Bevis: The Story of a Boy

they knew. These specks of brightness by the dingy wallsand grey thatch and whitened turf, for the chalk was but an inch under,came of instinct on that southern slope, as hot Spain flaunts a yellowflag.

  Six or eight children were about. One sat crying in the midst of thepath, so unconscious under the wrong he had endured as not to see them,and they had to step right over his red head. Some stared at them withunchecked rudeness; one or two curtseyed or tugged at their forelocks.The happiest of all was sitting on the breastwork (of dry earth) eatinga small turnip from which he had cut the dirt and rind with a rustytable-knife. As they passed he grinned and pushed the turnip in theirfaces, as much as to say, "Have a bite." Two or three women looked outafter they had gone by, and then some one cried, "Baa!" making a noiselike a sheep, at which the girl who led them flushed up, and walked veryquickly, with scorn and rage, and hatred flashing in her eye. It was ataunt. Her father was in gaol for lamb-stealing. Her name wasAholibah, and they taunted her by dwelling on the last syllable.

  The path went to the top of the hill, and round under a red barn, andnow they could see the village, of which these detached cottages were anoutpost, scattered over the slope, and on the plain on the other side ofthe coombe, a quarter of a mile distant.

  "There's the windmill," said the girl, pointing to the tower-likebuilding. "You go tow-ward he. He be on the road. Then you turn tothe right till you comes to the handing-post. Then you go to the left,and that'll take 'ee straight whoam."

  "Thank you," said Bevis. "I know now; it's not far to Big Jack's house.Please have this sixpence," and he gave her the coin, which he hadunconsciously held in his hand ever since he had taken it out to pay forthe gooseberries. It was all he had; he could not keep his money.

  She took it, but her eyes were on him, and not on the money; she wouldhave liked to have kissed him. She watched them till she saw they hadgot into the straight road, and then went back, but not past thecottages.

  They found the road very long, very long and dull, and dusty and empty,except that there was a young labourer--a huge fellow--lying across aflint heap asleep, his mouth open and the flies thick on his forehead.Bevis pulled a spray from the hedge and laid it gently across his face.Except for the sleeping labourer, the road was vacant, and every stepthey took they went slower and slower. There were no lions here, ormonstrous pythons, or anything magic.

  "We shall never get home," said Mark.

  "I don't believe we ever shall," said Bevis; "I hate this road."

  While they yawned and kicked at stray flints, or pelted the sparrows onthe hedge, a dog-cart came swiftly up behind them. It ran swift andsmooth and even balanced, the slender shafts bending slightly like thespars of a yacht.

  It was drawn by a beautiful chestnut mare, too powerful by far for many,which struck out with her fore-feet as if measuring space and carryingthe car of a god in the sky, throwing her feet as if there were no roadbut elastic air beneath them. The man was very tall and broad and satupright--a wonderful thing in a countryman. His head was broad likehimself, his eyes blue, and he had a long thick yellowy beard. Thereins were strained taut like a yacht's cordage, but the mare was in thehollow of his strong hand.

  They did not hear the hoofs till he was close, for they were on a flintheap, searching for the best to throw.

  "It's Jack," said Mark.

  Jack looked them very hard in the face, but it did not seem to dawn uponhim who they were till he had gone past a hundred yards, and then hepulled up and beckoned. He said nothing but tapped the seat beside him.Bevis climbed up in front, Mark knelt on the seat behind--so as to lookin the direction they were going. They drove two miles and Jack saidnothing, then he spoke:--

  "Where have you been?"

  "To Calais."

  "Bad--bad," said Jack. "Don't go there again." At the turnpike it tookhim three minutes to find enough to pay the toll. He had a divine mare,his harness, his cart were each perfect. Yet for all his broadshoulders he could barely muster up a groat. He pulled up presentlywhen there were but two fields between them and the house at Longcot; hewanted to go down the lane, and they alighted to walk across the fields.After they had got down and were just turning to mount the gate, andthe mare obeying the reins had likewise half turned. Jack said,--

  "Hum!"

