more room.
"Now," said the governor, as they began to swim their two strokes again,"now do this--stand up to your chest, and turn towards the rail, andwhen you have finished the second stroke catch hold of it."
Bevis found that this was not so easy as it sounded, but after five orsix attempts he did it, and then of his own motion stood back an extrayard and endeavoured to swim three strokes, and then seize it. This wasvery difficult and he could not manage it that morning. Twice more thegovernor came with them and they had the punt, and on the second timethey caught the third stroke. They pushed off, that was one stroke,swam one good stroke while floating, and made a third partly completestroke, and seized the rail.
"That will do," said the governor. He was satisfied: his object fromthe beginning had been so to teach them that they could teachthemselves. With a band beneath the chest he could have suspended them(one at a time) from the punt in deep water, and so taught them, but heconsidered it much better to let them gradually acquire a knowledge ofhow far the water would buoy them up, and where it would fail to do so,so as to become perfectly confident, but not _too_ confident. Forwater, however well you can swim, is not a thing to be played with.They had seen now that everything could be done in water no deeper thanthe chest, and even less than that, so that he had reason to believe ifleft to themselves they would not venture further out till quitecompetent. He had their solemn promise not to go into deeper water thantheir shoulders. If you go up to your chin, the slightest wavelet willlift you off your feet, and in that way many too venturesome people havebeen drowned not twelve inches from safety.
They might go to their shoulders, always on condition of facing theshore and swimming towards it. When they thought they could swim wellenough to go out of their depth he would come and watch. Both promisedmost faithfully, and received permission to go next time by themselves,and in a short while, if they kept their word, they should have theboat.
If any ladies should chance to read how Bevis and Mark learnt to swim,when they are at the seaside will they try the same plan? Choose asmooth sea and a low tide (only to have it shallow). Kneel in thewater. Place the hands on the sand, so that the water may come almostover the shoulders--not quite, say up to them. Then let the limbs andbody float. The pleasant sense of suspension without effort will beworth the little trouble it costs. On the softest couch the limbs feelthat there is something solid, a hard framework beneath, and so theSybarites put cushions on the floor under the feet of their couches. Onthe surface of the buoyant sea there is nothing under the soft couch.They will find that there is no pressure on the hands. They have noweight. Now let them kick with both feet together, and the propulsionwill send them forward.
Next use one arm in swimming style. Next use one arm and kick at thesame time. Try to use both arms, lifting the hand from the sand alittle first, and presently more. Stand up to the chest in water, stoopsomewhat and bend the knee, one foot in front of the other, and use thearms together, walking at the same time, so as to get the proper motionof the hands. Place the hands on the sand again, and try to use botharms once more.
Finally, stand up to the chest, face the shore, lean forward, and pushoff and try a stroke--the feet will easily recover themselves.Presently two strokes will become possible, after awhile three; that isswimming. The sea is so buoyant, so beautiful, that let them only oncefeel the sense of floating, and they will never rest till they havelearned. Ladies can teach themselves so quickly, and swim better thanwe do. The best swimming I ever saw was done by three ladies together:the waves were large, but they swam with ease, the three graces of thesea.
Volume One, Chapter X.
SAVAGES.
Bevis and Mark went eagerly to bathe by themselves, but immediately leftthe direct path. Human beings must be kept taut, or, like a rope, theywill slacken. The very first morning they took a leaping-pole withthem, a slender ash sapling, rather more than twice their own height,which they picked out from a number in the rick-yard, intending to jumpto and fro the brook on the way. But before they had got half way tothe brook they altered their minds, becoming eager for the water, andraced to the bathing-place. The pole was now to be an oar, and theywere to swim, supported by an oar, like shipwrecked people.
So soon as he had had a plunge or two, Bevis put one arm over the poleand struck out with the other, thinking that he should be able in thatway to have a long swim. Directly his weight pressed on the pole itwent under, and did not support him in the least. He put it nextbeneath his chest, with both arms over it, but immediately he pushed offdown it went again. Mark took it and got astride, when the pole let hisfeet touch the bottom.
