Chapter 14
Here begins the account of the nine-hundred-and ninety-ninth part of the wonderful things which Tom saw on his journey to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.
As soon as Tom had left Peacepool, he came to the white lap of the great Sea-mother, ten thousand fathoms deep. She made world-pap all day long, for the steam-giants to knead, and the fire-giants to bake, till it had risen and hardened into mountain-loaves and island-cakes.
There, Tom was very near being kneaded up in the world-pap, and turned into a fossil water-baby.
As he walked along in the silence of the seatwilight, on the soft white ocean floor, he was aware of a hissing, and a roaring, and a thumping, and a pumping, as of all the steam-engines in the world at once. When he came near, the water grew boiling-hot. It did not hurt him in the least but it also grew foul. Every moment he stumbled over dead shells, and fish, and sharks, and seals, and whales, which had been killed by the hot water.
At last he came to the great sea-serpent himself, lying dead at the bottom. As he was too thick to scramble over, Tom had to walk round him three-quarters of a mile and more, which put him out of his path sadly. When he had got round, he came to the place called Stop. And there he stopped, and just in time.
He was on the edge of a vast hole in the bottom of the sea, up which was rushing and roaring clear steam enough to work all the engines in the world at once. So clear, indeed, that it was quite light at moments. Tom could see almost up to the top of the water above, and down below into the pit.
As soon as he bent his head over the edge, he got such a rap on the nose from pebbles that he jumped back again, for the steam, as it rushed up, rasped away the sides of the hole, and hurled it up into the sea in a shower of mud and gravel and ashes. Then it spread all around, and sank again, and covered in the dead fish so fast that before Tom had stood there five minutes he was buried in silt up to his ankles. He began to be afraid that he should have been buried alive.
Perhaps he would have been, but that while he was thinking, the whole piece of ground on which he stood was torn off and blown upwards. Away flew Tom a mile up through the sea, wondering what was coming next.
At last he stopped-thump! and found himself tight in the legs of the most wonderful bogy which he had ever seen.
It had I several wings, and was as big as the sails of a windmill. It spread out in a ring like them. With them it hovered over the steam which rushed up, as a ball hovers over the top of a fountain. And for every wing above it had a leg below, with a claw like a comb at the tip, and a nostril at the root. In the middle it had no stomach and one eye. As for its mouth, it was all on one side. Well, it was a very strange beast; but no stranger than some dozens which you may see.
“What do you want here,” it cried quite peevishly, “getting in my way?” and it tried to drop Tom. But he held on tight to its claws, thinking himself safer where he was.
So Tom told him who he was, and what his errand was. And the thing winked its one eye and sneered: “1 am too old to be taken in that way. You have come after gold, I know you are.”
“Gold! What is gold?” And really Tom did not know; but the suspicious old bogy would not believe him.
But after a while Tom began to understand a little.
As the vapour came up out of the hole, the bogy smelt them with his nostrils, and combed them and sorted them with his combs. When they steamed up through them against his wings, they were changed into showers and streams of metal. From one wing fell gold-dust, and from another silver, and from another copper, and from another tin, and from another lead, and so on. All sank into the soft mud, into veins and cracks, and hardened there.
All of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam below, and the hole was left empty in an instant Then down rushed the water into the hole, in such a whirlpool that the bogy spun round and round as fast as a teetotum. But that was all in his day’s work, like a fair fall with the hounds. So all he did was to say to Tom—“Now is your time, youngster, to get down, if you are in earnest, which I don’t believe.”
“You’ll soon see,” said Tom. Away he went, as bold as Baron Munchausen, and shot down the rushing cataract like a salmon.
When he got to the bottom, he swam till he was washed on shore safe upon the Other-end-of Nowhere.
First, he went through Waste-paper-land, where all the stupid books lay in heaps, up hill and down dale, like leaves in a winter wood. There, he saw people digging and grubbing among them, to make worse books out of bad ones. A very good trade they drove thereby, especially among children.
He came to the place where everyone knew his neighbour’s business better than his own. When he got into the middle of the town, they all set on him at once, to show him his way or rather to show him that he did not know his way. As for asking him what way he wanted to go, no one ever thought of that.
But one pulled him hither, and another poked him thither, and a third cried—“You mustn’t go west, I tell you; it is destruction to go west.”
“But I am not going west, as you may see,” said Tom.
And another, “The east lies here, my dear; I assure you this is the east.”
“But I don’t want to go east,” said Tom.
“Well, then, at all events, whichever way you are going, you are going wrong,” cried they all with one voice—which was the only thing which they ever agreed about. All pointed at once to all the thirty-and-two-points of the compass, till Tom thought all the signposts in England had got together, and fallen fighting.
Whether he would have ever escaped out of the town, it is hard to say, if the dog had not taken it into his head that they were going to pull his master in pieces. He tackled them so sharply about the legs, that he gave them some business of their own to think of at last. While they were rubbing their bitten calves, Tom and the dog got safe away.