  "Yes," said Mark from the top bar.

  "How are they all at home?" i.e. at Mark's.

  "Quito well," said Mark.

  "All?" said Jack again.

  "Frances bruised her arm--"

  "Much?" anxiously.

  "You can't see it--her skin's like a plum," said Mark; "if you justpinch it it shows."

  "Hum!" and Jack was gone.

  Late in the evening they tried hard to catch the donkey, that Mark mightride home. It was not far, but now the day was over he was very tired,so too was Bevis. Tired as they were, they chased the donkey up anddown--six times as far as it was to Mark's house--but in vain, the mokeknew them of old, and was not to be charmed or cowed. He showed themhis heels, and they failed. So Mark stopped and slept with Bevis, as hehad done so many times before. As they lay awake in the bedroom,looking out of the window opposite at a star, half awake and halfasleep, suddenly Bevis started up on his arm.

  "Let's have a war," he said.

  "That would be first-rate," said Mark, "and have a great battle."

  "An awful battle," said Bevis, "the biggest and most awful ever known."

  "Like Waterloo?" said Mark.

  "Pooh!"

  "Agincourt?"

  "Pooh!"

  "Mal--Mal," said Mark, trying to think of Malplaquet.

  "Oh! more than anything," said Bevis; "somebody will have to write ahistory about it."

  "Shall we wear armour?"

  "That would be bow and arrow time. Bows and arrows don't make anybanging."

  "No more they do. It wants lots of banging and smoke--else itsnothing."

  "No; only chopping and sticking."

  "And smashing and yelling."

  "No--and that's nothing."

  "Only if we have rifles," said Mark thoughtfully; "you see, people don'tsee one another; they are so far off, and nobody stands on a bridge andkeeps back all the enemy all by himself."

  "And nobody has a triumph afterwards with elephants and chariots, andpaints his face vermilion."

  "Let's have bow and arrow time," said Mark; "it's much nicer--and yousell the prisoners for slaves and get heaps of money, and do just as youlike, and plough up the cities that don't please you."

  "Much nicer," said Bevis; "you very often kill all the lot and there'snothing silly. I shall be King Richard and have a battle-axe--no, let'sbe the Normans."

  "Wouldn't King Arthur do?"

  "No; he was killed, that would be stupid. I've a great mind to beCharlemagne."

  "Then I shall be Roland."

  "No; you must be a traitor."

  "But I want to fight your side," said Mark.

  "How many are there we can get to make the war?"

  They consulted, and soon reckoned up fourteen or fifteen.

  "It will be jolly awful," said Mark; "there will be heaps of slain."

  "Let's have Troy," said Bevis.

  "That's too slow," said Mark; "it lasted ten years."

  "Alexander the Great--let's see; whom did he fight?"

  "I don't know; people nobody ever heard of--nobody particular, Indiansand Persians and all that sort."

  "I know," said Bevis; "of course! I know. Of course I shall be JuliusCaesar!"

  "And I shall be Mark Antony."

  "And we will fight Pompey."

  "But who shall be Pompey?" said Mark.

  "Pooh! there's Bill, and Wat, and Ted; anybody will do for Pompey."

  Volume One, Chapter IX.

  SWIMMING.

  "Put your hands on the rail. Hold it as far off as you can. There--nowlet the water lift your feet up behind you."

  Bevis took hold of the rail, which was on a level with the surface, andthe
n leaning his chest forward upon the water, felt his legs and feetgradually lifted up, till he floated. At first he grasped the rail astight as he could, but in a minute he found that he need not do so.Just to touch the rail lightly was enough, for his extended body was asbuoyant as a piece of wood. It was like taking a stick and pressing itdown to the bottom, and then letting it go, when it would shoot updirectly. The water felt deliciously soft under him, bearing him up farmore gently than the grass, on which he was so fond of lying.

