CHAPTER IV

“Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things

We murder to dissect.

Enough of science and of art:

Close up these barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives.”

WORDSWORTH.

[Picture: Tom on rock] SO the salmon went up, after Tom had warned them

of the wicked old otter; and Tom went down, but slowly and cautiously,

coasting along shore. He was many days about it, for it was many miles

down to the sea; and perhaps he would never have found his way, if the

fairies had not guided him, without his seeing their fair faces, or

feeling their gentle hands.

And, as he went, he had a very strange adventure. It was a clear still

September night, and the moon shone so brightly down through the water,

that he could not sleep, though he shut his eyes as tight as possible.

So at last he came up to the top, and sat upon a little point of rock,

and looked up at the broad yellow moon, and wondered what she was, and

thought that she looked at him. And he watched the moonlight on the

rippling river, and the black heads of the firs, and the silver-frosted

lawns, and listened to the owl’s hoot, and the snipe’s bleat, and the

fox’s bark, and the otter’s laugh; and smelt the soft perfume of the

birches, and the wafts of heather honey off the grouse moor far above;

and felt very happy, though he could not well tell why. You, of course,

would have been very cold sitting there on a September night, without the

least bit of clothes on your wet back; but Tom was a water-baby, and

therefore felt cold no more than a fish.

Suddenly, he saw a beautiful sight. A bright red light moved along the

river-side, and threw down into the water a long tap-root of flame. Tom,

curious little rogue that he was, must needs go and see what it was; so

he swam to the shore, and met the light as it stopped over a shallow run

at the edge of a low rock.

And there, underneath the light, lay five or six great salmon, looking up

at the flame with their great goggle eyes, and wagging their tails, as if

they were very much pleased at it.

Tom came to the top, to look at this wonderful light nearer, and made a

splash.

And he heard a voice say:

“There was a fish rose.”

He did not know what the words meant: but he seemed to know the sound of

them, and to know the voice which spoke them; and he saw on the bank

three great two-legged creatures, one of whom held the light, flaring and

sputtering, and another a long pole. And he knew that they were men, and

was frightened, and crept into a hole in the rock, from which he could

see what went on.

The man with the torch bent down over the water, and looked earnestly in;

and then he said:

“Tak’ that muckle fellow, lad; he’s ower fifteen punds; and haud your

hand steady.”

Tom felt that there was some danger coming, and longed to warn the

foolish salmon, who kept staring up at the light as if he was bewitched.

But before he could make up his mind, down came the pole through the

water; there was a fearful splash and struggle, and Tom saw that the poor

salmon was speared right through, and was lifted out of the water.

And then, from behind, there sprang on these three men three other men;

and there were shouts, and blows, and words which Tom recollected to have

heard before; and he shuddered and turned sick at them now, for he felt

somehow that they were strange, and ugly, and wrong, and horrible. And

it all began to come back to him. They were men; and they were fighting;

savage, desperate, up-and-down fighting, such as Tom had seen too many

times before.

And he stopped his little ears, and longed to swim away; and was very

glad that he was a water-baby, and had nothing to do any more with horrid

dirty men, with foul clothes on their backs, and foul words on their

lips; but he dared not stir out of his hole: while the rock shook over

his head with the trampling and struggling of the keepers and the

poachers.

All of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, and a frightful flash, and

a hissing, and all was still.

For into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the men; he who held the

light in his hand. Into the swift river he sank, and rolled over and

over in the current. Tom heard the men above run along seemingly looking

for him; but he drifted down into the deep hole below, and there lay

quite still, and they could not find him.

Tom waited a long time, till all was quiet; and then he peeped out, and

saw the man lying. At last he screwed up his courage and swam down to

him. “Perhaps,” he thought, “the water has made him fall asleep, as it

did me.”

Then he went nearer. He grew more and more curious, he could not tell

why. He must go and look at him. He would go very quietly, of course;

so he swam round and round him, closer and closer; and, as he did not

stir, at last he came quite close and looked him in the face.

The moon shone so bright that Tom could see every feature; and, as he

saw, he recollected, bit by bit, it was his old master, Grimes.

Tom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he could.

“Oh dear me!” he thought, “now he will turn into a water-baby. What a

nasty troublesome one he will be! And perhaps he will find me out, and

beat me again.”

So he went up the river again a little way, and lay there the rest of the

night under an alder root; but, when morning came, he longed to go down

again to the big pool, and see whether Mr. Grimes had turned into a

water-baby yet.

So he went very carefully, peeping round all the rocks, and hiding under

all the roots. Mr. Grimes lay there still; he had not turned into a

water-baby. In the afternoon Tom went back again. He could not rest

till he had found out what had become of Mr. Grimes. But this time Mr.

Grimes was gone; and Tom made up his mind that he was turned into a

water-baby.

He might have made himself easy, poor little man; Mr. Grimes did not turn

into a water-baby, or anything like one at all. But he did not make

himself easy; and a long time he was fearful lest he should meet Grimes

suddenly in some deep pool. He could not know that the fairies had

carried him away, and put him, where they put everything which falls into

the water, exactly where it ought to be. But, do you know, what had

happened to Mr. Grimes had such an effect on him that he never poached

salmon any more. And it is quite certain that, when a man becomes a

confirmed poacher, the only way to cure him is to put him under water for

twenty-four hours, like Grimes. So when you grow to be a big man, do you

behave as all honest fellows should; and never touch a fish or a head of

game which belongs to another man without his express leave; and then

people will call you a gentleman, and treat you like one; and perhaps

give you good sport: instead of hitting you into the river, or calling

you a poaching snob.

