to want washing every week or so, like any

smutty collier lad.”

“I wish I might go and dip my head in,” said poor little Tom. “It must

be as good as putting it under the town-pump; and there is no beadle here

to drive a chap away.”

“Thou come along,” said Grimes; “what dost want with washing thyself?

Thou did not drink half a gallon of beer last night, like me.”

“I don’t care for you,” said naughty Tom, and ran down to the stream, and

began washing his face.

Grimes was very sulky, because the woman preferred Tom’s company to his;

so he dashed at him with horrid words, and tore him up from his knees,

and began beating him. But Tom was accustomed to that, and got his head

safe between Mr. Grimes’ legs, and kicked his shins with all his might.

“Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes?” cried the Irishwoman

over the wall.

Grimes looked up, startled at her knowing his name; but all he answered

was, “No, nor never was yet;” and went on beating Tom.

“True for you. If you ever had been ashamed of yourself, you would have

gone over into Vendale long ago.”

“What do you know about Vendale?” shouted Grimes; but he left off beating

Tom.

“I know about Vendale, and about you, too. I know, for instance, what

happened in Aldermire Copse, by night, two years ago come Martinmas.”

“You do?” shouted Grimes; and leaving Tom, he climbed up over the wall,

and faced the woman. Tom thought he was going to strike her; but she

looked him too full and fierce in the face for that.

“Yes; I was there,” said the Irishwoman quietly.

“You are no Irishwoman, by your speech,” said Grimes, after many bad

words.

“Never mind who I am. I saw what I saw; and if you strike that boy

again, I can tell what I know.”

Grimes seemed quite cowed, and got on his donkey without another word.

“Stop!” said the Irishwoman. “I have one more word for you both; for you

will both see me again before all is over. Those that wish to be clean,

clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be.

Remember.”

[Picture: Griffin status with shield saying “Salvtem”]

And she turned away, and through a gate into the meadow. Grimes stood

still a moment, like a man who had been stunned. Then he rushed after

her, shouting, “You come back.” But when he got into the meadow, the

woman was not there.

Had she hidden away? There was no place to hide in. But Grimes looked

about, and Tom also, for he was as puzzled as Grimes himself at her

disappearing so suddenly; but look where they would, she was not there.

Grimes came back again, as silent as a post, for he was a little

frightened; and, getting on his donkey, filled a fresh pipe, and smoked

away, leaving Tom in peace.

[Picture: Griffin status with shield saying “Amicis”]

And now they had gone three miles and more, and came to Sir John’s

lodge-gates.

Very grand lodges they were, with very grand iron gates and stone

gate-posts, and on the top of each a most dreadful bogy, all teeth,

horns, and tail, which was the crest which Sir John’s ancestors wore in

the Wars of the Roses; and very prudent men they were to wear it, for all

their enemies must have run for their lives at the very first sight of

them.

Grimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper on the spot, and opened.

“I was told to expect thee,” he said. “Now thou’lt be so good as to keep

to the main avenue, and not let me find a hare or a rabbit on thee when

thou comest back. I shall look sharp for one, I tell thee.”

“Not if it’s in the bottom of the soot-bag,” quoth Grimes, and at that he

laughed; and the keeper laughed and said:

“If that’s thy sort, I may as well walk up with thee to the hall.”

“I think thou best had. It’s thy business to see after thy game, man,

and not mine.”

So the keeper went with them; and, to Tom’s surprise, he and Grimes

chatted together all the way quite pleasantly. He did not know that a

keeper is only a poacher turned outside in, and a poacher a keeper turned

inside out.

They walked up a great lime avenue, a full mile long, and between their

stems Tom peeped trembling at the horns of the sleeping deer, which stood

up among the ferns. Tom had never seen such enormous trees, and as he

looked up he fancied that the blue sky rested on their heads. But he was

puzzled very much by a strange murmuring noise, which followed them all

the way. So much puzzled, that at last he took courage to ask the keeper

what it was.

[Picture: The keeper and Grimes]

He spoke very civilly, and called him Sir, for he was horribly afraid of

him, which pleased the keeper, and he told him that they were the bees

about the lime flowers.

“What are bees?” asked Tom.

“What make honey.”

“What is honey?” asked Tom.

“Thou hold thy noise,” said Grimes.

“Let the boy be,” said the keeper. “He’s a civil young chap now, and

that’s more than he’ll be long if he bides with thee.”

Grimes laughed, for he took that for a compliment.

“I wish I were a keeper,” said Tom, “to live in such a beautiful place,

and wear green velveteens, and have a real dog-whistle at my button, like

you.”

The keeper laughed; he was a kind-hearted fellow enough.

