Bevis: The Story of a Boy
Page 90
to it than sand and gravel. Theyare but stones, hard, cold, pitiful, that which gives them their lustreis the light. Through delicate porcelain sometimes the light comes, andit is not the porcelain, it is the light that is lovely. But porcelainis clay, and the light is shorn, checked, and shrunken. Down throughthe beauteous azure came the Light itself, pure, unreflected Light,untouched, untarnished even by the dew-sweetened petal of a flower,descending, flowing like a wind, a wind of glory sweeping through theblue. A luminous purple glowing as Love glows in the cheek, so glowedthe passion of the heavens.
Two things only reach the soul. By touch there is indeed emotion. Butthe light in the eye, the sound of the voice! the soul trembles and likea flame leaps to meet them. So to the luminous purple azure his heartascended.
Bevis, the lover of the sky, gazed and forgot; forgot as we forget thatour pulses beat, having no labour to make them. Nor did he hear thesouth wind singing in the fir tops.
I do not know how any can slumber with this over them; how any can lookdown at the clods. The greatest wonder on earth is that there are anynot able to see the earth's surpassing beauty. Such moments are beyondthe chronograph and any measure of wheels, the passing of one cog may beequal to a century, for the mind has no time. What an incredible marvelit is that there are human creatures that slumber threescore and tenyears, and look down at the clods and then say, "We are old, we havelived seventy years." Seventy years! The passing of one cog is longer;seven hundred times seventy years would not equal the click of thetiniest cog while the mind was living its own life. Sleep and clods,with the glory of the earth, and the sun, and the sea, and the endlessether around us! Incredible marvel this sleep and clods and talk ofyears. But I suppose it was only a second or two, for some slightmovement attracted him, and he looked, and instantly the vision abovewas forgotten.
Upon the willow trunk prone in the water, he saw a brown creature largerthan any animal commonly seen, but chiefly in length, withsharp-pointed, triangular ears set close to its head. In his excitementhe did not recognise it as he aimed. Behind the fir trunks he washidden, and he was on high ground--animals seldom look up--thecreature's head too was farthest from him. He steadied the long, heavybarrel against a fir trunk, heedless of a streak of viscous turpentinesap which his hand pressed.
The trigger was partly drawn--his arm shook, he sighed--he checkedhimself, held his breath tight, and fired. The ball plunged and thecreature was jerked up rebounding and fell in the water. He dasheddown, leaped in--as it happened the water was very shallow--and seizedit as it splashed a little from mere muscular contraction. Aimed at thehead, the ball had passed clean through between the shoulders and burieditself in the willow trunk. The animal was dead before he touched it.He tore home and threw it on the bed: "Mark!"
"O!" said Mark. "An otter!"
Their surprise was great, for they had never suspected an otter. No onehad ever seen one there that they had heard of, no one had even supposedit possible. These waters were far from a river, they were fed byrivulets supporting nothing beyond a kingfisher. To get there the ottermust have ascended the brook from the river, a bold and adventurousjourney, passing hatches and farmhouses set like forts by the water'sedge, passing mills astride the stream.
The hare had been admired, but it was nothing to the otter, which was asrare there as a black fox. They looked at its broad flat head--hold acat's head up under the chin, that is a little like it--the sharp,triangular ears set close to the head, the webbed feet, the fur, thelong tail decreasing to a blunt point. It must be preserved; they couldskin it, but could not stuff it; still it must be done. The governormust see it, mamma, the Jolly Old Moke, Frances, Val, Cecil, Charlie,Ted, Big Jack--all. Must!
This was the cause then of the curious wave they had seen which movedwithout wind--no, Mark remembered that once being near the wave he hadseen something white under the surface. The wave was not caused by theotter, but most likely it was the otter Pan had scented on Bamboo Islandwhen he seemed so excited, and they could see no reason. The otter mustbe preserved--must!
While they breakfasted, while they bathed, this was the talk. Presentlythey heard the slave's whistle and fetched her on the raft. Now, Loo,cunning hussy, waited till she was safely landed on the island, and thentold them that dear mamma and Frances were going that day up to Jack'sto see them. Loo had been sent for to go to the town on an errand, andshe had heard it mentioned. Instead of going on the errand she ran toplay slave.
