Bevis: The Story of a Boy

by Richard Jefferies

them, no doubtremembering when he used to do it himself; but as for the performers,all they thought about him was that they would like to squail a stick athis high and ancient hat aslant on his head.

  Presently they rambled into a nut copse over the hill. The nuts werenot ripe, and there was nothing much to be done there, but it was acopse, and copses are always pleasant to search about in. Mark returnedto the sliding, Bevis sat down on the summit, and at first looked on,but after a while he became lost in his dreamy mood.

  Far away the blue-tinted valley went out to the horizon, and the sun wassuspended over it like a lamp hung from the ceiling, as it seemed nohigher than the hill on which he sat. Underneath was the house, andround the tiled gables the swallows were busy going to and fro theirnests. The dovecot and the great barn, the red apples in the orchard,the mill-pool and the grey mill, he could almost put his hand out onthem.

  Beyond these came the meads, and then the trees closed together liketroops at the bugle call, making a limitless forest, and in this was anarrow bright gleam, like a crooked reaping-hook thrown down. It wasthe New Sea. After which there was no definition, surface only, fainterand fainter to the place where the white clouds went through the door ofdistance and disappeared. He did not see these, and only just knew thatthe wheat at his back rustled as the light wind came over. It was thevast aerial space, and the golden circle of the sun. He did not think,he felt, and listened to it.

  Mark shouted presently that Jack was coming home; so he ran down, andthey went to meet him. Jack put up the target after tea. It was asquare of rusty sheet-iron, on which he drew a circle with chalk sixinches in diameter, and outside that another about two feet. This heplaced against the steep hill--the very best of butts--keeping itupright with two stakes, which he drove in the sward. He measured ahundred yards by stepping, and put three flints in a row to mark thespot. The rifle was loaded and the bullet rammed home with the ironramrod, which had a round smooth handle at the end, so that you mightforce the lead into the grooves.

  Jack fired, and missed; fired again, and missed; shot a third time afterlonger aim, and still there was no ringing sound and no jagged hole inthe sheet-iron. Bevis tried, and Mark tried, and Jack again, but theycould not hit it. More powder was used, and then less powder; thebullet was jammed home hard by knocking the ramrod with a fragment ofpost (the first thing that came handy), and then it was only just pusheddown to the powder. All in vain. The noise of the reports had nowbrought together a number of labourers and cottage boys, who sat on thesummit of the hill in a row.

  They fired standing up, kneeling down, lying at full length. A chairwas fetched, and the barrel was placed on the rung at the back as arest, but not a single hole was made in the target. Mark wanted to gonearer and try at fifty yards, but Jack would not; the rifle was made tokill deer at a hundred yards, and at a hundred yards he intended to useit. He was getting very angry, for he prided himself on his shooting,and was in fact a good shot with the double-barrel; but this littlerifle--a mere toy--defied him; he could not manage it. They firedbetween thirty and forty shots, till every bullet they had ready castwas gone.

  The earth was scored by the target, cut up in front of it, ploughed tothe right and left, drilled over it high up, but the broad sheet-ironwas untouched.

  Jack threatened to pitch the rifle into the mill-pool, and so disgustedwas he that very likely he would have done it had not Bevis and Markbegged him earnestly not to do so. He put it up on the rack, and wentoff, and they did not see him till supper-time. He was as much out oftemper as it was possible for him to be.

  When they went to their bedroom that night, Bevis and Mark talked itover, and fully agreed that if they only had the rifle all to themselvesthey could do it.

  "I'm sure we could," said Bevis.

  "Of course we could," said Mark. "There's only something you have tofind out."

  "As easy as nothing," said Bevis.

  Volume Two, Chapter VI.

  SAILING.

  At Bevis's home the authorities were still more wroth when they receivedthe scrap of paper sent by Charlie, who scampered off before he could bequestioned. There was more wrath about the battle than any of theirprevious misdeeds, principally because it was something novel. No onewas hurt, and no one had even had much of a knock, except the largerboys, who could stand it. There was more rattling of weapons togetherthan wounds. Ted's forehead was bruised, and Bevis's ankle was tenderwhere some one had stepped on it while he was down. This was nothing tothe bruises they had often had at football.

