The World's Greatest Books - Volume 5 Part 47

_IV.--At the Other-End-of-Nowhere_

Being happy and comfortable does not always mean being good; and so it was with Tom. He had everything he could wish for in St. Brandan's fairy isle. But now he had grown so fond of lollipops that he could think of nothing else, and longed to go to the cabinet where they were kept. At last he went to take just one; then he had one more, and another, and another, until they were all gone. And all the while Mrs.

Bedonebyasyoudid stood close behind him, though he neither heard nor saw her.

Tom was very surprised when she came again to see that she had just as many lollipops as before. He thought therefore that she could not know.

But he was very unhappy all that week, and long after it, too. And because his conscience had been p.r.i.c.king him inside, his outside grew h.o.r.n.y and p.r.i.c.kly as well, until he could bear it no longer, and told Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid all about it, and asked her to take away the p.r.i.c.kles. But she told him only he could do that, that he must go to school, and she would fetch him a schoolmistress.

Soon she returned with the most beautiful little girl that was ever seen. Tom begged her to show him how to be good, and get rid of his p.r.i.c.kles. So she began, and taught him every day except on Sunday, when she went away. In a short time all Tom's p.r.i.c.kles had disappeared. Then the little girl knew him, she said, for the little chimney-sweep who had come into the bedroom.

"And I know you," said Tom; "you are the little white lady I saw in bed." And then they began telling each other all their story. And then they set to work at their lessons again, and both liked them so well that they went on till seven full years were past and gone.

Tom began to be very curious to know where Ellie went on Sundays, and why he could not go, too.

"Those who go there," said Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, "must first learn to go where they do not want to go, and to help someone they do not like."

And Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby said the same. Tom was very unhappy now.

He knew the fairy wanted him to go and help Grimes; he did not want to go, and was ashamed of himself for not going. But just when he was feeling most discontented Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid encouraged him until he was quite anxious to seek for Grimes.

"Mr. Grimes is now at the Other-end-of-Nowhere," said the fairy. "To get there you must go to Shiny Wall, and through the White Gate which has never yet been opened. You will then be at Peacepool, where you will find Mother Carey, who will direct you to the Other-end-of-Nowhere."

Tom immediately set out to find his way to Shiny Wall, asking the way of all the birds and beasts he met. He at length received help from the petrels, who are Mother Carey's chickens, and so reached Shiny Wall. He was dismayed to find that there was no gate, but taking the birds'

advice, he dived underneath the wall, and went along the bottom of the sea for seven days and seven nights, until he arrived in Peacepool.

There sat Mother Carey, a marble lady on a marble throne--motionless, restful, gazing down into the depths of the sea.

Following Mother Carey's directions, Tom at length arrived at the Other-end-of-Nowhere, after meeting with many strange adventures. He had not long arrived in this strange land when he was overtaken by several policemen's truncheons, one of which conducted him to the prison where Grimes was quartered. Here, on the roof, his head and shoulders just showing above the top of chimney No. 343, was poor Mr. Grimes, with a pipe that would not draw.

He thought Tom had simply come to laugh at him until he a.s.sured him that he had only come to help. Suddenly Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid appeared. She reminded Grimes that he was only suffering now what he had inflicted on Tom. She told him, too, how his mother had gone to heaven, and would no more weep for him. Gradually Grimes's heart softened, and when Tom described her kindness to him at Vendale, Grimes wept. Then his tears did for him what his mother's could not do, for as they fell they washed the soot off his face and his clothes, and loosened the mortar from the bricks of the chimney.

"Will you obey me if I give you a chance?" said Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.

"As you please, ma'am. For I'm beat, and that's the truth," said he.

"Be it so, then--you may come out. But remember, disobey me again, and into a worse place still you will go."

"I beg your pardon, ma'am, but I never disobeyed you that I know of. I never set eyes upon you until I came to these ugly quarters."

"Never saw me? Who said 'Those that will be foul, foul they will be'?"

Grimes looked up, and Tom looked up, too; for the voice was that of the Irishwoman who met them the day they went out together to Harthover. She ordered Grimes to march off in the custody of the truncheon, who was to see that he devoted himself to the considerable task of sweeping out the crater of Etna.