  "Mark!" he shouted. "Do like this. Catch hold of the rail--it'scapital!"

  Mark, who had been somewhat longer undressing than impatient Bevis, camein and did it, and there they both floated, much delighted. The waterwas between three and four feet deep. When Bevis's papa found that theycould not be kept from roaming, and were bent on boating on theLongpond, which was a very different thing to the shallow brook, wherethey were never far from shore, and out of which they could scramble, hedetermined to teach Bevis and his friend to swim. Till Bevis couldswim, he should never feel safe about him; and unless his companioncould swim too, it was of no use, for in case of accident, one would besure to try and save the other, and perhaps be dragged down.

  They had begged very hard to be allowed to have one of the boats inorder to circumnavigate the New Sea, which it was so difficult to walkround; and he promised them if they would really try and learn to swim,that they should have the boat as a reward. He took them to a placenear the old quarry they had discovered, in one corner of Fir-Tree Gulf,where the bottom was of sand, and shelved gently for a long way out; aline of posts and rails running into the water, to prevent cattlestraying, as they could easily do where it was shallow like this. Thefield there, too, was away from any road, so that they could bathe atall times. It was a sunny morning, and Bevis, eager for his lesson, hadtorn off his things, and dashed into the water, like Pan.

  "Now try one hand," said his "governor."

  "Let one hand lie on the water--put your arm out straight--and hold therail with the other."

  Bevis, rather reluctantly, did as he was told. He let go with his righthand, and stretched it out,--his left hand held him up just as easily,and his right arm seemed to float of itself on the surface. But now, asthe muscles of his back and legs unconsciously relaxed, his legs drew upunder him, and he bottomed with his feet and stood upright.

  "Why's that?" he said. "Why did I come up like that?"

  "You must keep yourself a little stiff," said the governor; "not rigid--not quite stiff--just feel your muscles then."

  Bevis did it again, and floated with one hand only on the rail: he foundhe had also to keep his left arm quite straight and firm. Then he hadto do it with only two fingers on; while Mark and the governor stoodstill, that no ripple might enter his mouth, which was only an inchabove the surface. Next, Mark was taken in hand, and learnt the samethings; and having seen Bevis do it, he had not the least difficulty.The governor left them awhile to practise by themselves, and swam acrossto the mouth of the Nile, on the opposite side of the gulf. When hecame back he found they had got quite confident; so confident, thatBevis, thinking to surpass this simple lesson, had tried letting go withboth hands, when his chin immediately went under, and he struggled upspluttering.

  The governor laughed. "I thought you would do that," he said. "Youonly want a little--a very little support, just two fingers on the rail;but you must have some, and when you swim you have to supply it by yourown motion. But you see how little is wanted."

  "I see," said Bevis. "Why, we can very nearly swim now--can't we,Mark?"

  "Of course we can," said Mark, kicking up his heels and making atremendous splash.

  "Now," said the governor, "come here;" and he made Bevis go on his kneesin shallow water, and told him to put both hands on the bottom. He didso; and when he was on all fours, facing the shore, the water onlyreached just above his elbow, which was not deep enough, so he had tomove backwards till it touched his chest. He had then to extend hislegs behind him, till the water lifted them up, while his hands remainedon the bottom. His chest rested on the water, and all his body wasbuoyed up in the same pleasant way as when he had hold of the rail.

  By letting his arms bend or give a little, he could tell exactly howmuch the water would bear him up, exactly how strong it was under him.He let himself sink till his chin was in the water and it came halfwayto his lower lip, while he had his head well back, and looked up at thesycamore-trees growing in the field above the quarry. Then he floatedperfectly, and there seemed not the least pressure on his hands; therewas a little, but so little it appeared nothing, and he could fancyhimself swimming.

  "Now walk along with your hands," said the governor.

