Bevis: The Story of a Boy
Page 6
the hatchet.Look out!"
The splashing increased; then there was a "Yowp!" and Pan, the spaniel,suddenly appeared out of the flags by the osier-bed. He raced acrossthe ground there, and jumped into the brook again, and immediately amoorcock, which he had been hunting, scuttled along the water, beatingwith his wings, and scrambling with his long legs hanging down, usingboth air and water to fly from his enemy. As he came near he saw Bevison the willow, and rose out of the brook over the bank. Bevis hit athim with his pole, but missed; and Mark hurled the hatchet in vain. Themoorcock flew straight across the meadow to another withy-bed, and thendisappeared. It was only by threats that they stopped the spaniel fromfollowing.
Pan having got his plateful by patiently waiting about the doorway,after he had licked his chops, and turned up the whites of his eyes, tosee if he could persuade them to give him any more, walked into therick-yard, and choosing a favourite spot upon some warm straw--for strawbecomes quite hot under sunshine--lay down and took a nap. When heawoke, having settled matters with the fleas, he strolled back to theha-ha wall, and, seeing Bevis and Mark still busy by the brook, wentdown to know what they were doing. But first going to a place he wellknew to lap he scented the moorcock, and gave chase.
"Come here," said Bevis; and, seizing the spaniel by the skin of hisneck, he dragged him in the raft, stepped in quickly after, and held Panwhile Mark hauled at the tow-line. But when Bevis had to take the poleto guide the raft from striking the bank Pan jumped out in a moment,preferring to swim rather than to ride in comfort, nor could anypersuasions or threats get him on again. He barked along the shore,while Mark hauled and Bevis steered the craft.
Having beached her at the drinking-place on the shelving strand, theythought they had better go up the river a little way, and see if therewere any traces of Indians; and, following the windings of the stream,they soon came to the hatch. Above the hatch the water was smooth, asit usually is where it is deep and approaching the edge, and Bevis'squick eye caught sight of a tiny ripple there near one bank, so tinythat it hardly extended across the brook, and disappeared after thethird wavelet.
"Keep Pan there!" he said. "Hit him--hit him harder than that; hedoesn't mind."
Mark punched the spaniel, who crouched; but, nevertheless, his bodycrept, as it were, towards the hatch, where Bevis was climbing over.Bevis took hold of the top rail, put his foot on the rail below, allgreen and slippery with weeds where the water splashed, like the rockswhere the sea comes, then his other foot further along, and so got overwith the deep water in front, and the roar of the fall under, and thebubbles rushing down the stream. The bank was very steep, but there wasa notch to put the foot in, and a stout hawthorn stem--the thorns onwhich had long since been broken off for the purpose--gave him somethingto hold to and by which to lift himself up.
Then he walked stealthily along the bank--it overhung the dark deepwater, and seemed about to slip in under him. There was a plantation oftrees on that side, and on the other a hawthorn hedge, so that it was aquiet and sheltered spot. As he came to the place where he had seen theripple, he looked closer, and in among a bunch of rushes, with the greenstalks standing up all round it, he saw a moorhen's nest. It was madeof rushes, twined round like a wreath, or perhaps more like a largegreen turban, and there were three or four young moorhens in it. Theold bird had slipped away as he came near, and diving under the surfacerose ten yards off under a projecting bush.
Bevis dropped on his knee to take one of the young birds, but in aninstant they rolled out of the nest, with their necks thrust out infront, and fell splash in the water, where they swam across, one with apiece of shell clinging to its back, and another piece of shell waswashed from it by the water. Pan was by his side in a minute; he hadheard the splash, and seen the young moorhens, and with a whine, as Markkicked him--unable to hold him any longer--he rushed across.
"They are such pretty dear little things," said Bevis, in an ecstasy ofsentiment, calling to Mark. "Lie down!" banging Pan with a dead branchwhich he hastily snatched up. The spaniel's back sounded hollow as thewood rebounded, and broke on his ribs. "Such dear little things! Iwould not have them hurt for anything."
