had left his mark upon the place, each after So Tom fairly lost his way in them; not his own taste; and he had no more notion that he cared much for that, though he was of disturbing his ancestors' work than of in pitchy darkness, for he was as much at disturbing their graves. For now the house home in a chimney as a mole is under looked like a real live house, that had a his- ground; but at last, coming down as he tory, and had grown and grown as the world thought the right chimney, he came down grew; and that it was only an upstart fellow the wrong one, and found himself standing who did not know who his own grandfather on the hearth-rug in a room the like of was who would change it for some spick- which he had never seen before. and-span new Gothic or Elizabethan thing, Tom had never seen the like. He had which looked as if it had been all spawned never been in gentlefolks' rooms but when in a night, as mushrooms are. From which the carpets were all up, and the curtains you may collectif you have wit enough- down, and the furniture huddled together that Sir John was a very sound-headed, under a cloth, and the pictures covered with sound-hearted squire, and just the man to aprons and dusters; and he had often keep the country side in order, and show enough wondered what the rooms were good sport with his hounds. like when they were all ready for the quality to sit in. And now he saw, and he thought the sight very pretty. 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 ashboy 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 were going up the chimneys, and not Tom. And Grimes listened, and said every now and then, under his voice, "You'll mind that, you little beggar?" and Tom did mind, all at least that he could. And then the housekeeper turned them into a grand room, all covered up in sheets of brown paper, and bade them begin, in a lofty and tremendous voice; and so, after a whimper or two, and a kick from his master, into the grate Tom went, and up the chimney, while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the furniture; to whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous compliments, but met with very slight encouragement in 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 piotures of ladies and gentlemen, and pictures of horses and dogs. The horses he liked; but the dogs he did not care for much, for there were no bull-dogs among them, not even a terrier. But the two pictures which took his fancy most were, one of 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 puszled 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! | plunder, and destroy and burn; and dashed 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 may be 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 were 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. 66 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, 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. Nor even to let himself down a spout, which would have been an old game to him; for once he got up by a spout to the church roof, he said to take jackdaws' eggs, but the policemen said to steal lead; and when he was seen on high, sat there till the sun got too hot, and came down by another spout, leaving the policemen to go back to the station-house and eat their dinners. But all under the window spread a tree, with great leaves, and sweet white flowers, almost as big as his head. It was a 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. His master 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 plowman left his horses at the headland, and one jumped over the fence, and pulled the other into the ditch, plow and all; but he ran after Tom. The keeper, who was taking a stoat out of a trap, let the stoat go, and caught his own finger; but he jumped up and ran after Tom, and considering what he said, and how he looked, I should have been sorry for Tom if he had caught him. Sir John looked out of his study window (for he was an early old gentleman), and up at the nurse, and a marten dropt 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. 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'smaid, and send her down for it privately, which quite put her out of the running, so that she came in nowhere, and is consequently not placed. In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place, not even when the fox was killed in the conservatory, among acres of broken glass and tons of smashed flower-pots, such a noise, row, hubbub, babel, shindy, hullabaloo, stramash, charivari, and total contempt of dignity, repose, and order, as that day, when the gardener, the groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the steward, the ploughman, and the keeper all ran up the park, shouting "Stop thief," in the belief that Tom had at least a thousand pounds' worth of jewels in his empty pockets; and the very magpies and jays followed Tom up, screaking and screaming, as if he were a hunted fox, beginning to droop his brush. had never been in a wood in his life; but he was sharp enough to know that he might hide in a bush, or swarm up a tree, and, altogether, had more chance there than in the open. If he had not known that, he would have been foolisher than a mouse or a minnow. But when he got into the wood, he found it a very different sort of place from what he had fancied. He