Then Tom went on down, for he was afraid of staying near Grimes: and as

he went, all the vale looked sad. The red and yellow leaves showered

down into the river; the flies and beetles were all dead and gone; the

chill autumn fog lay low upon the hills, and sometimes spread itself so

thickly on the river that he could not see his way. But he felt his way

instead, following the flow of the stream, day after day, past great

bridges, past boats and barges, past the great town, with its wharfs, and

mills, and tall smoking chimneys, and ships which rode at anchor in the

stream; and now and then he ran against their hawsers, and wondered what

they were, and peeped out, and saw the sailors lounging on board smoking

their pipes; and ducked under again, for he was terribly afraid of being

caught by man and turned into a chimney-sweep once more. He did not know

that the fairies were close to him always, shutting the sailors’ eyes

lest they should see him, and turning him aside from millraces, and

sewer-mouths, and all foul and dangerous things. Poor little fellow, it

was a dreary journey for him; and more than once he longed to be back in

Vendale, playing with the trout in the bright summer sun. But it could

not be. What has been once can never come over again. And people can be

little babies, even water-babies, only once in their lives.

Besides, people who make up their minds to go and see the world, as Tom

did, must needs find it a weary journey. Lucky for them if they do not

lose heart and stop half-way, instead of going on bravely to the end as

Tom did. For then they will remain neither boys nor men, neither fish,

flesh, nor good red-herring: having learnt a great deal too much, and yet

not enough; and sown their wild oats, without having the advantage of

reaping them.

But Tom was always a brave, determined, little English bull-dog, who

never knew when he was beaten; and on and on he held, till he saw a long

way off the red buoy through the fog. And then he found to his surprise,

the stream turned round, and running up inland.

It was the tide, of course: but Tom knew nothing of the tide. He only

knew that in a minute more the water, which had been fresh, turned salt

all round him. And then there came a change over him. He felt as

strong, and light, and fresh, as if his veins had run champagne; and

gave, he did not know why, three skips out of the water, a yard high, and

head over heels, just as the salmon do when they first touch the noble

rich salt water, which, as some wise men tell us, is the mother of all

living things.

[Picture: Seal]

He did not care now for the tide being against him. The red buoy was in

sight, dancing in the open sea; and to the buoy he would go, and to it he

went. He passed great shoals of bass and mullet, leaping and rushing in

after the shrimps, but he never heeded them, or they him; and once he

passed a great black shining seal, who was coming in after the mullet.

The seal put his head and shoulders out of water, and stared at him,

looking exactly like a fat old greasy negro with a gray pate. And Tom,

instead of being frightened, said, “How d’ye do, sir; what a beautiful

place the sea is!” And the old seal, instead of trying to bite him,

looked at him with his soft sleepy winking eyes, and said, “Good tide to

you, my little man; are you looking for your brothers and sisters? I

passed them all at play outside.”

“Oh, then,” said Tom, “I shall have playfellows at last,” and he swam on

to the buoy, and got upon it (for he was quite out of breath) and sat

there, and looked round for water-babies: but there were none to be seen.

[Picture: The old bouy] The sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and

blew the fog away; and the little waves danced for joy around the buoy,

and the old buoy danced with them. The shadows of the clouds ran races

over the bright blue bay, and yet never caught each other up; and the

breakers plunged merrily upon the wide white sands, and jumped up over

the rocks, to see what the green fields inside were like, and tumbled

down and broke themselves all to pieces, and never minded it a bit, but

mended themselves and jumped up again. And the terns hovered over Tom

like huge white dragon-flies with black heads, and the gulls laughed like

girls at play, and the sea-pies, with their red bills and legs, flew to

and fro from shore to shore, and whistled sweet and wild. And Tom looked

and looked, and listened; and he would have been very happy, if he could

only have seen the water-babies. Then when the tide turned, he left the

buoy, and swam round and round in search of them: but in vain. Sometimes

he thought he heard them laughing: but it was only the laughter of the

ripples. And sometimes he thought he saw them at the bottom: but it was

only white and pink shells. And once he was sure he had found one, for

he saw two bright eyes peeping out of the sand. So he dived down, and

began scraping the sand away, and cried, “Don’t hide; I do want some one

to play with so much!” And out jumped a great turbot with his ugly eyes

and mouth all awry, and flopped away along the bottom, knocking poor Tom

over. And he sat down at the bottom of the sea, and cried salt tears

from sheer disappointment.

To have come all this way, and faced so many dangers, and yet to find no

water-babies! How hard! Well, it did seem hard: but people, even little

babies, cannot have all they want without waiting for it, and working for

it too, my little man, as you will find out some day.

And Tom sat upon the buoy long days, long weeks, looking out to sea, and

wondering when the water-babies would come back; and yet they never came.

[Picture: Tom and a flat-fish]

Then he began to ask all the strange things which came in out of the sea

if they had seen any; and some said “Yes,” and some said nothing at all.

He asked the bass and the pollock; but they were so greedy after the

shrimps that they did not care to answer him a word.

Then there came in a whole fleet of purple sea-snails, floating along,

each on a sponge full of foam, and Tom said, “Where do you come from, you

pretty creatures? and have you seen the water-babies?”

