Once or twice Pegasus stopped and snuffed the air, pricking up his ears, tossing his head, and turning it on all sides, as if he partly suspected some mischief or other. Seeing nothing, however, and hearing no sound, he soon began his antics again. At length—not that he was weary, but only idle and luxurious—Pegasus folded his wings and lay down on the soft green turf. But, being too full of aerial life to remain quiet for many moments together, he soon rolled over on his back with his four slender legs in the air. It was beautiful to see him, this one solitary creature whose mate had never been created, but who needed no companion, and, living a great many hundred years, was as happy as the centuries were long. The more he did such things as mortal horses are accustomed to do, the less earthly and the more wonderful he seemed. Bellerophon and the child almost held their breath, partly from a delightful awe, but still more because they dreaded lest the slightest stir or murmur should send him up with the speed of an arrow-flight into the farthest blue of the sky. Finally, when he had had enough of rolling over and over, Pegasus turned himself about, and, indolently, like any other horse, put out his forelegs in order to rise from the ground; and Bellerophon, who had guessed that he would do so, darted suddenly from the thicket and leaped astride of his back.
Yes, there he sat, on the back of the winged horse!
But what a bound did Pegasus make when, for the first time, he felt the weight of a mortal man upon his loins! A bound, indeed! Before he had time to draw a breath Bellerophon found himself five hundred feet aloft, and still shooting upward, while the winged horse snorted and trembled with terror and anger. Upward he went, up, up, up, until he plunged into the cold, misty bosom of a cloud at which, only a little while before, Bellerophon had been gazing and fancying it a very pleasant spot. Then again, out of the heart of the cloud, Pegasus shot down like a thunderbolt, as if he meant to dash both himself and his rider head-long against a rock. Then he went through about a thousand of the wildest caprioles that had ever been performed either by a bird or a horse.
I cannot tell you half that he did. He skimmed straight forward, and sideways, and backward. He reared himself erect, with his forelegs on a wreath of mist and his hind legs on nothing at all. He flung out his heels behind and put down his head between his legs, with his wings pointing right upward. At about two miles' height above the earth he turned a somersault, so that Bellerophon's heels were where his head should have been, and he seemed to look down into the sky, instead of up. He twisted his head about, and, looking Bellerophon in the face, with fire flashing from his eyes, made a terrible attempt to bite him. He fluttered his pinions so wildly that one of the silver feathers was shaken out, and, floating earthward, was picked up by the child, who kept it as long as he lived in memory of Pegasus and Bellerophon.
But the latter (who, as you may judge, was as good a horseman as ever galloped) had been watching his opportunity, and at last clapped the golden bit of the enchanted bridle between the winged steed's jaws. No sooner was this done than Pegasus became as manageable as if he had taken food all his life out of Bellerophon's hand. To speak what I really feel, it was almost a sadness to see so wild a creature grow suddenly so tame. And Pegasus seemed to feel it so likewise. He looked round to Bellerophon with tears in his beautiful eyes, instead of the fire that so recently flashed from them. But when Bellerophon patted his head and spoke a few authoritative, yet kind and soothing words, another look came into the eyes of Pegasus; for he was glad at heart, after so many lonely centuries, to have found a companion and a master. Thus it always is with winged horses and with all such wild and solitary creatures. If you can catch and overcome them, it is the surest way to win their love.
While Pegasus had been doing his utmost to shake Bellerophon off his back, he had flown a very long distance, and they had come within sight of a lofty mountain by the time the bit was in his mouth. Bellerophon had seen this mountain before, and knew it to be Helicon, on the summit of which was the winged horse's abode. Thither (after looking gently into his rider's face, as if to ask leave) Pegasus now flew, and, alighting, waited patiently until Bellerophon should please to dismount. The young man accordingly leaped from his steed's back, but still held him fast by the bridle. Meeting his eyes, however, he was so affected by the gentleness of his aspect and by his beauty, and by the thought of the free life which Pegasus had heretofore lived, that he could not bear to keep him a prisoner if he really desired his liberty.
Obeying this generous impulse, he slipped the enchanted bridle off the head of Pegasus and took the bit from his mouth.
"Leave me, Pegasus!" said he. "Either leave me or love me."