pushed into a thick cover of rhododendrons, and found himself at once caught in a trap. The boughs laid hold of his legs and arms, poked him in his face and his stomach, made him shut his eyes tight (though that was no great loss, for he could not see at best a yard before his nose), and when he got through the rhododendrons, the hassock-grass and sedges tumbled him over, and cut his poor little fingers afterwards most spitefully; the birches birched him as soundly as if he had been a nobleman at Eton, and over the face too (which is not fair swishing, as all brave boys will agree), and the lawyers tripped him up, and tore his shins as if they had sharks' teeth-which lawyers are likely enough to have. "I must get out of this," thought Tom, "or I shall stay here till somebody comes to help me-which is just what I don't want." But how to get out was the difficult matter. And, indeed, I don't think he would ever have got out at all, but 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 sharpcornered 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 all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with his little bare feet, like a small black gorilla fleeing to the forest. Alas for him; there was no big father gorilla therein to take his part; to scratch out the gardener's inside with one paw, toss the dairymaid into a tree with another, and wrench off Sir John's head with a third, while he cracked the keeper's scull with his teeth, as easily as if it had been a cocoa-nut or a paving-stone. However, Tom had never had a father; so certainly he did not want one, and expected to have to take care of himself; and as for running, he could keep up for a couple of miles with any stage-coach, if there was the chance of a copper or a cigar-end, and And there he was, out on the great grouse turn coach wheels on his hands and feet ten moors, which the country folk called Harthtimes following, which is more than you can over Fell; heather and bog and rock do. And so his pursuers found it very diffi-stretching away and up, up to the very cult to catch him, and we will hope that they did not catch him at all. sky. Now Tom was a cunning little fellow-as Tom, of course, made for the woods. He cunning as an old Exmoor stag. Why not? Though he was but ten years old, he had lived longer than most stags, and had more wits to start with into the bargain. He knew as well as a stag, that if he backed, he might throw the hounds out. So the first thing he did when he was over the wall, was to make the neatest double sharp to his right, and run along under the wall for nearly half a mile. ish little fellow stole away from the rest to a dead crow close by, and dragged it off to hide it, though it was nearly as big as he was. Whereat all his little brothers set off after him in full cry, and saw Tom; and then all ran back, and up jumped Mrs. Vixen, and caught one up in her mouth, and the rest toddled after her, and into a dark crack in the rocks; and there was an end of the show. And next he had a fright, for as he scrambled up a sandy brow-whirr-poof-poof Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the steward, and the gardener, and the plowman, and the dairymaid, and all the hue and cry together, went on ahead half a cock-cock-kick - something went off in his mile in the very opposite direction, and in- face, with a most horrid noise. He thought side the wall, leaving him a mile off on the the ground had blown up, and the end of outside, while Tom heard their shouts die the world come. away in the wood, 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. And when he opened his eyes,-for he shut them very tight,-it was only an old cock-grouse, who had been washing himself in sand, like an Arab, for want of water; and who, when Tom had all but trodden on him, jumped up, with a noise like the express train, leaving his wife and children to shift for themselves, like an old coward, and And now he was right away into the went off, screaming, "Tipsalteery, tipsaltheather, over just such a moor as those in eery-murder, thieves, fire-tipsalcock-cockwhich you have been bred, except that there kick-the end of the world is come-kickwere rocks and stones lying about every- kick-cock-kick." He was always fancying where, and that instead of the moor growing flat as he went upwards, it grew more and more broken and hilly; but not so rough but that little Tom could jog along well enough, and find time, too, to stare about him at the strange place, which was like a new world to him. He saw great spiders there, with crowns and crosses marked on their backs, who sat in the middle of their webs, and when they saw Tom coming, shook them so fast that they became invisible. Then he saw lizards, brown and gray and green, and thought they were snakes, and would sting him; but they were as much frightened as he, and shot away into the heath. And then, under a rock, he saw a pretty sight. A great brown, sharp-nosed creature, with a white tag to her brush, and round her, four or five smutty little cubs, the funniest fellows Tom ever saw. She lay on her back, rolling about, and stretching out her legs and head and tail in the bright sunshine; and the cubs jumped over her, and ran round her, and nibbled her paws, and lugged her about by the tail; and she seemed to enjoy it mightily. But one self the end