And the sea-snails answered, “Whence we come we know not; and whither we

are going, who can tell? We float out our life in the mid-ocean, with

the warm sunshine above our heads, and the warm gulf-stream below; and

that is enough for us. Yes; perhaps we have seen the water-babies. We

have seen many strange things as we sailed along.” And they floated

away, the happy stupid things, and all went ashore upon the sands.

Then there came in a great lazy sunfish, as big as a fat pig cut in half;

and he seemed to have been cut in half too, and squeezed in a

clothes-press till he was flat; but to all his big body and big fins he

had only a little rabbit’s mouth, no bigger than Tom’s; and, when Tom

questioned him, he answered in a little squeaky feeble voice:

“I’m sure I don’t know; I’ve lost my way. I meant to go to the

Chesapeake, and I’m afraid I’ve got wrong somehow. Dear me! it was all

by following that pleasant warm water. I’m sure I’ve lost my way.”

[Picture: Sunfish] And, when Tom asked him again, he could only answer,

“I’ve lost my way. Don’t talk to me; I want to think.”

But, like a good many other people, the more he tried to think the less

he could think; and Tom saw him blundering about all day, till the

coast-guardsmen saw his big fin above the water, and rowed out, and

struck a boat-hook into him, and took him away. They took him up to the

town and showed him for a penny a head, and made a good day’s work of it.

But of course Tom did not know that.

Then there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling as they went—papas, and

mammas, and little children—and all quite smooth and shiny, because the

fairies French-polish them every morning; and they sighed so softly as

they came by, that Tom took courage to speak to them: but all they

answered was, “Hush, hush, hush;” for that was all they had learnt to

say.

And then there came a shoal of basking sharks’ some of them as long as a

boat, and Tom was frightened at them. But they were very lazy

good-natured fellows, not greedy tyrants, like white sharks and blue

sharks and ground sharks and hammer-heads, who eat men, or saw-fish and

threshers and ice-sharks, who hunt the poor old whales. They came and

rubbed their great sides against the buoy, and lay basking in the sun

with their backfins out of water; and winked at Tom: but he never could

get them to speak. They had eaten so many herrings that they were quite

stupid; and Tom was glad when a collier brig came by and frightened them

all away; for they did smell most horribly, certainly, and he had to hold

his nose tight as long as they were there.

And then there came by a beautiful creature, like a ribbon of pure silver

with a sharp head and very long teeth; but it seemed very sick and sad.

Sometimes it rolled helpless on its side; and then it dashed away

glittering like white fire; and then it lay sick again and motionless.

“Where do you come from?” asked Tom. “And why are _you_ so sick and

sad?”

“I come from the warm Carolinas, and the sandbanks fringed with pines;

where the great owl-rays leap and flap, like giant bats, upon the tide.

But I wandered north and north, upon the treacherous warm gulf-stream,

till I met with the cold icebergs, afloat in the mid ocean. So I got

tangled among the icebergs, and chilled with their frozen breath. But

the water-babies helped me from among them, and set me free again. And

now I am mending every day; but I am very sick and sad; and perhaps I

shall never get home again to play with the owl-rays any more.”

“Oh!” cried Tom. “And you have seen water-babies? Have you seen any

near here?”

“Yes; they helped me again last night, or I should have been eaten by a

great black porpoise.”

How vexatious! The water-babies close to him, and yet he could not find

one.

And then he left the buoy, and used to go along the sands and round the

rocks, and come out in the night—like the forsaken Merman in Mr. Arnold’s

beautiful, beautiful poem, which you must learn by heart some day—and sit

upon a point of rock, among the shining sea-weeds, in the low October

tides, and cry and call for the water-babies; but he never heard a voice

call in return. And at last, with his fretting and crying, he grew quite

lean and thin.

But one day among the rocks he found a playfellow. It was not a

water-baby, alas! but it was a lobster; and a very distinguished lobster

he was; for he had live barnacles on his claws, which is a great mark of

distinction in lobsterdom, and no more to be bought for money than a good

conscience or the Victoria Cross.

[Picture: Tom and the lobster]

Tom had never seen a lobster before; and he was mightily taken with this

one; for he thought him the most curious, odd, ridiculous creature he had

ever seen; and there he was not far wrong; for all the ingenious men, and

all the scientific men, and all the fanciful men, in the world, with all

the old German bogy-painters into the bargain, could never invent, if all

their wits were boiled into one, anything so curious, and so ridiculous,

as a lobster.

He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and Tom delighted in

watching him hold on to the seaweed with his knobbed claw, while he cut

up salads with his jagged one, and then put them into his mouth, after

smelling at them, like a monkey. And always the little barnacles threw

out their casting-nets and swept the water, and came in for their share

of whatever there was for dinner.

But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired himself off—snap! like

the leap-frogs which you make out of a goose’s breast-bone. Certainly he

took the most wonderful shots, and backwards, too. For, if he wanted to

go into a narrow crack ten yards off, what do you think he did? If he

had gone in head foremost, of course he could not have turned round. So

he used to turn his tail to it, and lay his long horns, which carry his

sixth sense in their tips (and nobody knows what that sixth sense is),

straight down his back to guide him, and twist his eyes back till they

almost came out of their sockets, and then made ready, present, fire,

snap!—and away he went, pop into the hole; and peeped out and twiddled

his whiskers, as much as to say, “You couldn’t do that.”