In an instant the winged horse shot almost out of sight, soaring straight upward from the summit of Mount Helicon. Being long after sunset, it was now twilight on the mountain top and dusky evening over all the country round about. But Pegasus flew so high that he overtook the departed day, and was bathed in the upper radiance of the sun. Ascending higher and higher, he looked like a bright speck, and at last could no longer be seen in the hollow waste of the sky. And Bellerophon was afraid that he should never behold him more. But while he was lamenting his own folly the bright speck reappeared, and drew nearer and nearer until it descended lower than the sunshine; and behold, Pegasus had come back! After this trial there was no more fear of the winged horse's making his escape. He and Bellerophon were friends, and put loving faith in one another.
That night they lay down and slept together, with Bellerophon's arm about the neck of Pegasus, not as a caution, but for kindness. And they awoke at peep of day and bade one another good morning, each in his own language.
In this manner Bellerophon and the wondrous steed spent several days, and grew better acquainted and fonder of each other all the time. They went on long aerial journeys, and sometimes ascended so high that the earth looked hardly bigger than the moon. They visited different countries and amazed the inhabitants, who thought that the beautiful young man on the back of the winged horse must have come down out of the sky. A thousand miles a day was no more than an easy space for the fleet Pegasus to pass over. Bellerophon was delighted with this kind of life, and would have liked nothing better than to live always in the same way, aloft in the clear atmosphere; for it was always sunny weather up there, however cheerless and rainy it might be in the lower region. But he could not forget the horrible Chimera which he had promised King Iobates to slay. So at last, when he had become well accustomed to feats of horsemanship in the air, and could manage Pegasus with the least motion of his hand, and had taught him to obey his voice, he determined to attempt the performance of this perilous adventure.
At daybreak, therefore, as soon as he unclosed his eyes, he gently pinched the winged horse's ear in order to arouse him. Pegasus immediately started from the ground and pranced about a quarter of a mile aloft, and made a grand sweep around the mountain top by way of showing that he was wide awake and ready for any kind of an excursion. During the whole of this little flight, he uttered a loud, brisk, and melodious neigh, and finally came down at Bellerophon's side as lightly as you ever saw a sparrow hop upon a twig.
"Well done, dear Pegasus! well done, my sky-skimmer!" cried Bellerophon, fondly stroking the horse's neck. "And now, my fleet and beautiful friend, we must break our fast. To-day we are to fight the terrible Chimera."
As soon as they had eaten their morning meal and drunk some sparkling water from a spring called Hippocrene, Pegasus held out his head of his own accord so that his master might put on the bridle. Then, with a great many playful leaps and airy caperings, he showed his impatience to be gone, while Bellerophon was girding on his sword and hanging his shield about his neck and preparing himself for battle. When everything was ready, the rider mounted, and (as was his custom when going a long distance) ascended five miles perpendicularly, so as the better to see whither he was directing his course. He then turned the head of Pegasus toward the east, and set out for Lycia. In their flight they overtook an eagle, and came so nigh him, before he could get out of their way, that Bellerophon might easily have caught him by the leg. Hastening onward at this rate, it was still early in the forenoon when they beheld the lofty mountains of Lycia with their deep and shaggy valleys. If Bellerophon had been told truly, it was in one of those dismal valleys that the hideous Chimera had taken up its abode.
Being now so near their journey's end, the winged horse gradually descended with his rider, and they took advantage of some clouds that were floating over the mountain tops in order to conceal themselves. Hovering on the upper surface of a cloud and peeping over its edge, Bellerophon had a pretty distinct view of the mountainous part of Lycia, and could look into all its shadowy vales at once. It was a wild, savage, and rocky tract of high and precipitous hills. In the more level part of the country there were ruins of burned houses, and here and there the carcasses of dead cattle strewn about the pastures where they had been feeding.
"The Chimera must have done this mischief," thought Bellerophon. "But where can the monster be?"
As I have already said, there was nothing remarkable to be detected at first sight in any of the valleys and dells that lay among the precipitous heights of the mountains—nothing at all, unless, indeed, it were three spires of black smoke which issued from what seemed to be the mouth of a cavern and clambered sullenly into the atmosphere. Before reaching the mountain top these three black smoke-wreaths mingled themselves into one. The cavern was almost directly beneath the winged horse and his rider, at the distance of about a thousand feet. The smoke, as it crept heavily upward, had an ugly, sulphurous, stifling scent which caused Pegasus to snort and Bellerophon to sneeze. So disagreeable was it to the marvelous steed (who was accustomed to breathe only the purest air) that he waved his wings and shot half a mile out of the range of this offensive vapor.