“Let well alone, lad, and ill too at times. Thy life’s safer than mine

at all events, eh, Mr. Grimes?”

And Grimes laughed again, and then the two men began talking, quite low.

Tom could hear, though, that it was about some poaching fight; and at

last Grimes said surlily, “Hast thou anything against me?”

“Not now.”

“Then don’t ask me any questions till thou hast, for I am a man of

honour.”

And at that they both laughed again, and thought it a very good joke.

And by this time they were come up to the great iron gates in front of

the house; and Tom stared through them at the rhododendrons and azaleas,

which were all in flower; and then at the house itself, and wondered how

many chimneys there were in it, and how long ago it was built, and what

was the man’s name that built it, and whether he got much money for his

job?

These last were very difficult questions to answer. For Harthover had

been built at ninety different times, and in nineteen different styles,

and looked as if somebody had built a whole street of houses of every

imaginable shape, and then stirred them together with a spoon.

_For the attics were Anglo-Saxon_.

_The third door Norman_.

_The second Cinque-cento_.

_The first-floor Elizabethan_.

_The right wing Pure Doric_.

_The centre Early English_, _with a huge portico copied from the

Parthenon_.

_The left wing pure Bœotian_, _which the country folk admired most of

all_, _became it was just like the new barracks in the town_, _only

three times as big_.

_The grand staircase was copied from the Catacombs at Rome_.

_The back staircase from the Tajmahal at Agra_. _This was built by

Sir John’s great-great-great-uncle_, _who won_, _in Lord Clive’s

Indian Wars_, _plenty of money_, _plenty of wounds_, _and no more

taste than his betters_.

_The cellars were copied from the caves of Elephanta_.

_The offices from the Pavilion at Brighton_.

And the rest from nothing in heaven, or earth, or under the earth.

So that Harthover House was a great puzzle to antiquarians, and a

thorough Naboth’s vineyard to critics, and architects, and all persons

who like meddling with other men’s business, and spending other men’s

money. So they were all setting upon poor Sir John, year after year, and

trying to talk him into spending a hundred thousand pounds or so, in

building, to please them and not himself. But he always put them off,

like a canny North-countryman as he was. One wanted him to build a

Gothic house, but he said he was no Goth; and another to build an

Elizabethan, but he said he lived under good Queen Victoria, and not good

Queen Bess; and another was bold enough to tell him that his house was

ugly, but he said he lived inside it, and not outside; and another, that

there was no unity in it, but he said that that was just why he liked the

old place. For he liked to see how each Sir John, and Sir Hugh, and Sir

Ralph, and Sir Randal, had left his mark upon the place, each after his

own taste; and he had no more notion of disturbing his ancestors’ work

than of disturbing their graves. For now the house looked like a real

live house, that had a history, and had grown and grown as the world

grew; and that it was only an upstart fellow who did not know who his own

grandfather was, who would change it for some spick and span new Gothic

or Elizabethan thing, which looked as if it bad been all spawned in a

night, as mushrooms are. From which you may collect (if you have wit

enough) that Sir John was a very sound-headed, sound-hearted squire, and

just the man to keep the country side in order, and show good sport with

his hounds.

[Picture: The housekeeper] But Tom and his master did not go in through

the great iron gates, as if they had been Dukes or Bishops, but round the

back way, and a very long way round it was; and into a little back-door,

where the ash-boy let them in, yawning horribly; and then in a passage

the housekeeper met them, in such a flowered chintz dressing-gown, that

Tom mistook her for My Lady herself, and she gave Grimes solemn orders

about “You will take care of this, and take care of that,” as if he was

going up the chimneys, and not Tom. And Grimes listened, and said every

now and then, under his voice, “You’ll mind that, you little beggar?” and

Tom did mind, all at least that he could. And then the housekeeper

turned them into a grand room, all covered up in sheets of brown paper,

and bade them begin, in a lofty and tremendous voice; and so after a

whimper or two, and a kick from his master, into the grate Tom went, and

up the chimney, while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the

furniture; to whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous

compliments, but met with very slight encouragement in return.

[Picture: Grimes paying complements]

How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say; but he swept so many that he

got quite tired, and puzzled too, for they were not like the town flues

to which he was accustomed, but such as you would find—if you would only

get up them and look, which perhaps you would not like to do—in old

country-houses, large and crooked chimneys, which had been altered again

and again, till they ran one into another, anastomosing (as Professor

Owen would say) considerably. So Tom fairly lost his way in them; not

that he cared much for that, though he was in pitchy darkness, for he was

as much at home in a chimney as a mole is underground; but at last,

coming down as he thought the right chimney, he came down the wrong one,

and found himself standing on the hearthrug in a room the like of which

he had never seen before.