Tom asked him about water-babies. “Yes,” he said. He had seen them

often. But he did not think much of them. They were meddlesome little

creatures, that went about helping fish and shells which got into

scrapes. Well, for his part, he should be ashamed to be helped by little

soft creatures that had not even a shell on their backs. He had lived

quite long enough in the world to take care of himself.

He was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not very civil to Tom;

and you will hear how he had to alter his mind before he was done, as

conceited people generally have. But he was so funny, and Tom so lonely,

that he could not quarrel with him; and they used to sit in holes in the

rocks, and chat for hours.

And about this time there happened to Tom a very strange and important

adventure—so important, indeed, that he was very near never finding the

water-babies at all; and I am sure you would have been sorry for that.

I hope that you have not forgotten the little white lady all this while.

At least, here she comes, looking like a clean white good little darling,

as she always was, and always will be. For it befell in the pleasant

short December days, when the wind always blows from the south-west, till

Old Father Christmas comes and spreads the great white table-cloth, ready

for little boys and girls to give the birds their Christmas dinner of

crumbs—it befell (to go on) in the pleasant December days, that Sir John

was so busy hunting that nobody at home could get a word out of him.

Four days a week he hunted, and very good sport he had; and the other two

he went to the bench and the board of guardians, and very good justice he

did; and, when he got home in time, he dined at five; for he hated this

absurd new fashion of dining at eight in the hunting season, which forces

a man to make interest with the footman for cold beef and beer as soon as

he comes in, and so spoil his appetite, and then sleep in an arm-chair in

his bedroom, all stiff and tired, for two or three hours before he can

get his dinner like a gentleman. And do you be like Sir John, my dear

little man, when you are your own master; and, if you want either to read

hard or ride hard, stick to the good old Cambridge hours of breakfast at

eight and dinner at five; by which you may get two days’ work out of one.

But, of course, if you find a fox at three in the afternoon and run him

till dark, and leave off twenty miles from home, why you must wait for

your dinner till you can get it, as better men than you have done. Only

see that, if you go hungry, your horse does not; but give him his warm

gruel and beer, and take him gently home, remembering that good horses

don’t grow on the hedge like blackberries.

It befell (to go on a second time) that Sir John, hunting all day, and

dining at five, fell asleep every evening, and snored so terribly that

all the windows in Harthover shook, and the soot fell down the chimneys.

Whereon My Lady, being no more able to get conversation out of him than a

song out of a dead nightingale, determined to go off and leave him, and

the doctor, and Captain Swinger the agent, to snore in concert every

evening to their hearts’ content. So she started for the seaside with

all the children, in order to put herself and them into condition by mild

applications of iodine. She might as well have stayed at home and used

Parry’s liquid horse-blister, for there was plenty of it in the stables;

and then she would have saved her money, and saved the chance, also, of

making all the children ill instead of well (as hundreds are made), by

taking them to some nasty smelling undrained lodging, and then wondering

how they caught scarlatina and diphtheria: but people won’t be wise

enough to understand that till they are dead of bad smells, and then it

will be too late; besides you see, Sir John did certainly snore very

loud.

[Picture: Sir John with horse and groom]

But where she went to nobody must know, for fear young ladies should

begin to fancy that there are water-babies there! and so hunt and howk

after them (besides raising the price of lodgings), and keep them in

aquariums, as the ladies at Pompeii (as you may see by the paintings)

used to keep Cupids in cages. But nobody ever heard that they starved

the Cupids, or let them die of dirt and neglect, as English young ladies

do by the poor sea-beasts. So nobody must know where My Lady went.

Letting water-babies die is as bad as taking singing birds’ eggs; for,

though there are thousands, ay, millions, of both of them in the world,

yet there is not one too many.

Now it befell that, on the very shore, and over the very rocks, where Tom

was sitting with his friend the lobster, there walked one day the little

white lady, Ellie herself, and with her a very wise man indeed—Professor

Ptthmllnsprts.

His mother was a Dutchwoman, and therefore he was born at Curaçao (of

course you have learnt your geography, and therefore know why); and his

father a Pole, and therefore he was brought up at Petropaulowski (of

course you have learnt your modern politics, and therefore know why): but

for all that he was as thorough an Englishman as ever coveted his

neighbour’s goods. And his name, as I said, was Professor Ptthmllnsprts,

which is a very ancient and noble Polish name.

He was, as I said, a very great naturalist, and chief professor of

_Necrobioneopalæonthydrochthonanthropopithekology_ in the new university

which the king of the Cannibal Islands had founded; and, being a member

of the Acclimatisation Society, he had come here to collect all the nasty

things which he could find on the coast of England, and turn them loose

round the Cannibal Islands, because they had not nasty things enough

there to eat what they left.

[Picture: The Professor]

But he was a very worthy kind good-natured little old gentleman; and very

fond of children (for he was not the least a cannibal himself); and very

good to all the world as long as it was good to him. Only one fault he

had, which cock-robins have likewise, as you may see if you look out of

the nursery window—that, when any one else found a curious worm, he would

hop round them, and peck them, and set up his tail, and bristle up his

feathers, just as a cock-robin would; and declare that he found the worm

first; and that it was his worm; and, if not, that then it was not a worm

at all.