Bang again on Pan's back, who gave up the attempt, knowing from soreexperience that Bevis was not to be trifled with. But by the time Markhad got there the little moorhens had hidden in the grasses beside thestream, though one swam out for a minute, and then concealed itselfagain.
"Don't you love them?" said Bevis. "I do. I'll _smash_ you,"--to Pan,cowering at his feet.
The moorhens did not appear again, so they went back and sat on the topof the steep bank, their legs dangling over the edge above the bubblingwater.
A broad cool shadow from the trees had fallen over the hatch, for theafternoon had gone on, and the sun was declining behind them over thewestern hills. A broad cool shadow, whose edges were far away, so thatthey were in the midst of it. The thrushes sang in the ashes, for theyknew that the quiet evening, with the dew they love, was near. Abullfinch came to the hawthorn hedge just above the hatch, looked in andout once or twice, and then stepped inside the spray near his nest. Ayellow-hammer called from the top of a tree, and another answered himacross the field. Afar in the mowing-grass the crake lifted his voice,for he talks more as the sun sinks.
The swirling water went round and round under the fall, with lines ofwhite bubbles rising, and quivering masses of yellowish foam ledged onthe red rootlets under the bank and against the flags. The swirlingwater, ceaselessly beaten by the descending stream coming on it with along-continued blow, returned to be driven away again. A steady roar ofthe fall, and a rippling sound above it of bursting bubbles and crossingwavelets of the hastening stream, notched and furrowed over stones,frowning in eager haste. The rushing and the coolness, and the song ofthe brook and the birds, and the sense of the sun sinking, stilled evenBevis and Mark a little while. They sat and listened, and said nothing;the delicious brook filled their ears with music.
Next minute Bevis seized Pan by the neck and pitched him over into thebubbles. In an instant, before he came to the surface, as his weightcarried him beneath, Pan was swept down the stream, and when he came uphe could not swim against it, but was drifted away till he made for theflags, which grew on a shallow spot. There he easily got out, shookhimself, and waited for them to come over.
"I am hungry," said Mark. "What ought we to have to eat; what is righton the Mississippi? I don't believe they have tea. There is Pollyshouting for us."
"No," said Bevis thoughtfully; "I don't think they do. How stupid ofher to stand there shouting and waving her handkerchief, as if we couldnot find our way straight across the trackless prairie. I know--we willhave some honey! Don't you know? Of course the hunters find lots ofwild honey in the hollow trees. We will have some honey; there's a bigjar full."
So they got over the hatch, and went home, leaving their tools scatteredhither and thither beside the Mississippi. They climbed up the ha-hawall, putting the toes of their boots where the flat stones of which itwas built, without mortar, were farthest apart, and so made steps whilethey could hold to the wiry grass-tufts on the top.
"Where's your hat?" said Polly to Bevis.
"I don't know," said Bevis. "I suppose it's in the brook. It doesn'tmatter."
Volume One, Chapter IV.
DISCOVERY OF THE NEW SEA.
Next morning Bevis went out into the meadow to try and find a plantwhose leaves, or one of them, always pointed to the north, like a greencompass lying on the ground. There was one in the prairies by which thehunters directed themselves across those oceans of grass without alandmark as the mariners at sea. Why should there not be one in themeadows here--in these prairies--by which to guide himself from forestto forest, from hedge to hedge, where there was no path? If there was apath it was not proper to follow it, nor ought you to know your way; youought to find it by sign.
He had "blazed" ever so many boughs of the hedges with the hatchet, orhis knife if he had
not got the hatchet with him, to recognise his routethrough the woods. When he found a nest begun or finished, and waitingfor the egg, he used to cut a "blaze"--that is, to peel off the bark--ormake a notch, or cut a bough off about three yards from the place, sothat he might easily return to it, though hidden with foliage. No doubtthe grass had a secret of this kind, and could tell him which was theway, and which was the north and south if he searched long enough.
So the raft being an old story now, as he had had it a day, Bevis wentout into the field, looking very carefully down into the grass. Just bythe path there were many plantains, but their long, narrow leaves didnot point in any particular direction, no two plants had their leavesparallel. The blue scabious had no leaves to speak of, nor had the redknapweed, nor the yellow rattle, nor the white