Tom had never seen the like. He had never been in gentlefolks’ rooms but

when the carpets were all up, and the curtains down, and the furniture

huddled together under a cloth, and the pictures covered with aprons and

dusters; and he had often enough wondered what the rooms were like when

they were all ready for the quality to sit in. And now he saw, and he

thought the sight very pretty.

The room was all dressed in white,—white window-curtains, white

bed-curtains, white furniture, and white walls, with just a few lines of

pink here and there. The carpet was all over gay little flowers; and the

walls were hung with pictures in gilt frames, which amused Tom very much.

There were pictures of ladies and gentlemen, and pictures of horses and

dogs. The horses he liked; but the dogs he did not care for much, for

there were no bull-dogs among them, not even a terrier. But the two

pictures which took his fancy most were, one a man in long garments, with

little children and their mothers round him, who was laying his hand upon

the children’s heads. That was a very pretty picture, Tom thought, to

hang in a lady’s room. For he could see that it was a lady’s room by the

dresses which lay about.

The other picture was that of a man nailed to a cross, which surprised

Tom much. He fancied that he had seen something like it in a

shop-window. But why was it there? “Poor man,” thought Tom, “and he

looks so kind and quiet. But why should the lady have such a sad picture

as that in her room? Perhaps it was some kinsman of hers, who had been

murdered by the savages in foreign parts, and she kept it there for a

remembrance.” And Tom felt sad, and awed, and turned to look at

something else.

The next thing he saw, and that too puzzled him, was a washing-stand,

with ewers and basins, and soap and brushes, and towels, and a large bath

full of clean water—what a heap of things all for washing! “She must be

a very dirty lady,” thought Tom, “by my master’s rule, to want as much

scrubbing as all that. But she must be very cunning to put the dirt out

of the way so well afterwards, for I don’t see a speck about the room,

not even on the very towels.”

And then, looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty lady, and held his

breath with astonishment.

Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white pillow, lay the most

beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen. Her cheeks were almost as

white as the pillow, and her hair was like threads of gold spread all

about over the bed. She might have been as old as Tom, or maybe a year

or two older; but Tom did not think of that. He thought only of her

delicate skin and golden hair, and wondered whether she was a real live

person, or one of the wax dolls he had seen in the shops. But when he

saw her breathe, he made up his mind that she was alive, and stood

staring at her, as if she had been an angel out of heaven.

[Picture: The girl asleep]

No. She cannot be dirty. She never could have been dirty, thought Tom

to himself. And then he thought, “And are all people like that when they

are washed?” And he looked at his own wrist, and tried to rub the soot

off, and wondered whether it ever would come off. “Certainly I should

look much prettier then, if I grew at all like her.”

And looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close to him, a little ugly,

black, ragged figure, with bleared eyes and grinning white teeth. He

turned on it angrily. What did such a little black ape want in that

sweet young lady’s room? And behold, it was himself, reflected in a

great mirror, the like of which Tom had never seen before.

And Tom, for the first time in his life, found out that he was dirty; and

burst into tears with shame and anger; and turned to sneak up the chimney

again and hide; and upset the fender and threw the fire-irons down, with

a noise as of ten thousand tin kettles tied to ten thousand mad dogs’

tails.

Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, seeing Tom, screamed as

shrill as any peacock. In rushed a stout old nurse from the next room,

and seeing Tom likewise, made up her mind that he had come to rob,

plunder, destroy, and burn; and dashed at him, as he lay over the fender,

so fast that she caught him by the jacket.

But she did not hold him. Tom had been in a policeman’s hands many a

time, and out of them too, what is more; and he would have been ashamed

to face his friends for ever if he had been stupid enough to be caught by

an old woman; so he doubled under the good lady’s arm, across the room,

and out of the window in a moment.

He did not need to drop out, though he would have done so bravely enough.

Nor even to let himself down a spout, which would have been an old game

to him; for once he got up by a spout to the church roof, he said to take

jackdaws’ eggs, but the policeman said to steal lead; and, when he was

seen on high, sat there till the sun got too hot, and came down by

another spout, leaving the policemen to go back to the stationhouse and

eat their dinners.

But all under the window spread a tree, with great leaves and sweet white

flowers, almost as big as his head. It was magnolia, I suppose; but Tom

knew nothing about that, and cared less; for down the tree he went, like

a cat, and across the garden lawn, and over the iron railings and up the

park towards the wood, leaving the old nurse to scream murder and fire at

the window.