He had met Sir John at Scarborough, or Fleetwood, or somewhere or other

(if you don’t care where, nobody else does), and had made acquaintance

with him, and become very fond of his children. Now, Sir John knew

nothing about sea-cockyolybirds, and cared less, provided the fishmonger

sent him good fish for dinner; and My Lady knew as little: but she

thought it proper that the children should know something. For in the

stupid old times, you must understand, children were taught to know one

thing, and to know it well; but in these enlightened new times they are

taught to know a little about everything, and to know it all ill; which

is a great deal pleasanter and easier, and therefore quite right.

So Ellie and he were walking on the rocks, and he was showing her about

one in ten thousand of all the beautiful and curious things which are to

be seen there. But little Ellie was not satisfied with them at all. She

liked much better to play with live children, or even with dolls, which

she could pretend were alive; and at last she said honestly, “I don’t

care about all these things, because they can’t play with me, or talk to

me. If there were little children now in the water, as there used to be,

and I could see them, I should like that.”

[Picture: Ellie]

“Children in the water, you strange little duck?” said the professor.

“Yes,” said Ellie. “I know there used to be children in the water, and

mermaids too, and mermen. I saw them all in a picture at home, of a

beautiful lady sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and babies flying

round her, and one sitting in her lap; and the mermaids swimming and

playing, and the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells; and it is called ‘The

Triumph of Galatea;’ and there is a burning mountain in the picture

behind. It hangs on the great staircase, and I have looked at it ever

since I was a baby, and dreamt about it a hundred times; and it is so

beautiful, that it must be true.”

But the professor had not the least notion of allowing that things were

true, merely because people thought them beautiful. For at that rate, he

said, the Baltas would be quite right in thinking it a fine thing to eat

their grandpapas, because they thought it an ugly thing to put them

underground. The professor, indeed, went further, and held that no man

was forced to believe anything to be true, but what he could see, hear,

taste, or handle.

He held very strange theories about a good many things. He had even got

up once at the British Association, and declared that apes had

hippopotamus majors in their brains just as men have. Which was a

shocking thing to say; for, if it were so, what would become of the

faith, hope, and charity of immortal millions? You may think that there

are other more important differences between you and an ape, such as

being able to speak, and make machines, and know right from wrong, and

say your prayers, and other little matters of that kind; but that is a

child’s fancy, my dear. Nothing is to be depended on but the great

hippopotamus test. If you have a hippopotamus major in your brain, you

are no ape, though you had four hands, no feet, and were more apish than

the apes of all aperies. But if a hippopotamus major is ever discovered

in one single ape’s brain, nothing will save your

great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-

greater-greatest-grandmother from having been an ape too. No, my dear

little man; always remember that the one true, certain, final, and

all-important difference between you and an ape is, that you have a

hippopotamus major in your brain, and it has none; and that, therefore,

to discover one in its brain will be a very wrong and dangerous thing, at

which every one will be very much shocked, as we may suppose they were at

the professor.—Though really, after all, it don’t much matter; because—as

Lord Dundreary and others would put it—nobody but men have hippopotamuses

in their brains; so, if a hippopotamus was discovered in an ape’s brain,

why it would not be one, you know, but something else.

But the professor had gone, I am sorry to say, even further than that;

for he had read at the British Association at Melbourne, Australia, in

the year 1999, a paper which assured every one who found himself the

better or wiser for the news, that there were not, never had been, and

could not be, any rational or half-rational beings except men, anywhere,

anywhen, or anyhow; that _nymphs_, _satyrs_, _fauns_, _inui_, _dwarfs_,

_trolls_, _elves_, _gnomes_, _fairies_, _brownies_, _nixes_, _wills_,

_kobolds_, _leprechaunes_, _cluricaunes_, _banshees_,

_will-o’-the-wisps_, _follets_, _lutins_, _magots_, _goblins_, _afrits_,

_marids_, _jinns_, _ghouls_, _peris_, _deevs_, _angels_, _archangels_,

_imps_, _bogies_, or worse, were nothing at all, and pure bosh and wind.

And he had to get up very early in the morning to prove that, and to eat

his breakfast overnight; but he did it, at least to his own satisfaction.

Whereon a certain great divine, and a very clever divine was he, called

him a regular Sadducee; and probably he was quite right. Whereon the

professor, in return, called him a regular Pharisee; and probably he was

quite right too. But they did not quarrel in the least; for, when men

are men of the world, hard words run off them like water off a duck’s

back. So the professor and the divine met at dinner that evening, and

sat together on the sofa afterwards for an hour, and talked over the

state of female labour on the antarctic continent (for nobody talks shop

after his claret), and each vowed that the other was the best company he

ever met in his life. What an advantage it is to be men of the world!

From all which you may guess that the professor was not the least of

little Ellie’s opinion. So he gave her a succinct compendium of his

famous paper at the British Association, in a form suited for the

youthful mind. But, as we have gone over his arguments against

water-babies once already, which is once too often, we will not repeat

them here.

Now little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; for, instead of

being convinced by Professor Ptthmllnsprts’ arguments, she only asked the

same question over again.

“But why are there not water-babies?”

I trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at that moment on

the edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt one of his corns sadly, that he

answered quite sharply, forgetting that he was a scientific man, and

therefore ought to have known that he couldn’t know; and that he was a

logician, and therefore ought to have known that he could not prove a

universal negative—I say, I trust and hope it was because the mussel hurt

his corn, that the professor answered quite sharply:

“Because there ain’t.”

