He came slowly up to the open door, which was all hung round with clematis and roses; and then peeped in, half afraid.
And there sat by the empty fireplace, which was filled with a pot of sweet herbs, the nicest old woman that ever was seen, in her red petticoat, and short dimity bedgown, and clean white cap, with a black silk handkerchief over it, tied under her chin. At her feet sat the grandfather of all the cats; and opposite her sat, on two benches, twelve or fourteen neat, rosy, chubby little children, learning their Chris-cross-row; and gabble enough they made about it.
Such a pleasant cottage it was, with a shiny clean stone floor, and curious old prints on the walls, and an old black oak sideboard full of bright pewter and brass dishes, and a cuckoo clock in the corner, which began shouting as soon as Tom appeared: not that it was frightened at Tom, but that it was just eleven o’clock.
All the children started at Tom’s dirty black figure—the girls began to cry, and the boys began to laugh, and all pointed at him rudely enough; but Tom was too tired to care for that.
“What art thou, and what dost want?” cried the old dame. “A chimney-sweep! Away with thee! I’ll have no sweeps here.”
“Water,” said poor little Tom, quite faint.
“Water? There’s plenty i’ the beck,” she said, quite sharply.
“But I can’t get there; I’m most clemmed with hunger and drought.” And Tom sank down upon the doorstep, and laid his head against the post.
And the old dame looked at him through her spectacles one minute, and two, and three; and then she said, “He’s sick; and a bairn’s a bairn, sweep or none.”
“Water,” said Tom.
“God forgive me!” and she put by her spectacles, and rose, and came to Tom. “Water’s bad for thee; I’ll give thee milk.” And she toddled off into the next room, and brought a cup of milk and a bit of bread.
Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then looked up, revived.
“Where didst come from?” said the dame.
“Over Fell, there,” said Tom, and pointed up into the sky.
“Over Harthover? and down Lewthwaite Crag? Art sure thou art not lying?”
“Why should I?” said Tom, and leant his head against the post.
“And how got ye up there?”
“I came over from the Place”; and Tom was so tired and desperate he had no heart or time to think of a story, so he told all the truth in a few words.
“Bless thy little heart! And thou hast not been stealing, then?”
“No.”
“Bless thy little heart! and I’ll warrant not. Why, God’s guided the bairn, because he was innocent! Away from the Place, and over Harthover Fell, and down Lewthwaite Crag! Who ever heard the like, if God hadn’t led him? Why dost not eat thy bread?”
“I can’t.”
“It’s good enough, for I made it myself.”
“I can’t,” said Tom, and he laid his head on his knees, and then asked—
“Is it Sunday?”
“No, then; why should it be?”
“Because I hear the church-bells ringing so.”
“Bless thy pretty heart! The bairn’s sick. Come wi’ me, and I’ll hap thee up somewhere. If thou wert a bit cleaner I’d put thee in my own bed, for the Lord’s sake. But come along here.”
But when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired and giddy that she had to help him and lead him.
She put him in an outhouse upon soft sweet hay and an old rug, and bade him sleep off his walk, and she would come to him when school was over, in an hour’s time.
And so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall fast asleep at once.
But Tom did not fall asleep.
Instead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about in the strangest way, and felt so hot all over that he longed to get into the river and cool himself; and then he fell half asleep, and dreamt that he heard the little white lady crying to him, “Oh, you’re so dirty; go and be washed”; and then that he heard the Irishwoman saying, “Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be.” And then he heard the church-bells ring so loud, close to him too, that he was sure it must be Sunday, in spite of what the old dame had said; and he would go to church, and see what a church was like inside, for he had never been in one, poor little fellow, in all his life. But the people would never let him come in, all over soot and dirt like that. He must go to the river and wash first. And he said out loud again and again, though being half asleep he did not know it, “I must be clean, I must be clean.”
And all of a sudden he found himself, not in the outhouse on the hay, but in the middle of a meadow, over the road, with the stream just before him, saying continually, “I must be clean, I must be clean.” He had got there on his own legs, between sleep and awake, as children will often get out of bed, and go about the room, when they are not quite well. But he was not a bit surprised, and went on to the bank of the brook, and lay down on the grass, and looked into the clear, clear limestone water, with every pebble at the bottom bright and clean, while the little silver trout dashed about in fright at the sight of his black face; and he dipped his hand in and found it so cool, cool, cool; and he said, “I will be a fish; I will swim in the water; I must be clean, I must be clean.”
So he pulled off all his clothes in such haste that he tore some of them, which was easy enough with such ragged old things.
