The Water-Babies

“As you please, ma’am. You’re stronger than me—that I know too well, and wiser than me, I know too well also. And, as for being my own master, I’ve fared ill enough with that as yet. So whatever your ladyship pleases to order me; for I’m beat, and that’s the truth.”

“Be it so then—you may come out. But remember, disobey me again, and into a worse place still you go.”

“I beg pardon, ma’am, but I never disobeyed you that I know of. I never had the honour of setting eyes upon you till I came to these ugly quarters.”

“Never saw me? Who said to you, 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 that they went out together to Harthover. “I gave you your warning then: but you gave it yourself a thousand times before and since. Every bad word that you said—every cruel and mean thing that you did—every time that you got tipsy—every day that you went dirty—you were disobeying me, whether you knew it or not.”

“If I’d only known, ma’am—”

“You knew well enough that you were disobeying something, though you did not know it was me. But come out and take your chance. Perhaps it may be your last.”

So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, if it had not been for the scars on his face, he looked as clean and respectable as a master-sweep need look.

“Take him away,” said she to the truncheon, “and give him his ticket-of-leave.”

“And what is he to do, ma’am?”

“Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will find some very steady men working out their time there, who will teach him his business: but mind, if that crater gets choked again, and there is an earthquake in consequence, bring them all to me, and I shall investigate the case very severely.”

So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking as meek as a drowned worm.

And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweeping the crater of Etna to this very day.

“And now,” said the fairy to Tom, “your work here is done. You may as well go back again.”

“I should be glad enough to go,” said Tom, “but how am I to get up that great hole again, now the steam has stopped blowing?”

“I will take you up the backstairs: but I must bandage your eyes first; for I never allow anybody to see those backstairs of mine.”

“I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, ma’am, if you bid me not.”

“Aha! So you think, my little man. But you would soon forget your promise if you got back into the land-world. For, if people only once found out that you had been up my backstairs, you would have all the fine ladies kneeling to you, and the rich men emptying their purses before you, and statesmen offering you place and power; and young and old, rich and poor, crying to you, ’Only tell us the great backstairs secret, and we will be your slaves; we will make you lord, king, emperor, bishop, archbishop, pope, if you like—only tell us the secret of the backstairs. For thousands of years we have been paying, and petting, and obeying, and worshipping quacks who told us they had the key of the backstairs, and could smuggle us up them; and in spite of all our disappointments, we will honour, and glorify, and adore, and beatify, and translate, and apotheotise you likewise, on the chance of your knowing something about the backstairs, that we may all go on pilgrimage to it; and, even if we cannot get up it, lie at the foot of it, and cry—

“ ’Oh, backstairs,

precious backstairs,

invaluable backstairs,

requisite backstairs,

necessary backstairs,

good-natured backstairs,

cosmopolitan backstairs,

comprehensive backstairs,

accommodating backstairs,

well-bred backstairs,

commercial backstairs,

economical backstairs,

practical backstairs,

logical backstairs,

deductive backstairs,

comfortable backstairs,

humane backstairs,

reasonable backstairs,

long-sought backstairs,

coveted backstairs,

aristocratic backstairs,

respectable backstairs,

gentlemanlike backstairs,

ladylike backstairs,

orthodox backstairs,

probable backstairs,

credible backstairs,

demonstrable backstairs,

irrefragable backstairs,

potent backstairs,

all-but-omnipotent backstairs,

etc.

Save us from the consequences of our own actions, and from the cruel fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid!’ Do not you think that you would be a little tempted then to tell what you know, laddie?”

Tom thought so certainly. “But why do they want so to know about the backstairs?” asked he, being a little frightened at the long words, and not understanding them the least; as, indeed, he was not meant to do, or you either.

“That I shall not tell you. I never put things into little folks’ heads which are but too likely to come there of themselves. So come—now I must bandage your eyes.” So she tied the bandage on his eyes with one hand, and with the other she took it off.