[Picture: The under gardener]

The under gardener, mowing, saw Tom, and threw down his scythe; caught

his leg in it, and cut his shin open, whereby he kept his bed for a week;

but in his hurry he never knew it, and gave chase to poor Tom. The

dairymaid heard the noise, got the churn between her knees, and tumbled

over it, spilling all the cream; and yet she jumped up, and gave chase to

Tom. [Picture: The diarymaid] A groom cleaning Sir John’s hack at the

stables let him go loose, whereby he kicked himself lame in five minutes;

but he ran out and gave chase to Tom. Grimes upset the soot-sack in the

new-gravelled yard, and spoilt it all utterly; but he ran out and gave

chase to Tom. The old steward opened the park-gate in such a hurry, that

he hung up his pony’s chin upon the spikes, and, for aught I know, it

hangs there still; but he jumped off, and gave chase to Tom. The

ploughman left his horses at the headland, and one jumped over the fence,

and pulled the other into the ditch, plough and all; but he ran on, and

gave chase to Tom. The keeper, who was taking a stoat out of a trap, let

the stoat go, and caught his own finger; but he jumped up, and ran after

Tom; and considering what he said, and how he looked, I should have been

sorry for Tom if he had caught him. Sir John looked out of his study

window (for he was an early old gentleman) and up at the nurse, and a

marten dropped mud in his eye, so that he had at last to send for the

doctor; and yet he ran out, and gave chase to Tom. The Irishwoman, too,

was walking up to the house to beg,—she must have got round by some

byway—but she threw away her bundle, and gave chase to Tom likewise.

Only my Lady did not give chase; for when she had put her head out of the

window, her night-wig fell into the garden, and she had to ring up her

lady’s-maid, and send her down for it privately, which quite put her out

of the running, so that she came in nowhere, and is consequently not

placed.

[Picture: The old steward]

In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place—not even when the fox was

killed in the conservatory, among acres of broken glass, and tons of

smashed flower-pots—such a noise, row, hubbub, babel, shindy, hullabaloo,

stramash, charivari, and total contempt of dignity, repose, and order, as

that day, when Grimes, gardener, the groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the

steward, the ploughman, the keeper, and the Irishwoman, all ran up the

park, shouting, “Stop thief,” in the belief that Tom had at least a

thousand pounds’ worth of jewels in his empty pockets; and the very

magpies and jays followed Tom up, screaking and screaming, as if he were

a hunted fox, beginning to droop his brush.

[Picture: Grimes]

And all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with his little bare feet,

like a small black gorilla fleeing to the forest. Alas for him! there

was no big father gorilla therein to take his part—to scratch out the

gardener’s inside with one paw, toss the dairymaid into a tree with

another, and wrench off Sir John’s head with a third, while he cracked

the keeper’s skull with his teeth as easily as if it had been a cocoa-nut

or a paving-stone.

[Picture: Man on horse]

However, Tom did not remember ever having had a father; so he did not

look for one, and expected to have to take care of himself; while as for

running, he could keep up for a couple of miles with any stage-coach, if

there was the chance of a copper or a cigar-end, and turn coach-wheels on

his hands and feet ten times following, which is more than you can do.

Wherefore his pursuers found it very difficult to catch him; and we will

hope that they did not catch him at all.

[Picture: Man chasing]

Tom, of course, made for the woods. He had never been in a wood in his

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.

[Picture: Man on knees]

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.

[Picture: Man looking out of window]

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 gray 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.

[Picture: Fox with cubs]

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.

[Picture: The grouse]

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

dwarfs 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.

[Picture: Youth reclining near stream]

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_,

_By shining shingle_, _and foaming wear_;

_Under the crag where the ouzel sings_,

_And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings_,

_Undefiled_, _for the undefiled_;

_Play by me_, _bathe in me_, _mother and child_.

_Dank and foul_, _dank and foul_,

_By the smoky town in its murky cowl_;

_Foul and dank_, _foul and dank_,

_By wharf and sewer and slimy bank_;

_Darker and darker the farther I go_,

_Baser and baser the richer I grow_;

_Who dares sport with the sin-defiled_?

_Shrink from me_, _turn from me_, _mother and child_.

_Strong and free_, _strong and free_,

_The floodgates are open_, _away to the sea_,

_Free and strong_, _free and strong_,

_Cleansing my streams as I hurry along_,

_To the golden sands_, _and the leaping bar_,

_And the taintless tide that awaits me afar_.

_As I lose myself in the infinite main_,

_Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again_.

_Undefiled_, _for the undefiled_;

_Play by me_, _bathe in me_, _mother and child_.

So Tom went down; and all the while he never saw the Irishwoman going

down behind him.

[Picture: Girl and woman walking on beech]