The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley 7:2 Free Children's Library Audiobooks Traditional.
chapter 7 part 2 of the water babies by charles kingsley read for librivox.org by corey samuel
then the petrols asked this bird and that whether they would take tom to shiny wall but one set was going to sutherland and one to the shetlands and one to norway and one to spitzbergen and one to iceland and one to greenland but none would go to shiny wall so the good-natured petrols said that they would show him part of the way themselves but they were only going as far as jan mayan's land and after that he must shift for himself and then all the birds rose up and streamed away in long black lines north and northeast and north west across the bright blue summer sky and their cry was like ten thousand packs of hounds and ten thousand peels of bells only the puffins stayed behind and killed the young rabbits and lay their eggs in the rabbit burrows which was rough practice certainly but a man must see to his own family
and as tom and the petrols went north eastward it began to blow right hard for the old gentleman in the grey great coat who looks after the big copper boiler in the gulf of mexico had got behind hand with his work so mother kerry had sent an electric message to him for more steam and now the steam was coming as much in an hour as ought to have come in a week puffing and roaring and swishing and swirling till you could not see where the sky ended and the sea began but tom and the petrols never cared for the gale was right about and away they went over the crests of the billows as merry as so many flying fish and at last they saw an ugly sight the black side of a great ship waterlogged in the trough of the sea her funnel and her masts were overboard and swayed and surged under her lea her decks were swept as clean as a barn floor and there was no living soul on board the petrols flew up to her and wailed round her for they were very sorry indeed and also they expected to find some salt pork and tom scrambled on board of her and looked round frightened and sad and there in a little cot lashed tight under the bulwark lay a baby fast asleep the very same baby tom saw at once which he had seen in the singing lady's arms he went up to it and wanted to wake it but behold from under the cot out jumped a little black and tan terrier dog and began barking and snapping at tom and would not let him touch the cot tom knew the dog's teeth could not hurt him but at least it could shove him away and did and he and the dog fought and struggled for he wanted to help the baby and did not want to throw the poor dog overboard but as they were struggling there came a tall green sea and walked in over the weather side of the ship and swept them all into the waves
oh the baby the baby screamed tom but the next moment he did not scream at all for he saw the cot settling down through the green water with the baby smiling in it fast asleep and he saw the fairies come up from below and carry baby and cradle gently down in their soft arms and then he knew it was all right and that there would be a new water baby in saint brandon's aisle and the poor little dog why after he had kicked and coughed a little he sneezed so hard that he sneezed himself clean out of his skin and turned into a water dog and jumped and danced around tom and ran over the crests of the waves and snapped at the jellyfish and the mackerel and followed tom the whole way to the other end of nowhere then they went on again till they began to see the peak of jan mayan's land standing up like a white sugarloaf two miles above the clouds and there they fell in with a whole flock of molly mocks who were feeding on a dead whale these are the fellows to show you the way said mother carey's chickens we cannot help you farther north we don't like to get among the ice pack for fear it should nip our toes but the mollies dare fly anywhere so the petrols called...