Which was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as you must

know from Aunt Agitate’s Arguments, the professor ought to have said, if

he was so angry as to say anything of the kind—Because there are not: or

are none: or are none of them; or (if he had been reading Aunt Agitate

too) because they do not exist.

And he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, that, as it

befell, he caught poor little Tom.

He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly, with Tom all

entangled in the meshes.

“Dear me!” he cried. “What a large pink Holothurian; with hands, too!

It must be connected with Synapta.”

And he took him out.

“It has actually eyes!” he cried. “Why, it must be a Cephalopod! This

is most extraordinary!”

“No, I ain’t!” cried Tom, as loud as he could; for he did not like to be

called bad names.

“It is a water-baby!” cried Ellie; and of course it was.

“Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!” said the professor; and he turned away

sharply.

There was no denying it. It was a water-baby: and he had said a moment

ago that there were none. What was he to do?

He would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom home in a bucket. He

would not have put him in spirits. Of course not. He would have kept

him alive, and petted him (for he was a very kind old gentleman), and

written a book about him, and given him two long names, of which the

first would have said a little about Tom, and the second all about

himself; for of course he would have called him Hydrotecnon

Ptthmllnsprtsianum, or some other long name like that; for they are

forced to call everything by long names now, because they have used up

all the short ones, ever since they took to making nine species out of

one. But—what would all the learned men say to him after his speech at

the British Association? And what would Ellie say, after what he had

just told her?

There was a wise old heathen once, who said, “Maxima debetur pueris

reverentia”—The greatest reverence is due to children; that is, that

grown people should never say or do anything wrong before children, lest

they should set them a bad example.—Cousin Cramchild says it means, “The

greatest respectfulness is expected from little boys.” But he was raised

in a country where little boys are not expected to be respectful, because

all of them are as good as the President:—Well, every one knows his own

concerns best; so perhaps they are. But poor Cousin Cramchild, to do him

justice, not being of that opinion, and having a moral mission, and being

no scholar to speak of, and hard up for an authority—why, it was a very

great temptation for him. But some people, and I am afraid the professor

was one of them, interpret that in a more strange, curious, one-sided,

left-handed, topsy-turvy, inside-out, behind-before fashion than even

Cousin Cramchild; for they make it mean, that you must show your respect

for children, by never confessing yourself in the wrong to them, even if

you know that you are so, lest they should lose confidence in their

elders.

Now, if the professor had said to Ellie, “Yes, my darling, it is a

water-baby, and a very wonderful thing it is; and it shows how little I

know of the wonders of nature, in spite of forty years’ honest labour. I

was just telling you that there could be no such creatures; and, behold!

here is one come to confound my conceit and show me that Nature can do,

and has done, beyond all that man’s poor fancy can imagine. So, let us

thank the Maker, and Inspirer, and Lord of Nature for all His wonderful

and glorious works, and try and find out something about this one;”—I

think that, if the professor had said that, little Ellie would have

believed him more firmly, and respected him more deeply, and loved him

better, than ever she had done before. But he was of a different

opinion. He hesitated a moment. He longed to keep Tom, and yet he half

wished he never had caught him; and at last he quite longed to get rid of

him. So he turned away and poked Tom with his finger, for want of

anything better to do; and said carelessly, “My dear little maid, you

must have dreamt of water-babies last night, your head is so full of

them.”

Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable fright all the

while; and had kept as quiet as he could, though he was called a

Holothurian and a Cephalopod; for it was fixed in his little head that if

a man with clothes on caught him, he might put clothes on him too, and

make a dirty black chimney-sweep of him again. But, when the professor

poked him, it was more than he could bear; and, between fright and rage,

he turned to bay as valiantly as a mouse in a corner, and bit the

professor’s finger till it bled.

“Oh! ah! yah!” cried he; and glad of an excuse to be rid of Tom, dropped

him on to the seaweed, and thence he dived into the water and was gone in

a moment.

“But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak!” cried Ellie. “Ah, it is

gone!” And she jumped down off the rock, to try and catch Tom before he

slipped into the sea.

[Picture: Ellie, the professor and Tom]

Too late! and what was worse, as she sprang down, she slipped, and fell

some six feet, with her head on a sharp rock, and lay quite still.

The professor picked her up, and tried to waken her, and called to her,

and cried over her, for he loved her very much: but she would not waken

at all. So he took her up in his arms and carried her to her governess,

and they all went home; and little Ellie was put to bed, and lay there

quite still; only now and then she woke up and called out about the

water-baby: but no one knew what she meant, and the professor did not

tell, for he was ashamed to tell.

And, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies came flying in at the

window and brought her such a pretty pair of wings that she could not

help putting them on; and she flew with them out of the window, and over

the land, and over the sea, and up through the clouds, and nobody heard

or saw anything of her for a very long while.

And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a water-baby. For

my part, I believe that the naturalists get dozens of them when they are

out dredging; but they say nothing about them, and throw them overboard

again, for fear of spoiling their theories. But, you see the professor

was found out, as every one is in due time. A very terrible old fairy

found the professor out; she felt his bumps, and cast his nativity, and

took the lunars of him carefully inside and out; and so she knew what he

would do as well as if she had seen it in a print book, as they say in

the dear old west country; and he did it; and so he was found out

beforehand, as everybody always is; and the old fairy will find out the

naturalists some day, and put them in the _Times_, and then on whose side

will the laugh be?