But on looking behind him, Bellerophon saw something that induced him first to draw the bridle and then to turn Pegasus about. He made a sign, which the winged horse understood, and sunk slowly through the air until his hoofs were scarcely more than a man's height above the rocky bottom of the valley. In front, as far off as you could throw a stone, was the cavern's mouth with the three smoke-wreaths oozing out of it. And what else did Bellerophon behold there?
There seemed to be a heap of strange and terrible creatures curled up within the cavern. Their bodies lay so close together that Bellerophon could not distinguish them apart; but, judging by their heads, one of these creatures was a huge snake, the second a fierce lion, and the third an ugly goat.
The lion and the goat were asleep; the snake was broad awake, and kept staring around him with a great pair of fiery eyes. But—and this was the most wonderful part of the matter—the three spires of smoke evidently issued from the nostrils of these three heads! So strange was the spectacle, that, though Bellerophon had been all along expecting it, the truth did not immediately occur to him that here was the terrible three-headed Chimera. He had found out the Chimera's cavern. The snake, the lion, and the goat, as he supposed them to be, were not three separate creatures, but one monster!
The wicked, hateful thing! Slumbering as two thirds of it were, it still held in its abominable claws the remnant of an unfortunate lamb—or possibly (but I hate to think so) it was a dear little boy—which its three mouths had been gnawing before two of them fell asleep!
All at once Bellerophon started as from a dream, and knew it to be the Chimera. Pegasus seemed to know it at the same instant, and sent forth a neigh that sounded like the call of a trumpet to battle. At this sound the three heads reared themselves erect and belched out great flashes of flame. Before Bellerophon had time to consider what to do next, the monster flung itself out of the cavern and sprung straight toward him, with its immense claws extended and its snaky tail twisting itself venomously behind. If Pegasus had not been as nimble as a bird, both he and his rider would have been overthrown by the Chimera's headlong rush, and thus the battle have been ended before it was well begun. But the winged horse was not to be caught so. In the twinkling of an eye he was up aloft, halfway to the clouds, snorting with anger. He shuddered, too, not with affright, but with utter disgust at the loathsomeness of this poisonous thing with three heads.
[Illustration: PEGASUS DARTED DOWN ASLANT TOWARD THE CHIMERA'S THREE-
FOLD HEAD.]
The Chimera, on the other hand, raised itself up so as to stand absolutely on the tip end of its tail, with its talons pawing fiercely in the air and its three heads spluttering fire at Pegasus and his rider. My stars! how it roared and hissed and bellowed! Bellerophon, meanwhile, was fitting his shield on his arm and drawing his sword.
"Now, my beloved Pegasus," he whispered in the winged horse's ear, "thou must help me to slay this insufferable monster, or else thou shalt fly back to thy solitary mountain peak without thy friend Bellerophon. For either the Chimera dies, or its three mouths shall gnaw this head of mine, which has slumbered upon thy neck."
Pegasus whinnied, and, turning back his head, rubbed his nose tenderly against his rider's cheek. It was his way of telling him that, though he had wings and was an immortal horse, yet he would perish, if it were possible for immortality to perish, rather than leave Bellerophon behind.
"I thank you, Pegasus," answered Bellerophon. "Now, then, let us make a dash at the monster!"
Uttering these words, he shook the bridle, and Pegasus darted down aslant, as swift as the flight of an arrow, right toward the Chimera's three-fold head, which all this time was poking itself as high as it could into the air. As he came within arm's length, Bellerophon made a cut at the monster, but was carried onward by his steed before he could see whether the blow had been successful. Pegasus continued his course, but soon wheeled round at about the same distance from the Chimera as before. Bellerophon then perceived that he had cut the goat's head of the monster almost off, so that it dangled downward by the skin, and seemed quite dead. But, to make amends, the snake's head and the lion's head had taken all the fierceness of the dead one into themselves, and spit flame and hissed and roared with more fury than before.
"Never mind, my brave Pegasus!" cried Bellerophon. "With another stroke like that we will surely stop either its hissing or its roaring."
And again he shook the bridle. Dashing aslant-wise as before, the winged horse made another arrow-flight toward the Chimera, and Bellerophon aimed another downright stroke at one of the two remaining heads as he shot by. But this time neither he nor Pegasus escaped so well as at first. With one of its claws the Chimera had given the young man a deep scratch in his shoulder, and had slightly damaged the left wing of the flying steed with the other. On his part, Bellerophon had mortally wounded the lion's head of the monster, insomuch that it now hung downward, with its fire almost extinguished, and sending out gasps of thick black smoke. The snake's head, however (which was the only one now left), was twice as fierce and venomous as ever before. It belched forth shoots of fire five hundred yards long, and emitted hisses so loud, so harsh, and so ear-piercing that King Iobates heard them fifty miles off, and trembled till the throne shook under him.
