The Water-Babies | Page 3

the twenty-four hours,
and all the three hundred and sixty-five days; and why every one does
not get up then, I never could tell, save that they are all determined to
spoil their nerves and their complexions by doing all night what they
might just as well do all day. But Tom, instead of going out to dinner at
half-past eight at night, and to a ball at ten, and finishing off
somewhere between twelve and four, went to bed at seven, when his
master went to the public-house, and slept like a dead pig; for which
reason he was as piert as a game-cock (who always gets up early to
wake the maids), and just ready to get up when the fine gentlemen and
ladies were just ready to go to bed.

So he and his master set out; Grimes rode the donkey in front, and Tom
and the brushes walked behind; out of the court, and up the street, past
the closed window-shutters, and the winking weary policemen, and the
roofs all shining gray in the gray dawn.
They passed through the pitmen's village, all shut up and silent now,
and through the turnpike; and then the were out in the real country, and
plodding along the black dusty road, between black slag walls, with no
sound but the groaning and thumping of the pit- engine in the next field.
But soon the road grew white, and the walls likewise; and at the wall's
foot grew long grass and gay flowers, all drenched with dew; and
instead of the groaning of the pit-engine, they heard the skylark saying
his matins high up in the air, and the pit-bird warbling in the sedges, as
he had warbled all night long.
All else was silent. For old Mrs. Earth was still fast asleep; and, like
many pretty people, she looked still prettier asleep than awake. The
great elm-trees in the gold-green meadows were fast asleep above, and
the cows fast asleep beneath them; nay, the few clouds which were
about were fast asleep likewise, and so tired that they had lain down on
the earth to rest, in long white flakes and bars, among the stems of the
elm-trees, and along the tops of the alders by the stream, waiting for the
sun to bid them rise and go about their day's business in the clear blue
overhead.
On they went; and Tom looked, and looked, for he never had been so
far into the country before; and longed to get over a gate, and pick
buttercups, and look for birds' nests in the hedge; but Mr. Grimes was a
man of business, and would not have heard of that.
Soon they came up with a poor Irishwoman, trudging along with a
bundle at her back. She had a gray shawl over her head, and a crimson
madder petticoat; so you may be sure she came from Galway. She had
neither shoes nor stockings, and limped along as if she were tired and
footsore; but she was a very tall handsome woman, with bright gray
eyes, and heavy black hair hanging about her cheeks. And she took Mr.
Grimes' fancy so much, that when he came alongside he called out to
her:

"This is a hard road for a gradely foot like that. Will ye up, lass, and
ride behind me?"
But, perhaps, she did not admire Mr. Grimes' look and voice; for she
answered quietly:
"No, thank you: I'd sooner walk with your little lad here."
"You may please yourself," growled Grimes, and went on smoking.
So she walked beside Tom, and talked to him, and asked him where he
lived, and what he knew, and all about himself, till Tom thought he had
never met such a pleasant-spoken woman. And she asked him, at last,
whether he said his prayers! and seemed sad when he told her that he
knew no prayers to say.
Then he asked her where she lived, and she said far away by the sea.
And Tom asked her about the sea; and she told him how it rolled and
roared over the rocks in winter nights, and lay still in the bright summer
days, for the children to bathe and play in it; and many a story more, till
Tom longed to go and see the sea, and bathe in it likewise.
At last, at the bottom of a hill, they came to a spring; not such a spring
as you see here, which soaks up out of a white gravel in the bog, among
red fly-catchers, and pink bottle-heath, and sweet white orchis; nor
such a one as you may see, too, here, which bubbles up under the warm
sandbank in the hollow lane by the great tuft of lady ferns, and makes
the