"It's no use," he said. "What's the good of people falling overboardwith spars and oars? What stories they must tell."
"I can't make it out," said Bevis; and he tried again, but it was nogood, the pole was an encumbrance instead of a support, for it insistedupon slipping through the water lengthways, and would not move just ashe wished. In a rage he gave it a push, and sent it ashore, and turnedto swimming to the rail. They did not know it, but the governor, stillanxious about them, had gone round a long distance, so as to have a peepat them from the hedge on the other side of Fir-Tree Gulf by the Nile.He could tell by the post and rails that they did not go out of theirdepth, and went away without letting them suspect his presence.
When they got out, they had a run in the sunshine, which dried them muchbetter than towels. The field sloped gently to the right, and theirusual run was on the slope beside a nut-tree hedge towards a group ofelms. All the way there and back the sward was short and soft, almostlike that of the Downs which they could see, and dotted with bird's-footlotus, over whose yellow flowers they raced. But this morning, being nolonger kept taut, after they had returned from the elms with an enormousmushroom they had found there, they ran to the old quarry, and along theedge above. The perpendicular sand-cliff fell to an enclosed poolbeneath, in which, on going to the very edge, they could see themselvesreflected. Some hurdles and flakes--a stronger kind of hurdle--had beenplaced here that cattle might not wander over, but the cart-horses, whorub against everything, had rubbed against them and dislodged two orthree. These had rolled down, and the rest hung half over.
While they stood still looking down over the broad waters of their NewSea, the sun burned their shoulders, making the skin red. Away they ranback to dress, and taking a short path across a place where the turf hadpartly grown over a shallow excavation pricked their feet with thistles,and had to limp the rest of the way to their clothes. Now, there wereno thistles on their proper racecourse down to the elms and back.
As they returned home they remembered the brook, and went down to it tojump with the leaping-pole. But the soft ooze at the bottom let thepole sink in, and Bevis, who of course must take the first leap, wasvery near being hung up in the middle of the brook. Under his weight,as he sprang off, the pole sank deep into the ooze, and had it been astiffer mud the pole would have stopped upright, when he must havestayed on it over the water, or have been jerked off among the flags.As it was it did let him get over, but he did not land on the firm bank,only reaching the mud at the side, where he scrambled up by grasping thestout stalk of a willow-herb. In future he felt with the butt of thepole till he found a firm spot, where it was sandy, or where the mattedroots of grasses and flags had bound the mud hard. Then he flew overwell up on the grass.
Mark took his turn, and as he put the butt in the water a streak of mudcame up where a small jack fish had shot away. So they went on down thebank leaping alternately, one carrying the towels while the other flewover and back.
Sometimes they could not leap because the tripping was bad, underminedwhere cowslips in the spring hung over the stream, bored with the holesof water-rats, which when disused become covered with grass, but giveway beneath the foot or the hoof that presses on them pitching leaper orrider into the current, or it was rotten from long-decaying roots, orabout to slip. Sometimes the landing was bad, undermine
d in the sameway, or higher than the tripping, when you have not only to get over,but to deliver yourself on a higher level; or swampy, where a wet furrowcame to the brook; or too far, where there was nothing but mud to comeon. They had to select their jumping-places, and feel the ground to theedge first.
"Here's the raft!" shouted Mark, who was ahead, looking out for a goodplace.
"Is it?" said Bevis, running along on the other side. They had socompletely forgotten it, that it came upon them like something new.Bevis took a leap and came over, and they set to work at once to launchit. The raft slipped gradually down the shelving shore of thedrinking-place, and they thrust it into the stream. Bevis put his footon board, but immediately withdrew it, for the water rushed throughtwenty leaks, spurting up along the joins. Left on the sand in thesun's rays the wood of the raft shrank a little, opening the planking,while the clay they had daubed on to caulk the