"Well-a-day!" thought the poor king; "the Chimera is certainly coming to devour me."
Meanwhile Pegasus had again paused in the air and neighed angrily, while sparkles of a pure crystal flame darted out of his eyes. How unlike the lurid fire of the Chimera! The aerial steed's spirit was all aroused, and so was that of Bellerophon.
"Dost thou bleed, my immortal horse?" cried the young man, caring less for his own hurt than for the anguish of this glorious creature that ought never to have tasted pain. "The execrable Chimera shall pay for this mischief with his last head."
Then he shook the bridle, shouted loudly and guided Pegasus, not aslantwise as before, but straight at the monster's hideous front. So rapid was the onset that it seemed but a dazzle and a flash before Bellerophon was at close gripes with his enemy.
The Chimera by this time, after losing its second head, had got into a red-hot passion of pain and rampant rage. It so flounced about, half on earth and partly in the air, that it was impossible to say which element it rested upon. It opened its snake jaws to such an abominable width that Pegasus might almost, I was going to say, have flown right down its throat, wings outspread, rider and all! At their approach it shot out a tremendous blast of its fiery breath and enveloped Bellerophon and his steed in a perfect atmosphere of flame, singeing the wings of Pegasus, scorching off one whole side of the young man's ringlets, and making them both far hotter than was comfortable from head to foot.
But this was nothing to what followed.
When the airy rush of the winged horse had brought him within the distance of a hundred yards, the Chimera gave a spring, and flung its huge, awkward, venomous and utterly detestable carcass right upon poor Pegasus, clung round him with might and main, and tied up its snaky tail into a knot! Up flew the aerial steed, higher, higher, above the mountain peaks, above the clouds, and almost out of sight of the solid earth. But still the earth-born monster kept its hold and was borne upward along with the creature of light and air. Bellerophon, meanwhile, turning about, found himself face to face with the ugly grimness of the Chimera's visage, and could only avoid being scorched to death or bitten right in twain by holding up his shield. Over the upper edge of the shield he looked sternly into the savage eyes of the monster.
But the Chimera was so mad and wild with pain that it did not guard itself so well as might else have been the case. Perhaps, after all, the best way to fight a Chimera is by getting as close to it as you can. In its efforts to stick its horrible iron claws into its enemy the creature left its own breast quite exposed, and, perceiving this, Bellerophon thrust his sword up to the hilt into its cruel heart. Immediately the snaky tail untied its knot. The monster let go its hold of Pegasus and fell from that vast height downward, while the fire within its bosom, instead of being put out, burned fiercer than ever, and quickly began to consume the dead carcass. Thus it fell out of the sky all aflame, and (it being nightfall before it reached the earth) was mistaken for a shooting star or a comet. But at early sunrise some cottagers were going to their day's labor, and saw, to their astonishment, that several acres of ground were strewn with black ashes. In the middle of a field there was a heap of whitened bones a great deal higher than a haystack. Nothing else was ever seen of the dreadful Chimera. And when Bellerophon had won the victory he bent forward and kissed Pegasus, while the tears stood in his eyes.
"Back, now, my beloved steed!" said he. "Back to the fountain of
Pirene!"
Pegasus skimmed through the air quicker than ever he did before, and reached the fountain in a very short time. And there he found the old man leaning on his staff, and the country fellow watering his cow, and the pretty maiden filling her pitcher.
"I remember now," quoth the old man, "I saw this winged horse once before, when I was quite a lad. But he was ten times handsomer in those days."
"I own a cart horse worth three of him," said the country fellow. "If this pony were mine, the first thing I should do would be to clip his wings."
But the poor maiden said nothing, for she had always the luck to be afraid at the wrong time. So she ran away, and let her pitcher tumble down, and broke it.
"Where is the gentle child," asked Bellerophon, "who used to keep me company, and never lost his faith, and never was weary of gazing into the fountain?"
"Here am I, dear Bellerophon!" said the child softly.
For the little boy had spent day after day on the margin of Pirene, waiting for his friend to come back; but when he perceived Bellerophon descending through the clouds, mounted on the winged horse, he had shrunk back into the shrubbery. He was a delicate and tender child, and dreaded lest the old man and the country fellow should see the tears gushing from his eyes.