On the borders of that island he found Gotham, where the wise men live. He was the same who dragged the pond because the moon had fallen into it, and planted a hedge round the cuckoo, to keep spring all the year. He found them bricking up the town gate, because it was so wide that little folks could not get through. He could not help saying that in his country, if the kitten could not get in at the same hole as the cat, she might stay outside and mew.
But he saw the end of such fellows, when he came to the island of the Golden Asses, where nothing but thistles grow. There, they were all turned into mokes with ears a yard long, for meddling with matters which they do not understand.
Then Tom came to a very famous island, the Isle of Tomtoddies, all heads and no bodies.
When Tom came near it, he heard such a grumbling and grunting and growling and wailing and weeping and whining that he thought people must be ringing little pigs, or cropping puppies’ ears, or drowning kittens. But when he came nearer still, he began to hear words among the noise. It was the Tomtoddies’ song which they sing morning and evening, and all night too.
“I can’t learn my lesson: the examiner’s coming!”
And that was the only song which they knew.
And when Tom got on shore the first thing he saw was a great pillar, on one side of which was inscribed, ‘Playthings not allowed here’. He was so shocked that he would not stay to see what was written on the other side. Then he looked round for the people of the island. Instead of men, women and children, he found nothing but turnips and radishes, without a single green leaf among them, and half of them burst and decayed, with toadstools growing out of them. Those which were left began crying to Tom, in half-a-dozen different languages at once. All of them badly spoke, “I can’t learn my lesson; do come and help me!”
“And what good on earth would it do to you if I did?” quoted Tom.
Well, they didn’t know that. All they knew that the examiner was coming.
Then Tom stumbled on the tallest and softest turnip you ever saw, and it cried to him, “Can you tell me anything you like?”
“About what?” says Tom.
“About anything you like. As fast as I learn things I forget them again. So my mamma says that my intellect is not adapted for science, and says that I must go in for general information.”
Tom told him that he did not know general information. But he could tell him a great many strange things which he had seen in his travels.
So he told him prettily enough, while the poor turnip listened very carefully. The more he listened, the more he forgot, and the more water ran out of him.
Tom thought he was crying. But it was only his poor brains running away, from being worked so hard. As Tom talked, the unhappy turnip streamed down all over with juice, and split and shrank till nothing was left of him but rind and water. Whereats Tom ran away in a fright, for he thought he might be taken up for killing the turnip.
Tom was so puzzled and frightened with all he saw, that he was longing to ask the meaning of it. At last he stumbled over a respectable old stick lying half covered with earth. But a very stout and worthy stick it was.
“You see,” said the stick, “there were as pretty little children once as you could wish to see, and might have been so still if they had been only left to grow up like human beings, and then handed over to me. But their foolish fathers and mothers, instead of letting them pick flowers, make dirt-pies, get birds’ nests, dance round the gooseberry bush, as little children should, kept them always at lessons. He kept them working, working, working, learning week-day lessons all week-days, and Sunday lessons all Sunday, and weekly examinations every Saturday, and monthly examina-tions every month, and yearly examinations every year. Everything was seven times over, as if once was not enough, and enough as good as a feast-till their brains grew big, and their bodies grew small, and they were all changed into turnips, with little but water inside.”
“Ah!” said Tom, “if dear Mrs Doasyouwouldbed-oneby knew of it she would send them a lot of tops, and balls, and marbles, and ninepins, and make them all as jolly as sandboys.”
“It would be no use,” said the stick, “They can’t play now, if they tried. Don’t you see how their legs have turned to roots and grown into the ground, by never taking any exercise, but sapping and moping always in the same place? But here comes the Examiner-of-all-Examiners. So you had better get away, I warn you or he will examine you and your dog into the bargain, and set him to examine all the other dogs, and you to examine all the other water-babies. There is no escaping out of his hands, for his nose is nine thousand miles long, and can go down chimneys, and through key-holes, upstairs, downstairs, in my lady’s chamber, examining all little boys, and the little boys’ tutors likewise. But when he is thrashed—so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has promised me—I shall have the thrashing of him. If I don’t lay it on with a will it’s a pity.”
Tom went off but rather slowly and surlily. He was somewhat minded to face this same Examiner-of-all-Examiners, who came striding among the poor turnips, binding heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and laying them on little children’s shoulders.
But when he got near, he looked so big and burly and dictatorial. He shouted so loud to Tom to come and be examined, that Tom ran for his life, and the dog too. Really it was time, for the poor turnips, in their hurry and fright, crammed themselves so fast to be ready for the Examiner, that they burst and popped by dozens all round him. Tom thought he should be blown into the air, dog and all.
He went down to the shore and jumped into the sea, and swam on his way, singing:
“Farewell Tomtoddies, all; I thank my stars
That nought I know save those three royal r’s:
Reading and riting sure, with rithmetick.
Will help a lad of sense through thin and thick.”