The Water-Babies | Page 8

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. The keeper, who was taking a stoat out of a
trap, let the stoat go, and caught his own finger; but he jumped up, and
ran after Tom; and considering what he said, and how he looked, I
should have been sorry for Tom if he had caught him. Sir John looked
out of his study window (for he was an early old gentleman) and up at
the nurse, and a marten dropped mud in his eye, so that he had at last to
send for the doctor; and yet he ran out, and gave chase to Tom. The
Irishwoman, too, was walking up to the house to beg,--she must have
got round by some byway--but she threw away her bundle, and gave
chase to Tom likewise. Only my Lady did not give chase; for when she
had put her head out of the window, her night-wig fell into the garden,
and she had to ring up her lady's-maid, and send her down for it
privately, which quite put her out of the running, so that she came in
nowhere, and is consequently not placed.
In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place--not even when the fox
was killed in the conservatory, among acres of broken glass, and tons
of smashed flower-pots--such a noise, row, hubbub, babel, shindy,
hullabaloo, stramash, charivari, and total contempt of dignity, repose,
and order, as that day, when Grimes, gardener, the groom, the
dairymaid, Sir John, the steward, the ploughman, the keeper, and the
Irishwoman, all ran up the park, shouting, "Stop thief," in the belief that
Tom had at least a thousand pounds' worth of jewels in his empty
pockets; and the very magpies and jays followed Tom up, screaking
and screaming, as if he were a hunted fox, beginning to droop his
brush.
And all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with his little bare feet,
like a small black gorilla fleeing to the forest. Alas for him! there was
no big father gorilla therein to take his part--to scratch out the

gardener's inside with one paw, toss the dairymaid into a tree with
another, and wrench off Sir John's head with a third, while he cracked
the keeper's skull with his teeth as easily as if it had been a cocoa-nut or
a paving-stone.
However, Tom did not remember ever having had a father; so he did
not look for one, and expected to have to take care of himself; while as
for running, he could keep up for a couple of miles with any
stage-coach, if there was the chance of a copper or a cigar- end, and
turn coach-wheels on his hands and feet ten times following, which is
more than you can do. Wherefore his pursuers found it very difficult to
catch him; and we will hope that they did not catch him at all.
Tom, of course, made for the woods. He had never been in a wood in
his life; but he was sharp enough to know that he might hide in a bush,
or swarm up a tree, and, altogether, had more chance there than in the
open. If he had not known that, he would have been foolisher than a
mouse or a