So the old fairy took him in hand very severely there and then. But she

says she is always most severe with the best people, because there is

most chance of curing them, and therefore they are the patients who pay

her best; for she has to work on the same salary as the Emperor of

China’s physicians (it is a pity that all do not), no cure, no pay.

So she took the poor professor in hand: and because he was not content

with things as they are, she filled his head with things as they are not,

to try if he would like them better; and because he did not choose to

believe in a water-baby when he saw it, she made him believe in worse

things than water-babies—in _unicorns_, _fire-drakes_, _manticoras_,

_basilisks_, _amphisbænas_, _griffins_, _phoenixes_, _rocs_, _orcs_,

_dog-headed men_, _three-headed dogs_, _three-bodied geryons_, and other

pleasant creatures, which folks think never existed yet, and which folks

hope never will exist, though they know nothing about the matter, and

never will; and these creatures so upset, terrified, flustered,

aggravated, confused, astounded, horrified, and totally flabbergasted the

poor professor that the doctors said that he was out of his wits for

three months; and perhaps they were right, as they are now and then.

So all the doctors in the county were called in to make a report on his

case; and of course every one of them flatly contradicted the other: else

what use is there in being men of science? But at last the majority

agreed on a report in the true medical language, one half bad Latin, the

other half worse Greek, and the rest what might have been English, if

they had only learnt to write it. And this is the beginning thereof—

“_The subanhypaposupernal anastomoses of peritomic diacellurite in

the encephalo digital region of the distinguished individual of whose

symptomatic phœnomena we had the melancholy honour_ (_subsequently to

a preliminary diagnostic inspection_) _of making an inspectorial

diagnosis_, _presenting the interexclusively quadrilateral and

antinomian diathesis known as Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles_, _we

proceeded_”—

But what they proceeded to do My Lady never knew; for she was so

frightened at the long words that she ran for her life, and locked

herself into her bedroom, for fear of being squashed by the words and

strangled by the sentence. A boa constrictor, she said, was bad company

enough: but what was a boa constrictor made of paving stones?

“It was quite shocking! What can they think is the matter with him?”

said she to the old nurse.

“That his wit’s just addled; may be wi’ unbelief and heathenry,” quoth

she.

“Then why can’t they say so?”

And the heaven, and the sea, and the rocks, and the vales re-echoed—“Why

indeed?” But the doctors never heard them.

So she made Sir John write to the _Times_ to command the Chancellor of

the Exchequer for the time being to put a tax on long words;—

A light tax on words over three syllables, which are necessary evils,

like rats: but, like them, must be kept down judiciously.

A heavy tax on words over four syllables, as _heterodoxy_, _spontaneity_,

_spiritualism_, _spuriosity_, _etc._

And on words over five syllables (of which I hope no one will wish to see

any examples), a totally prohibitory tax.

And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from three or more

languages at once; words derived from two languages having become so

common that there was no more hope of rooting out them than of rooting

out peth-winds.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and a man of sense,

jumped at the notion; for he saw in it the one and only plan for

abolishing Schedule D: but when he brought in his bill, most of the Irish

members, and (I am sorry to say) some of the Scotch likewise, opposed it

most strongly, on the ground that in a free country no man was bound

either to understand himself or to let others understand him. So the

bill fell through on the first reading; and the Chancellor, being a

philosopher, comforted himself with the thought that it was not the first

time that a woman had hit off a grand idea and the men turned up their

stupid noses thereat.

Now the doctors had it all their own way; and to work they went in

earnest, and they gave the poor professor divers and sundry medicines, as

prescribed by the ancients and moderns, from Hippocrates to

Feuchtersleben, as below, viz.—

1. _Hellebore_, _to wit_—

_Hellebore of Æta_.

_Hellebore of Galatia_.

_Hellebore of Sicily_.

_And all other Hellebores_, _after the method of the Helleborising

Helleborists of the Helleboric era_. _But that would not do_.

_Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles would not stir an inch out of his

encephalo digital region_.

2. _Trying to find out what was the matter with him_, _after the method

of Hippocrates_,

_Aretæus_,

_Celsus_,

_Coelius Aurelianus_,

_And Galen_.

But they found that a great deal too much trouble, as most people have

since; and so had recourse to—

3. _Borage_.

_Cauteries_.

Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says Gordonius) “will,

without doubt, do much good.” But it didn’t.

_Bezoar stone_.

_Diamargaritum_.

_A ram’s brain boiled in spice_.

_Oil of wormwood_.

_Water of Nile_.

_Capers_.

_Good wine_ (_but there was none to be got_).

_The water of a smith’s forge_.

_Ambergris_.

_Mandrake pillows_.

_Dormouse fat_.

_Hares’ ears_.

_Starvation_.

_Camphor_.

_Salts and senna_.

_Musk_.

_Opium_.

_Strait-waistcoats_.

_Bullyings_.

_Bumpings_.

_Bleedings_.

_Bucketings with cold water_.

_Knockings down_.

_Kneeling on his chest till they broke it in_, _etc. etc._; _after the

mediæval or monkish method_: _but that would not do_.

_Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles stuck there still_.

Then—

4. _Coaxing_.

_Kissing_.

_Champagne and turtle_.

_Red herrings and soda water_.

_Good advice_.

