“And where are they all now?” asked Ellie.

“Exactly where they ought to be, my dear.”

CHAPTER VII

“Now,” said Tom, “I am ready to be off, if it’s to the world’s end.”

“Ah!” said the fairy, “that is a brave, good boy.  But you must go farther than the world’s end if you want to find Mr. Grimes; for he is at the Other-end-of-Nowhere.  You must go to Shiny Wall, and through the white gate that never was opened; and then you will come to Peace-pool, and Mother Carey’s Haven, where the good whales go when they die.  And there Mother Carey will tell you the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere, and there you will find Mr. Grimes.”

“Oh, dear!” said Tom.  “But I do not know my way to Shiny Wall, or where it is at all.”

“Little boys must take the trouble to find out things for themselves, or they will never grow to be men; so that you must ask all the beasts in the sea and the birds in the air, and if you have been good to them, some of them will tell you the way to Shiny Wall.”

“Well,” said Tom, “it will be a long journey, so I had better start at once.  Good-bye, Miss Ellie; you know I am getting a big boy, and I must go out and see the world.”

“I know you must,” said Ellie; “but you will not forget me, Tom.  I shall wait here till you come.”

And she shook hands with him, and bade him good-bye.  Tom longed very much again to kiss her; but he thought it would not be respectful, considering she was a lady born.  So he promised not to forget her; but his little whirl-about of a head was so full of the notion of going out to see the world, that it forgot her in five minutes; however, though his head forgot her, I am glad to say his heart did not.

[Illustration:  Tom looking up at a bird wearing glasses on a boulder.]

So he asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the birds in the air, but none of them knew the way to Shiny Wall.  For why?  He was still too far down south.  But for that there was a remedy.  And so he swam northward, day after day, till at last he met the King of the Herrings, with a currycomb growing out of his nose, and a sprat in his mouth for a cigar, and asked him the way to Shiny Wall; so he bolted the sprat head foremost, and said: 

“If I were you, young gentleman, I should go to the Allalonestone, and ask the last of the Gairfowl. [Footnote:  Gairfoul, or garefowl, was another name for the great auk.  This bird was about thirty inches long, and its wings were so small in proportion to its body that it could not fly.  There have been no great auks since about the middle of the nineteenth century.] She is of a very ancient clan, very nearly as ancient as my own; and knows a good deal which these modern upstarts don’t, as ladies of old houses are likely to do.”

Tom asked his way to her, and the King of the Herrings told him very kindly, for he was a courteous old gentleman of the old school, though he was horribly ugly, and strangely bedizened too, like the old dandies who lounge in clubhouse windows.