"Thou hast won the victory," said he joyfully, running to the knee of Bellerophon, who still sat on the back of Pegasus. "I knew thou wouldst."
"Yes, dear child!" replied Bellerophon, alighting from the winged horse. "But if thy faith had not helped me, I should never have waited for Pegasus, and never have gone up above the clouds, and never have conquered the terrible Chimera. Thou, my little friend, hast done it all. And now let us give Pegasus his liberty." So he slipped off the enchanted bridle from the head of the marvelous steed.
"Be free for evermore, my Pegasus!" cried he, with a shade of sadness in his tone. "Be as free as thou art fleet."
But Pegasus rested his head on Bellerophon's shoulder, and would not take flight.
"Well, then," said Bellerophon, caressing the airy horse, "thou shalt be with me as long as thou wilt, and we will go together forthwith and tell King Iobates that the Chimera is destroyed."
Then Bellerophon embraced the gentle child and promised to come to him again, and departed. But in after years that child took higher flights upon the aerial steed than ever did Bellerophon, and achieved more honorable deeds than his friend's victory over the Chimera. For, gentle and tender as he was, he grew to be a mighty poet!
A VISIT FROM SAINT NICHOLAS
By Clement C. Moore
Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugarplums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,—
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below;
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be Saint Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled and shouted, and called them by name:
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall!
Now dash away, dash away, dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys,—and Saint Nicholas, too.
And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney Saint Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook, when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump,—a right jolly old elf;
And I laughed, when I saw him, in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose,
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle;
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"
Clement Clarke Moore, who wrote this poem, published a whole volume of poems, but none of the others is as famous as is this. It was written for his own children, and he did not even know that it was to be published. It appeared in the Troy Sentinel in 1823, just two days before Christmas, and we can imagine how delighted children were when they had it read to them for the first time. It is not a great poem; but no Christmas poem that has been published since has been half as popular with children, and even grown people like it for its jolliness and its Christmas spirit.
THE STORY OF PHAETHON
Phaeton, the son of the nymph Clymene, was very proud of his mother's beauty, and used to boast of it greatly to his playmates. Tired of the boy's bragging and conceit, one of his friends said to him one day:
"You're very willing to talk about your mother, but I notice you never speak of your father. Are you ashamed of him?"
"No, I'm not," replied Phaethon, trying to look unabashed.
"Well, then, tell us about him. If he were anything great, you would be willing enough to brag about him."
And because Phaethon kept quiet, all of his playmates began to jeer at him, cruelly enough.
"You don't know your father. You've never seen him," they cried.
Phaethon would not cry before them, but there were tears of shame and anger in his eyes as he told the story to his mother.
"Never mind, my boy," she said soothingly, "To-morrow you shall tell them the name of your father, and that will stop their taunts. Come, let me whisper it to you."
When Phaethon heard what she had to tell him, his eyes shone with joy and pride, and he could scarce wait for morning to carry his news to his mocking friends. He was first at the meeting-place, but he would say nothing until all his playmates were gathered. Then he said, quietly, but O, so proudly:
"My father is Apollo, the sun-god!"
For a moment there was silence; then came a burst of laughter from the group crowded about Phaethon.
"A likely story! Who ever heard anything so ridiculous? It's quite plain that your mother is ashamed of your father, and is trying to throw you off the track."
Again Phaethon ran home, his cheeks burning, his eyes flashing, and again he told his mother all that had passed.
"It's too late to do anything about it to-day," said Clymene, "but to- morrow you shall go yourself to your father's palace, before he sets out on his trip across the sky; and if he is pleased with you, he will give you some proof that you are really his son."
Long before daylight the next morning Phaethon set out, and with his mother's directions in mind, walked straight east until he came to the dazzling palace of the sun. Had he not been a bold youth, he would have been frightened and turned back; but he was determined to prove his boasts, and passed on into the palace. At last, on a great golden throne, he saw his father—surely a more glorious father than ever boy had before. So glorious was he that Phaethon dared not approach him closely, as the light about the throne was blinding. When Apollo recognized him, however, he took off the crown of rays from about his head and called to Phaethon to approach fearlessly.
As the boy stood before the throne, he was a son of whom no father, even Apollo, needed to be ashamed; and as he hurried into his story, the sun- god smiled at the signs of his impetuous temper.
