Bevis: The Story of a Boy
Page 20
crevices had cracked, andthe moss had dried up and was ready to crumble. The water came throughevery where, and the raft was half-full even when left to itself withoutany pressure.
"We ought to have thatched it," said Mark. "We ought to have made aroof over it. Let's stop the leaks."
"O! come on," said Bevis, "don't let's bother. Rafts are no good, nomore than poles or oars when you fall overboard. We shall have a shipsoon."
The raft was an old story, and he did not care about it. He went onwith the leaping-pole, but Mark stayed a minute and hauled the raft onshore as far as his strength would permit. He got about a quarter of iton the ground, so that it could not float away, and then ran afterBevis.
They went into the Peninsula, and looked at all the fir-trees, to see ifany would do for a mast for the blue boat they were to have. As it hadno name, they called it the blue boat to distinguish it from the punt.Mark thought an ash-pole would do for the mast, as ash-poles were sostraight and could be easily shaved to the right size; but Bevis wouldnot hear of it, for masts were never made of ash, but always of pine,and they must have their ship proper. He selected a tree presently, ayoung fir, straight as an arrow, and started Mark for the axe, butbefore he had gone ten yards Mark came back, saying that the tree wouldbe of no use unless they liked to wait till next year, because it wouldbe green, and the mast ought, to be made of seasoned wood.
"So it ought," said Bevis. "What a lot of trouble it is to make aship."
But as they sat on the railing across the isthmus swinging their legs,Mark remembered that there were some fir-poles which had been cut a longtime since behind the great wood-pile, between it and the walnut-trees,out of sight. Without a word away they ran, chose one of these andcarried it into the shed where Bevis usually worked. They had got thedead bark off and were shaving away when it was dinner-time, which theythought a bore, but which wise old Pan, who was never chained now,considered the main object of life.
Next morning as they went through the meadow, where the dew stilllingered in the shade, on the way to the bathing-place, taking Pan withthem this time, they hung about the path picking clover-heads andsucking the petals, pulling them out and putting the lesser ends intheir lips, looking at the white and pink bramble flowers, noting wherethe young nuts began to show, pulling down the woodbine, and doingeverything but hasten on to their work of swimming. They stopped at thegate by the New Sea, over whose smooth surface slight breaths of mistwere curling, and stood kicking the ground and the stones as flightyhorses paw.
"We ought to be something," said Mark discontentedly.
"Of course we ought," said Bevis. "Things are very stupid unless youare something."
"Lions and tigers," said Mark, growling, and showing his teeth.
"Pooh!"
"Shipwrecked people on an island."
"Fiddle! They have plenty to do and are always happy, and we are not."
"No; very unhappy. Let's try escaping--prisoners running away."
"Hum! Hateful!"
"Everything's hateful."
"So it is."
"This is a very stupid sea."
"There's nothing in it."
"Nothing anywhere."
"Let's be hermits."
"There's always only one hermit."
"Well, you live that side," (pointing across), "and I'll live this."
"Hermits eat pulse and drink water."
"What's pulse?"
"I suppose it's barley water."
"Horrid."
"Awful."
"You say what we shall be then."
"Pan, you old donk," said Bevis, rolling Pan over with his foot. LazyPan lay on his back, and let Bevis bend his ribs with his foot.
"Caw, caw!" a crow went over down to the shore, where he hoped to find amussel surprised by the dawn in shallow water.
Bang! "Hoi! Hoo! Yah!" The discharge was half a mile away, but thecrow altered his mind, and flew over the water as near the surface as hecould without touching. Why do birds always cross the water in thatway?
"That's Tom," said Mark. Tom was the bird-keeper. He shot first, andshouted after. He potted a hare in the corn with bits of flint, abutton, three tin tacks, and a horse-stub, which scraped the old barrelinside, but slew the game. That was for himself. Then he shouted hisloudest to do his duty--for other people. The sparrows had flown out ofthe corn at the noise of the gun, and settled on the hedge; when Tomshouted they were frightened from the hedge, and went back into thewheat. From which learn this, shoot first and shout after.