  The fall over the quarry indeed might have been serious, so too thesinking of the punt; but both those were extrinsic matters, and theymight have fought twenty Pharsalias without such incidents. All of themhad had good sense enough to adhere to the agreement they had come tobefore the fighting. They could not anyhow have hurt themselves morethan they commonly did at football, so that the authorities were perhapsa little too bitter about it. If only they had known what was going on,and had had it explained, if it had not been kept secret, so that theanxiety about Bevis being lost might not have been so great, there wouldnot have been much trouble.

  But now Bevis and Mark were in deep disgrace. As for their going awaythey might go and stay away if they wished. For the first day, indeed,it was quite a relief, the house was so quiet and peaceful; it was likea new life altogether. It would be a very good plan to despatch theserebels to a distance, where they would be fully employed, and undersupervision. How peaceful it would be! The governor and Bevis's motherthought with such a strain removed they should live fully ten yearslonger.

  But next day somehow it did not seem so pleasant. There was a sense ofemptiness about the house. The rooms were vacant, and occasional voicessounded hollow. No one chattered at breakfast. At dinner-time Pan wascalled in that there might be some company, and in the stillness theycould hear the ring, ring of the blacksmith's hammer on his anvil. WhenBevis was at home they could never hear that.

  The governor rode off in the afternoon, and Bevis's mother thought nowthese tormentors were absent it would be a good time to sit down calmlyat some needlework.

  Every five minutes she got up and looked out of window. Who was thatbanged the outer gate? Was it Bevis? The familiar patter of steps onthe flags, the confused murmur which came before them did not follow.It was only John Young gone out into the road. The clock ticked soloud, and Pan snored in the armchair, and looked at her reproachfullywhen she woke him. By-and-by she went upstairs into their bedroom. Thebed was made, but no one had slept in it.

  There was a gimlet on the dressing-table, and Bevis's purse on thefloor, and the half-sovereign in it. A great tome, an ancientencyclopaedia, which Bevis had dragged upstairs, was lying on a chair,open at "Magic." Mark's pocket-knife was stuck in the bed-post, and inhis best hat there were three corn-crake's eggs, blown, of course, andput there for safety, as he never wore it.

  She went to the window, and the swallows came to their nests above underthe eaves. Bevis's jackets and things were lying everywhere, and as sheleft the room she saw a curious mark on the threshold, all angles andpoints. He had been trying to draw the wizard's foot there, inking thefive angles, to keep out the evil spirits and witches, according to theproper way, lest they should take the magician by surprise.

  Next she went to the bench-room--their armoury--and lifted the latch,but it was locked, the key in Bevis's pocket. The door rattled hollow.She looked through the keyhole, and could see the crossbow and therigging for the ship. Downstairs again, sitting with her needlework,she heard the carrier's van go by, marking the time to be about four.There was the booing of distant cows, and then a fly buzzed on the pane.She took off her thimble and looked at old Pan in the armchair--oldPan, Bevis's friend.

  It was deadly quiet. No shout, and bang, and clatter upstairs. No loud"I must," "I will." No rushing through the room, upsetting chairs,twisting tables askew. No "Ma, where's the hammer?" "Ma, where's mybow?" "Ma, where's my hat?"

>   She rang the bell, and told Polly to go down and ask Frances to come andtake tea with her, as she was quite alone. Frances came, and all thetalk was about Bevis, and Mark, and big Jack. So soon as she had heardabout the battle Frances immediately took their part, and thought it wasvery ingenious of Bevis to contrive it, and brave to fight sodesperately. Then mamma discovered that it was very good of Mark, andvery affectionate, and very brave to row all up the water in the stormto fetch Bevis from the island.

  When the governor returned, to his surprise, he found two ladiesconfronting him with reasons why Bevis and Mark were heroes instead ofscamps. He did not agree, but it was of no use; of course he had toyield, and the result was the dog-cart was sent for them on thefollowing morning. But Bevis was not in the least hurry to return, nota bit. He was disposed, on the contrary, to disobey, and remain wherehe was.