"You're willing to own me for your son, aren't you?" finished Phaethon.
"To be sure I am," replied the sun-god; "and that your mates may never have chance to doubt it more, I swear by the terrible Styx [Footnote: The Styx was one of the great rivers of Hades. The oath by the Styx was regarded as so binding that even a god could not break it without being punished severely for his perjury. Any god who broke his oath was obliged to drink of the black waters of the Styx which kept him in utter unconsciousness for a year; and after his return to consciousness he was banished for nine years from Olympus.] to give you any proof you ask."
It did not take Phaethon long to decide—he had made up his mind on the way; and his words fairly tumbled over each other as he cried eagerly:
"Then I'll drive the sun-chariot for a day!"
Apollo was horrified, for he knew that he alone of the gods could manage the fiery steeds; and if great Jupiter himself could not do it, what would happen if they were placed in the power of this slight boy? He begged Phaethon to release him from his promise, but—
"You promised, you promised!" repeated the boy. "You swore by the Styx, and you CAN'T break your word."
This was true, as Apollo knew well; and at length, with a sigh, he turned and called to his servants, the Hours, who stood ready to attend him on his journey:
"Harness my steeds, and make sure that everything is right about the chariot."
While this was being done, Apollo explained carefully to his son the dangers of the way, hoping yet to turn him from his purpose.
"The path runs steeply upward at first," he said, "and with all their strength the horses can scarce drag the chariot. During the middle of the day the course is high, high in the heavens, and it will sicken you and make you dizzy if you look down. But the latter part of the drive is most dangerous, for it slopes rapidly down, and if the horses are not tightly reined in, horses, chariot and driver will fall headlong into the sea."
Nothing frightened Phaethon.
"You see," he explained, "it's not as if I didn't know how to drive. I've often driven my grandfather's horses, and they are wild and strong."
By this time the magnificent golden chariot and the six horses of white fire were ready, and after one last plea to his son, Apollo permitted him to mount the seat. He anointed the boy's face with a cooling lotion, that the heat might not scorch him, and placed the crown of beams about his head.
"And now," he said, "you must be off. Already the people on earth are wondering why the sun does not rise. Do remember, my boy, not to use the whip, and to choose a path across the heavens which is neither too high nor too low."
With but scant attention to his father's advice, Phaethon gave the word to his steeds and dashed out of the gates which Aurora opened for him. And thus began a day which the gods on Olympus and the people on earth never forgot.
[Illustration: IN VAIN PHAETHON PULLED AT THE REINS.]
The horses easily perceived that some other hand than their master's held the lines, and they promptly became unmanageable. In vain Phaethon pulled at the reins; in vain he called the steeds by name. Up the sky they dashed, and then, first to the south, then to the north, they took their zigzag course across the heavens. What a sight it must have presented from below, this sun reeling crazily about the sky! Worst of all, however, the horses did not keep at the same distance from the earth. First they went down, down, until they almost touched the mountain tops. Trees, grass, wheat, flowers, all were scorched and blackened; and one great tract in Africa was so parched that nothing has since been able to grow upon it. Rivers were dried up, the snow on the mountain tops was melted, and, strangest of all, the people in the country over which the sun-chariot was passing were burned black. [Footnote: In this way the ancients explained the great desert of Sahara, and the dark color of the people of Africa.] Then, rising, the horses dragged the chariot so far from the earth that intense, bitter cold killed off much of the vegetation which the fierce heat had spared.
Poor Phaethon could do nothing but clutch the seat and shut his eyes. He dared not look down, lest he lose his balance and fall; he dared not look about him, for there were, in all parts of the heavens, the most terrifying animals—a great scorpion, a lion, two bears, a huge crab. [Footnote: These terrifying animals which Phaethon saw in the sky were the groups of stars, the constellations to which the ancients gave the names of animals etc. We know the Big Dipper, or Great Bear, for we may see it in the north any clear night.] Vainly he repented of his rashness; sadly he wondered in what way his death would come.
It came suddenly—so suddenly that poor Phaethon did not feel the pain of it. For Jupiter, when he saw the sun rocking about the heavens, did not stop to inquire who the unknown charioteer was; he knew it was not Apollo, and he knew the earth was being ruined—that was enough. Seizing one of his biggest thunderbolts, he hurled it with all his might, and Phaethon fell, flaming, from his lofty seat into the Eridanus River; while the horses, whom no thunderbolt could harm, trotted quietly back to their stalls. Clymene bewailed her son's death bitterly, and his companions, grieved that their taunts should have driven their comrade to his destruction, helped her to erect over his grave a stone on which were these words:
"Lies buried here young Phaethon, who sought
To guide his father's chariot of flame.