_Gardening_.

_Croquet_.

_Musical soirées_.

_Aunt Salty_.

_Mild tobacco_.

_The Saturday Review_.

_A carriage with outriders_, _etc. etc._

After the modern method. But that would not do.

And if he had but been a convict lunatic, and had shot at the Queen,

killed all his creditors to avoid paying them, or indulged in any other

little amiable eccentricity of that kind, they would have given him in

addition—

The healthiest situation in England, on Easthampstead Plain.

Free run of Windsor Forest.

The _Times_ every morning.

A double-barrelled gun and pointers, and leave to shoot three Wellington

College boys a week (not more) in case black game was scarce.

But as he was neither mad enough nor bad enough to be allowed such

luxuries, they grew desperate, and fell into bad ways, viz.—

5. _Suffumigations of sulphur_.

_Herrwiggius his_ “_Incomparable drink for madmen_:”

Only they could not find out what it was.

_Suffumigation of the liver of the fish_ * * *

Only they had forgotten its name, so Dr. Gray could not well procure them

a specimen.

_Metallic tractors_.

_Holloway’s Ointment_.

_Electro-biology_.

_Valentine Greatrakes his Stroking Cure_.

_Spirit-rapping_.

_Holloway’s Pills_.

_Table-turning_.

_Morison’s Pills_.

_Homœopathy_.

_Parr’s Life Pills_.

_Mesmerism_.

_Pure Bosh_.

_Exorcisms_, _for which the read Maleus Maleficarum_, _Nideri

Formicarium_, _Delrio_, _Wierus_, _etc._

But could not get one that mentioned water-babies.

_Hydropathy_.

_Madame Rachel’s Elixir of Youth_.

_The Poughkeepsie Seer his Prophecies_.

_The distilled liquor of addle eggs_.

_Pyropathy_.

As successfully employed by the old inquisitors to cure the malady of

thought, and now by the Persian Mollahs to cure that of rheumatism.

_Geopathy_, _or burying him_.

_Atmopathy_, _or steaming him_.

_Sympathy_, _after the method of Basil Valentine his Triumph of

Antimony_, _and Kenelm Digby his Weapon-salve_, _which some call a hair

of the dog that bit him_.

_Hermopathy_, _or pouring mercury down his throat to move the animal

spirits_.

_Meteoropathy_, _or going up to the moon to look for his lost wits_,

_as Ruggiero did for Orlando Furioso’s_: _only_, _having no

hippogriff_, _they were forced to use a balloon_; _and_, _falling into

the North Sea_, _were picked up by a Yarmouth herring-boat_, _and came

home much the wiser_, _and all over scales_.

_Antipathy_, _or using him like_ “_a man and a brother_.”

_Apathy_, _or doing nothing at all_.

_With all other ipathies and opathies which Noodle has invented_, _and

Foodle tried_, _since black-fellows chipped flints at Abbéville_—_which

is a considerable time ago_, _to judge by the Great Exhibition_.

But nothing would do; for he screamed and cried all day for a water-baby,

to come and drive away the monsters; and of course they did not try to

find one, because they did not believe in them, and were thinking of

nothing but Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles; having, as usual, set the

cart before the horse, and taken the effect for the cause.

So they were forced at last to let the poor professor ease his mind by

writing a great book, exactly contrary to all his old opinions; in which

he proved that the moon was made of green cheese, and that all the mites

in it (which you may see sometimes quite plain through a telescope, if

you will only keep the lens dirty enough, as Mr. Weekes kept his voltaic

battery) are nothing in the world but little babies, who are hatching and

swarming up there in millions, ready to come down into this world

whenever children want a new little brother or sister.

Which must be a mistake, for this one reason: that, there being no

atmosphere round the moon (though some one or other says there is, at

least on the other side, and that he has been round at the back of it to

see, and found that the moon was just the shape of a Bath bun, and so wet

that the man in the moon went about on Midsummer-day in Macintoshes and

Cording’s boots, spearing eels and sneezing); that, therefore, I say,

there being no atmosphere, there can be no evaporation; and therefore the

dew-point can never fall below 71.5° below zero of Fahrenheit: and,

therefore, it cannot be cold enough there about four o’clock in the

morning to condense the babies’ mesenteric apophthegms into their left

ventricles; and, therefore, they can never catch the hooping-cough; and

if they do not have hooping-cough, they cannot be babies at all; and,

therefore, there are no babies in the moon.—Q.E.D.

[Picture: Man in rain]

Which may seem a roundabout reason; and so, perhaps, it is: but you will

have heard worse ones in your time, and from better men than you are.

But one thing is certain; that, when the good old doctor got his book

written, he felt considerably relieved from Bumpsterhausen’s blue

follicles, and a few things infinitely worse; to wit, from pride and

vain-glory, and from blindness and hardness of heart; which are the true

causes of Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles, and of a good many other ugly

things besides. Whereon the foul flood-water in his brains ran down, and

cleared to a fine coffee colour, such as fish like to rise in, till very

fine clean fresh-run fish did begin to rise in his brains; and he caught

two or three of them (which is exceedingly fine sport, for brain rivers),

and anatomised them carefully, and never mentioned what he found out from

them, except to little children; and became ever after a sadder and a

wiser man; which is a very good thing to become, my dear little boy, even

though one has to pay a heavy price for the blessing.

[Picture: Bat with man’s face]