"Shall we say that was a gun at sea?" continued Mark.
"They are always heard at night," said Bevis. "Pitch black, you know."
"Everything is somehow else," said Mark. Pan closed his idle old eyes,and grunted with delight as Bevis rubbed his ribs with his foot. Bevisput his hands in his pockets and sighed deeply. The sun looked down onthese sons of care, and all the morning beamed.
"Savages!" shouted Mark kicking the gate to with a slam that startledPan up. "Savages, of course!"
"Why?"
"They swim, donk: don't they? They're always in the water, and theyhave catamarans and ride the waves and dance on the shore, and blowshells--"
"Trumpets?"
"Yes."
"Canoes?"
"Yes."
"No clothes?"
"No."
"All jolly?"
"Everything."
"Hurrah!"
Away they ran towards the bathing-place to be savages, but Mark stoppedsuddenly, and asked what sort they were? They decided that they werethe South Sea sort, and raced on again, Pan keeping pace with a kind ofshamble; he was too idle to run properly. They dashed into the water,each with a wood-pigeon's feather, which they had found under thesycamore-trees above the quarry, stuck in his hair. At the first divethe feathers floated away. Upon the other side of the rails there was alarge aspen-tree whose lowest bough reached out over the water, whichwas shallow there.
Though they made such a splashing when Bevis looked over the railings amoment, he saw some little roach moving to and fro under the bough. Thewavelets from his splashing rolled on to the sandy shore, rippling underthe aspen. As he looked, a fly fell on its back out of the tree, andstruggled in vain to get up. Bevis climbed over the rails, picked anaspen leaf, and put it under the fly, which thus on a raft, and tossedup and down as Mark dived, was floated slowly by the undulations to thestrand. As he got over the rails a kingfisher shot out from the mouthof the Nile opposite, and crossed aslant the gulf, whistling as he flew.
"Look!" said Mark. "Don't you know that's a `sign.' Savages read`signs,' and those birds mean that there are heaps of fish."
"Yes, but we ought to have a proper language."
"Kalabala-blong!" said Mark.
"Hududu-blow-fluz!" replied Bevis, taking a header from the top of therail on which he had been sitting, and on which he just contrived tobalance himself a moment without falling backwards.
"Umplumum!" he shouted, coming up again.
"Ikiklikah," and Mark disappeared.
"Noklikah," said Bevis, giving him a shove under as he came up tobreathe.
"That's not fair," said Mark, scrambling up.
Bevis was swimming, and Mark seized his feet. More splashing andshouting, and the rocks resound. The echo of their voices returned fromthe quarry and the high bank under the firs.
They raced presently down to the elms along the sweet soft turf,sprinkling the dry grass with the sparkling drops from their limbs, andthe sunlight shone on their white shoulders. The wind blew and strokedtheir gleaming backs. They rolled and tumbled on the grass, and theearth was under them. From the water to the sun and the wind and thegrass.
They played round the huge sycamore trunks above the quarry, and themassive boughs stretched over--from a distance they would have seemedmere specks beneath the immense trees. They raced across to a roundhollow in the field and sat down at the bottom, so that they could seenothing but the sky over
head, and the clouds drifting. They lay at fulllength, and for a moment were still and silent; the sunbeam and thewind, the soft touch of the grass, the gliding cloud, the eye-loved bluegave them the delicious sense of growing strong in drowsy luxury.
Then with a shout, renewed, they ran, and Pan who had been waiting bytheir clothes was startled into a bark of excitement at their suddenonslaught. As they went homewards they walked round to the littlesheltered bay where the boats were kept, to look at the blue boat andmeasure for the mast. It was beside the punt, half drawn up on thesand, and fastened to a willow root. She was an ill-built