What though he failed? No death ignoble his
Who fared to meet it with such lofty aim."
Most of the Greek myths had meanings; they were not simply fairy stories. And while we have no means now of finding the meanings of some of them, many of them are so clear that we can understand exactly what the Greeks meant to teach by them. By far the most numerous are the so- called "nature myths"—myths which they invented to explain the happenings which they saw constantly about them in the natural world. Of these nature myths the story of Phaethon is one.
The ancients believed that drought was caused by the sun's coming too close to the earth; but how could Apollo, experienced driver of the sun- chariot, ever be so careless as to drive close enough to the earth to burn it? It was easy enough to imagine that the chariot, when it did such damage, was being driven by some reckless person who knew not how to guide it. But then arose the necessity of explaining Apollo's willingness to trust such a reckless person with so great a task; and what more likely than that the inexperienced charioteer was Apollo's beloved son, who had induced his father to grant his rash request? Gradually details were added, until the story took the form in which we have it.
As the drought of summer is often brought to a close by a storm which is accompanied by thunder and lightning, and which hides the light of the sun, so in the story Phaethon's ruinous drive is brought to an end by the thunderbolt of Jupiter; while the horses, trotting back home before their time, leave the world in comparative darkness.
It must not be supposed that some one just sat down one day and said, "I will tell a story which shall explain drought and the ending of drought." This story, like all the others, grew up gradually. Perhaps, one day, in time of drought, some one said to his neighbor, "The chariot of Apollo is coming too close to the earth," and perhaps his neighbor replied, "Some one who knows not how to guide the white horses is driving it." Such language might in time easily become the common language for describing times of drought; and so, at length, would grow up, out of what was at first merely a description, in figurative language, of a natural happening, a story, in dramatic form.
THE ENGLISH ROBIN
By Harrison Weir
See yon robin on the spray;
Look ye how his tiny form
Swells, as when his merry lay
Gushes forth amid the storm.
Though the snow is falling fast,
Specking o'er his coat with white,
Though loud roars the chilly blast,
And the evening's lost in night,
Yet from out the darkness dreary
Cometh still that cheerful note;
Praiseful aye, and never weary,
Is that little warbling throat.
Thank him for his lesson's sake,
Thank God's gentle minstrel there,
Who, when storms make others quake,
Sings of days that brighter were.
The English robin is not the bird we call robin redbreast in the United States. Our robin is a big, lordly chap about ten inches long, but the English robin is not more than five and a half inches long; that is, it is smaller than an English sparrow. The robin of the poem has an olive- green back and a breast of yellowish red, and in habits it is like our warblers. It is a sweet singer, and a confiding, friendly little thing, so that English children are very fond of it, and English writers are continually referring to it.
TOM, THE WATER BABY
By Charles Kingsley
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Charles Kingsley, who was born in 1819, and became Canon of the Church of England at Chester, wrote, in addition to his interesting and brilliant novels, The Water Babies, which is a charming fairy story for young people. It is, however, one of those stories that can be read more than once, and read by all classes of people.
Besides telling the delightful story of Tom, the water baby, and his wonderful adventures on land and in water, Canon Kingsley gives in a very amusing style accounts of many of the animals that live in and near the water. But he brings them all into the story in such a way that they seem to be real, living characters, and you are almost as much interested in the stately salmon and his wife, or even in the funny old lobster, as you would be if they were actual human beings.
As the story was written originally, there was a great deal in it for children of much larger growth than those who will read it here. In some respects the story resembles Gulliver's Travels, for Kingsley took occasion to be satirical about many of the things which men and women say, do and believe. Some of this satire children will enjoy thoroughly, but some of it could not be understood well except by persons who have lived in this world for many years. Accordingly, in this book, we have thought it best to leave out some things, giving you only the story of Tom, and hoping that when you young readers grow to manhood or womanhood you will find The Water Babies, complete, a good story to read. You will enjoy recalling the delight you have in it now, and will find out that even a children's story may be so told as to keep a man thinking.
Moreover, the story was written by an Englishman for an English boy, and there are a great many allusions to things that only English boys appreciate or understand, and it has seemed wise to omit most of these. On the other hand, nothing has been omitted to weaken the story of Tom, and nothing has been added to destroy the charm of Canon Kingsley's writing.