Tom went back to St. Brandan's Isle, and there found Ellie--grown into a beautiful woman. And he looked at her, and she looked at him; and they liked the employment so much that they stood and looked for seven years more, and neither spoke nor stirred.

At last they heard the fairy say, "Attention, children! Are you never going to look at me again?"

They looked, and both of them cried out at once: "You are our dear Mrs.

Doasyouwouldbedoneby! No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid; but you are grown quite beautiful now."

"To you," she said. "But look again."

"You are Mother Carey," said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice. For he had found out something which made him very happy, and yet frightened him more than all that he had ever seen.

And when they looked again she was neither of them, and yet all of them at once.

"My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there."

And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, blazing light; but the children could not read her name, for they were dazzled, and hid their faces in their hands.

"Not yet, young things, not yet," said she, smiling. And then she turned to Ellie.

"You may take him home with you on Sundays, Ellie. He has won his spurs in the great battle, and become fit to be a man; because he has done the thing he did not like."

Westward Ho!

"Westward Ho!" was published in 1855, and, on the whole, may be accepted as the most popular of all Charles Kingsley's novels. It is a story full of the life and stir of Elizabethan England, and its heroes and heroines are the stout-hearted Devonshire people whom Kingsley knew and loved so well. Like most historical romances, "Westward Ho!" must not be accepted as history, in spite of the fact that its author was Regius Professor of History at Cambridge. Kingsley's whole-hearted and entirely creditable patriotism and his intense devotion to the established Church of England prevented his doing justice to Spain or looking with sympathy on Roman Catholicism. (See Newman, Vol. XIII.) Kingsley never could refrain from preaching his own convictions, and while this often interfered with the art of the novelist, it gave a note of sincerity to all his work, and warmth and colour to his style.

_I.--How Amyas Came Home the First Time_

One bright summer's afternoon in the year 1575 a tall and fair boy came lingering along Bideford Quay, in his scholar's gown, with satchel and slate in hand, watching wistfully the shipping and the sailors, till, just after he had pa.s.sed the bottom of the High Street, he came to a group of sailors listening earnestly to someone who stood in the midst.

The boy, all alive for any sea news, must needs go up to them, and so came in for the following speech, delivered in a loud, bold voice, with a strong Devonshire accent.

"I tell you, as I, John Oxenham, am a gentleman, I saw it with these eyes, and so did Salvation Yeo there; and we measured the heap, seventy foot long, ten foot broad, and twelve foot high, of silver bars, and each bar between a thirty and forty pound weight. Come along! Who lists?

Who lists? Who'll make his fortune?"

"Who'll list?" cried a tall, gaunt man, whom the other had called Salvation Yeo. "Now's your time! We've got forty men to Plymouth now, ready to sail the minute we get back; and we want a dozen out of you Bideford men, and just a boy or two, and then we'm off and away, and make our fortunes or go to heaven."

Then the gaunt man pulled from under his arm a great white buffalo horn, covered with rough etchings of land and sea.

The horn was pa.s.sed from hand to hand, and the schoolboy got a nearer sight of the marvel. To his astonished gaze displayed themselves cities and harbours, plate ships of Spain, and islands with apes and palm-trees, and here and there over-written: "Here is gold," and again, "Much gold and silver." The boy turned it round and round, anxious to possess this wonderful horn. And Oxenham asked him why he was so keen after it.

"Because," said he, looking up boldly, "I want to go to sea. I want to see the Indies. I want to fight the Spaniards." And the lad, having hurried out his say, dropped his head.

"And you shall," cried Oxenham. "Whose son are you, my gallant fellow?"

"Mr. Leigh's, of Burrough Court."

"Bless his soul! I know him as well as I do the Eddystone. Tell your father John Oxenham will come and keep him company."

The boy, Amyas Leigh, took his way homewards, and that night John Oxenham dined at Burrough Court; but failed to get Mr. Leigh's leave to take young Amyas with him, nor did Sir Richard Grenville, the boy's G.o.dfather, who was also at dinner, help him with his suit.