  Bevis did so; and putting one hand before the other, as a tumbler doesstanding on his head, moved with ease, his body floating, and having noweight at all. One hand would keep him, or even one finger when he putit on a stone at the bottom so that it did not sink in as it would havedone into the sand; but if he extended his right arm, it had a tendencyto bring his toes down to the bottom. Mark did the same thing, andthere they crawled about in the shallow water on their hands only, andthe rest floating, laughing at each other. They could hardly believethat it was the water did it; it kept them up just as if they werepieces of wood. The governor left them to practise this while hedressed, and then made them get out, as they had been in long enough forone morning.

  "Pan does not swim like you do," said Mark, as they were walking home.

  "No," said the governor, "he paddles; he runs in the water the same ashe does on land."

  "Why couldn't we do that?" asked Mark.

  "You can, but it is not much use: you only get along so slowly. Whenyou can swim properly, you can copy Pan in a minute."

  The governor could not go with them again for two days on account ofbusiness; but full of their swimming, they looked in the old bookcase,and found a book in which there were instructions, and among otherthings they read that the frog was the best model. Out they ran to lookfor a frog; but as it was sunny there were none visible, till Markremembered there was generally one where the ivy of the garden wall hadspread over the ground in the corner.

  In that cool place they found one, and Bevis picked it up. The frog wascold to the touch even in the summer day, so they put it on acabbage-leaf and carried it to the stone trough in the yard. No soonerdid it feel the water than the frog struck out and crossed the trough,first in one direction, and then in another, afterwards swimming allround close to the sides, but unable to land, as the stone was to itlike a wall.

  "He kicks," said Mark, leaning over the trough; "he only kicks; hedoesn't use his arms."

  The frog laid out well with his legs, but kept his forelegs, or arms,still, or nearly so.

  "Now, what's the good of a frog?" said Bevis; "men don't swim likethat."

  "It's very stupid," said Mark; "he's no model at all."

  "Not a bit."

  The frog continued to go round the trough much more slowly.

  "No use watching him."

  So they went away, but before they had gone ten yards Bevis ran back.

  "He can't get out," he said; and placing the cabbage-leaf under thefrog, he lifted the creature out of the trough and put him on theground. No sooner was the frog on the ground than he went under thetrough in the moist shade there, for the cattle as they drank splashed agood deal over. When they told the governor, he said that what they hadnoticed was correct, but the frog was a good model in two thingsnevertheless; first in the way he kicked, and secondly in the way heleaned his chest on the water. But a man had to use his arms so as tobalance his body and keep his chin and mouth from going under, besidesthe assistance they give as oars to go forward.

  Next morning they went to the bathing-place again. Bevis had now tohold the rail as previously, but when he had got it at arm's length hewas told to kick like the frog.

  "Draw your knees up close together and kick, and send your feet wideapart," said th
e governor. Bevis did so, and the thrust of his legssent him right up against the rail. He did this several times, and wasthen ordered to go on hands and knees in the shallow water, just as hehad done before, and let his legs float up. When they floated he had tokick, to draw his knees up close together, and then strike his feet backwide apart. The thrust this time lifted his hands off the bottom onwhich they had been resting, lifted them right up, and sent him quite afoot nearer the shore. His chest was forced against the water like aninclined plane, and he was thus raised an inch or so. When the impulseceased he sank as much, and his hands touched the bottom once more.

  This pleased him greatly--it was quite half-swimming; but he found itnecessary to be careful while practising it that there were no largestones on the bottom, and that he did not get in too shallow water, elsehe grazed his knees. In the water you scarcely feel these kind ofhurts, and many a bather has been surprised upon getting out to find hisknees or legs bruised, or even the skin off, from contact with stones orgravel, of which he was unaware at the time.

  Mark had no difficulty in doing the same, it was even easier for him, ashe had only to imitate, which is not so hard as following instructions.The second, indeed, often learns quicker than the