of the world was come, when anything happened which was farther off than the end of his own nose. But the end of the world was not come, any more than the twelfth of August was; though the old grouse-cock was quite certain of it. So the old grouse came back to his wife and family an hour afterwards, and said, solemnly, "Cock-cock-kick; my dears, the end of the world is not quite come; but I assure you it is coming the day after to-morrowcock." But his wife had heard that so often, that she knew all about it, and a little more. And, beside, she was the mother of a family, and had seven little poults to wash and feed every day, and that made her very practical, and a little sharp-tempered: so all she answered was: "Kick-kick-kick-go and catch spiders, go and catch spiders-kick." So Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why: but he liked the great, wide, strange place, and the cool, fresh, bracing air. But he went more and more slowly as he got higher up the hill; for now the ground grew very bad indeed. Instead of soft turf and springy heather, he met great patches of flat limestone rock, just like ill-made pavements, him. 1 with deep cracks between the stones and determined to go, for that was the place for ledges, filled with ferns. So he had to hop from stone to stone, and now and then he slipped in between, and hurt his little bare toes, though they were tolerably tough ones: but still he would go on and up, he could not tell why. And now he began to get a little hungry and very thirsty, for he had run a long way; and the sun had risen high in heaven, and the rock was as hot as an oven, and the air danced reels over it, as it does over a limekiln, till everything round seemed quivering and melting in the glare. But he could see nothing to eat anywhere, and still less to drink. A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow and filled with wood, but through the wood, hundreds of feet below him, he could see a clear stream glance. Oh, if he could but get down to that stream! And now, by the stream, he saw the roof of a little cottage, and a little garden, set out in squares and beds. And there was a tiny little red thing moving in the garden, no bigger than a fly. And as Tom looked down, he saw that it was a woman in a red petticoat. "Ah! perhaps she would give him something to eat." And there were the church-bells ringing again. Surely, there must be a village down there. Well, nobody The heath was full of bilberries and whim- would know him or what had happened at berries, but they were only in flower yet, for the Place. The news could not have got it was June. And as for water, who can find there yet, even if Sir John had set all the that on the top of a limestone rock? Now policemen in the county after him, and he and then he passed by a deep dark swallow-could get down there in five minutes. hole, going down into the earth, as if it were Tom was quite right about the hue and cry the chimney of some dwarf's house under ground; and more than once as he passed, he could hear water falling, trickling, tinkling, many, many feet below. How he longed to get down to it, and cool his poor baked lips! But, brave little chimney-sweep as he was, he dared not climb down such chimneys as those. So he went on and on, till his head spun round with the heat, and he thought he heard church-bells ringing a long way off. "Ah!" he thought, "where there is a church, there will be houses and people; and perhaps some one will give me a bit and a sup. So he set off again, to look for the church, for he was sure that he heard the bells quite plain. And in a minute more, when he looked round, he stopped again, and said, "Why, what a big place the world is!" And so it was; for, from the top of the mountain he could see-what could he not see ? Behind him, far below, was Harthover, and the dark woods and the shining salmon river; and on his left, far below, was the town and the smoking chimneys of the collieries; and far, far away, the river widened to the shining sea, and little white specks, which were ships, lay on its bosom. And before him lay, spread out like a map, great plains and farms and villages, amid dark knots of trees. They all seemed at his very feet, but he had sense to see that they were long miles away. And to his right rose moor after moor, hill after hill, till they faded away, blue into blue sky. But between him and those moors, and really at his very feet, lay something, to which, as soon as Tom saw it, he not having got thither; for he had come, without knowing it, the best part of ten miles from Harthover: but he was wrong about getting down in five minutes, for the cottage was more than a mile off, and a good thousand feet below. But down he went, like a brave little man as he was, though he was very footsore and tired and hungry and thirsty; while the church-bells rang so loud, he began to think they must be inside his own head, and the river chimed and trickled far below; and this was the song which it sang: Clear and cool, clear and cool, Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. Dank and foul, dank and foul, Who dare sport with the sin-defiled? Strong and free, strong and free, Free and strong, free and strong, And the taintless tide that awaits me afar, Undefiled, for the undefiled; Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. |