Now , was not Mother Carey 's a wonderful story ? And , I am happy to say , Tom believed it every word . For so it happened to Tom likewise . He was very sorely tried ; for though , by keeping the dog to heels -LRB- or rather to toes , for he had to walk backward -RRB- , he could see pretty well which way the dog was hunting , yet it was much slower work to go backwards than to go forwards . But , what was more trying still , no sooner had he got out of Peacepool , than there came running to him all the conjurors , fortune-tellers , astrologers , prophesiers , projectors , prestigiators , as many as were in those parts -LRB- and there are too many of them everywhere -RRB- , Old Mother Shipton on her broomstick , with Merlin , Thomas the Rhymer , Gerbertus , Rabanus Maurus , Nostradamus , Zadkiel , Raphael , Moore , Old Nixon , and a good many in black coats and white ties who might have known better , considering in what century they were born , all bawling and screaming at him , `` Look a-head , only look a-head ; and we will show you what man never saw before , and right away to the end of the world ! '' But I am proud to say that , though Tom had not been to Cambridge -- for , if he had , he would have certainly been senior wrangler -- he was such a little dogged , hard , gnarly , foursquare brick of an English boy , that he never turned his head round once all the way from Peacepool to the Other-end-of-Nowhere : but kept his eye on the dog , and let him pick out the scent , hot or cold , straight or crooked , wet or dry , up hill or down dale ; by which means he never made a single mistake , and saw all the wonderful and hitherto by - no-mortal-man-imagined things , which it is my duty to relate to you in the next chapter . CHAPTER VIII AND LAST `` Come to me , O ye children ! For I hear you at your play ; And the questions that perplexed me Have vanished quite away . `` Ye open the Eastern windows , That look towards the sun , Where thoughts are singing swallows , And the brooks of morning run . * * * * * `` For what are all our contrivings And the wisdom of our books , When compared with your caresses , And the gladness of your looks ? `` Ye are better than all the ballads That ever were sung or said ; For ye are living poems , And all the rest are dead . '' LONGFELLOW . Here begins the never-to-be-too-much-studied 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 ; which all good little children are requested to read ; that , if ever they get to the Other-end-of-Nowhere , as they may very probably do , they may not burst out laughing , or try to run away , or do any other silly vulgar thing which may offend Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid . Now , as soon as Tom had left Peacepool , he came to the white lap of the great sea-mother , ten thousand fathoms deep ; where she makes world-pap all day long , for the steam-giants to knead , and the fire-giants to bake , till it has risen and hardened into mountain - loaves and island-cakes . And there Tom was very near being kneaded up in the world-pap , and turned into a fossil water-baby ; which would have astonished the Geological Society of New Zealand some hundreds of thousands of years hence . For , as he walked along in the silence of the sea-twilight , 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 . And , when he came near , the water grew boiling-hot ; not that that hurt him in the least : but it also grew as foul as gruel ; and every moment he stumbled over dead shells , and fish , and sharks , and seals , and whales , which had been killed by the hot water . And at last he came to the great sea-serpent himself , lying dead at the bottom ; and 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 ; and , when he had got round , he came to the place called Stop . And there he stopped , and just in time . For 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 ; and Tom could see almost up to the top of the water above , and down below into the pit for nobody knows how far .
But , 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 XXXXX the sea in a shower of mud and gravel and ashes ; and 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 , and began to be afraid that he should have been buried alive .
For in into of on than that towards up with