CHAPTER I
Once upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, [Footnote: A boy would have a hard time crawling through some of our chimneys nowadays, but years ago, when houses had open fireplaces instead of steam plants, there was a network of huge chimneys through which a small boy could easily work his way, brushing off the soot as he went.] 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.
[Illustration: THERE WAS A LITTLE CHIMNEY SWEEP, AND HIS NAME WAS TOM.]
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 leapfrog 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.
As for chimneysweeping, 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 hailstorm; 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, [Footnote: A master sweep was a man who had grown too large to climb up chimneys, but who kept boys whom he hired out for that purpose.] 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 bulldog 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 buttonhole, 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.
One day a smart little groom rode into the court where Tom lived, 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 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.
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 jail by him twice) was the most awful.
Harthover Place was really a grand place, even for the rich North country, 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 as jolly, honest, sensible squire as ever kept a pack of hounds, who would do what he thought right by his neighbors, 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 can do, and would like very much to do. So Mr. Grimes touched his hat to him when he rode through the town, and thought that that made up for his poaching Sir John's pheasants.
So Tom 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 turn-pike; and then they 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.
[Illustration: THEY CAME UP WITH A POOR IRISHWOMAN.]
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. [Footnote: Galway is a county in the western part of Ireland. The dress here described was the characteristic dress of the peasants of that county.] 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:
"This is a hard road for a gradely [Footnote: GRADELY, or GRAITHLY, is an old word which meant DECENT or COMELY.] 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; a real North country fountain, like one of those in Sicily or Greece, where the old heathen fancied the nymphs [Footnote: The nymphs, according to the ancient Greeks, were divinities in the shape of beautiful maidens, who lived in the woods or in springs and streams.] 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 globeflower, and wild raspberry, and the bird cherry with its tassels of snow. [Footnote: These are English flowers, but you probably know some of them. The wild geranium, for instance, with its pinkish-purple flowers, is common in our woods. The globeflower is of rather a pale yellow, and its petals curl in so that it looks like a ball.]
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 had ever 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."
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.
And now they had gone three miles and more, and came to Sir John's lodge gates. Grimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper [Footnote: A keeper is a man appointed, on a large estate, to see that no one trespasses on the grounds or poaches the game.] 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."
[Illustration.]
"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.
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.
[Illustration: HARTHOVER PLACE.]
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.
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. So Tom fairly lost his way in them; not that he cared much for that, though he was in pitch 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.
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 bulldogs 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.
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 forever 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; for 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.
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. 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. Sir John looked out of his study window (for he was an early old gentleman) and up at the nurse, and a martin 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 nowhere, and is consequently not placed.
[Illustration.]
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 flowerpots—such a noise, row, hubbub, babel, shindy, hullabaloo, and total contempt of dignity, repose, and order, as that day, when Grimes, the gardener, the groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the steward, the ploughman, 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 though he were a hunted fox, beginning to droop his brush.
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 groom's skull with his teeth as easily as if it had been a cocoanut or a paving stone.
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.
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, [Footnote: Eton is one of the most famous of English public schools. The young British nobles here meet and associate with the young commoners in the most democratic manner.] and over the face, too (which is not fair swishing, as all brave boys will agree).
"I must get out of this," thought Tom, "or I shall stay here till somebody comes to help me—which is just what I don't want."
But how to get out was the difficult matter. And indeed I don't think he would ever have got out at all, but have stayed there till the cock- robins covered him with leaves, if he had not suddenly run his head against a wall.
Now running your head against a wall is not pleasant, especially if it is a loose wall, with the stones all set on edge, and a sharp-cornered one hits you between the eyes and makes you see all manner of beautiful stars. The stars are very beautiful, certainly, but unfortunately they go in the twenty-thousandth part of a split second, and the pain which comes after them does not. And so Tom hurt his head; but he was a brave boy, and did not mind that a penny. He guessed that over the wall the cover would end; and up it he went, and over like a squirrel.
And there he was, out on the great grouse moors, which the country folk called Harthover Fell—[Footnote: FELL is the name given, in parts of England, to moors, or stretches of high, open country of any sort.] 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 [Footnote: Exmoor is a region in Somersetshire and Devonshire, in England. It was formerly a forest, but is now a moor, and is a favorite resort of the deer.] 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. Meanwhile the gardener and the groom, the dairymaid and the ploughman, 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.