Charlie had had some knowledge of this yesterday, and waved his capinstead of the white handkerchief as a warning, but they did not see it.If mamma and Frances drove up to Jack's to see them, of course it wouldbe at once discovered that they were not at Jack's, and then what anoise there would be.
"Hateful," said Mark. "It seems to me we're getting near the hateful`Other Side.'"
Volume Three, Chapter XV.
NEW FORMOSA--THE BLACK SAIL.
Now, at the Other Side, i.e. at home, things had gone smoothly for themtill the day before, in a measure owing to the harvest, and for the restto the slow ways of old-fashioned country people. When they had goneaway to Jack's before in disgrace, Bevis's mother could not rest, theticking of the clock in the silent house, the distant beat of theblacksmith's hammer, every little circumstance of the day jarred uponher. But on this occasion they had, she believed, gone for their ownpleasure, and though she missed them, they were not apart and separatedby a gulf of anger.
Busy with the harvest, there was no visiting, no one came down fromJack's, and so the two slipped for the moment out of the life of thehamlet. Presently Bevis's short but affectionate letter arrived, andprevented any suspicion arising, for no one noticed the postmark. Mammawrote by return, and when her letter addressed to Bevis was delivered atJack's you would have supposed the secret would have come out. So itwould in town life--a letter would have been written saying that Beviswas not there, and asking where to forward it.
But not so at the old house in the hills. Jack's mother put it on theshelf, remarking that no doubt Bevis was coming, and would be thereto-morrow or next day. As for Jack he was too busy to think about it,and if he had not been he would have taken little notice, knowing fromformer experience that Bevis might turn up at any moment. The letterremained on the shelf.
On the Saturday the carrier left a parcel for Bevis--at any other time amessenger would have been sent, and then their absence would have beendiscovered--but no one could be spared from the field. The parcelcontained clean collars, cuffs, and similar things which they neverthought of taking with them, but which mamma did not forget. Like theletter the parcel was put aside for Bevis when he did come; the parcelindeed was accepted as proof positive that he was coming. Jack's mothernever touched a pen if she could by any means avoid it, old countrypeople put off letter-writing till absolutely compelled.
On the Sunday afternoon while Bevis and Mark were lying under thefir-trees in New Formosa, dear mamma, always thinking of her boy and hisfriend, was up in her bedroom turning over the yellowish fly-leaves atthe end of an old Book of Common Prayer, too large to go to and fro tochurch, and which was always in the room. Upon these fly-leaves she hadwritten down from time to time the curious little things that Bevis hadsaid. In the very early morning (before he could talk) he used to situp in the bed while she still slept, and try to pick her eyelids openwith finger and thumb. What else could a dumb creature do that wishedto be looked at with loving eyes and fondled?
There it was entered, too, how when he was a "Bobby," all little boysare "Bobbies," he called himself Bobaysche, and said mejjible-bone forvegetable marrow. Desiring to speak of wheat, and unable to recall itsproper term, he called it bread-seed; and one day stroking his favouritekitten asked "If God had a pussy?" It was difficult for him to expresswhat time he meant, "When that yesterday that came yesterday went away,"was his paraphrase for the day before yesterday.
One day in the sitting-room he fancied himself a hunter with a dart, andseizing th
e poker balanced it over his head. He became so excited helaunched his dart at the flying quarry, and it went through thewindow-pane. In a day or two--workmen are not to be got in a hurry inthe country--an old glazier trudged out to put in fresh glass, and whilehe cut out the dry putty and measured his glass, and drew the diamondpoint across, Bevis emptied his tool-basket and admired the chisels andhammers. By and by, tired of things which he was not permitted to uselest he should cut himself, he threw them in and handed the basket tothe workman: "Here," he said, "Here--take your toys!"
Toys indeed. The old man had laboured fifty years with these toys tillhis mind had become with monotony as horny and unimpressionable as hishand. He smiled: he did not see the other meaning that those childishwords convey.
Nothing then pleased Bevis so much as moving furniture, the noise