Bevis: The Story of a Boy

tried again and again,thrusting quickly, he could not strike them with his single point. Tothrow it like a dart he knew was useless, they were too deep down, norcould he hit so small an object in motion. He could not do it, but somedays afterwards he struck a small tench in the brook, and got him out.The tench was still, so that he could put the head of his harpoon almoston it.

  They marched on, and presently launched the catamaran. It would onlysupport one at a time astride and half in the water, but it was acapital thing. Sitting on it, Bevis paddled along the shore nearly tothe rocky wall and back, but he did not forget his promise, and was notout of his depth; he could see the stones at the bottom all the time.Mark tried to stand on the plank, but one edge would go down and pitchhim off. He next tried to lie on it on his back, and succeeded so longas he let his legs dangle over each side, and so balanced it. Then theystood away, and swam to it as if it had been the last plank of a wreck.

  "Look!" said Mark, after they had done this several times. He washolding the plank at arm's length with his limbs floating. "Look!"

  "I see. What is it?"

  "This is the way. We ought to have held the jumping-pole like this.This is the way to hold an oar and swim."

  "So it is," said Bevis, "of course, that's it; we'll have the punt, andtry with a scull."

  Held at arm's length, almost anything will keep a swimmer afloat; but ifhe puts it under his arm or chest, it takes a good-sized spar.Splashing about, presently the plank forgotten for the moment slippedaway, and, impelled by the waves they made, floated into deep water.

  "I'm sure I could swim to it," said Bevis, and he was inclined to try.

  "We promised not," said Mark.

  "You stupe--I know that; but if there's a plank, that's not dangerousthen."

  "Stupe" was their word for stupid. He waded out till the water was overhis shoulders, and tried to lift him.

  "Don't--don't," said Mark. Bevis began to lean his chest on the water.

  "If you're captain," cried Mark, "you ought not to."

  "No more I ought," said Bevis, coming back. "Get my bow."

  "What for?"

  "Go and get my bow."

  "I shan't, if you say it like that."

  "You shall. Am I not captain?"

  Mark was caught by his own argument, and went out on the sward for thebow.

  "Tie the arrow on with the string," shouted Bevis. Mark did it, andbrought it in, keeping it above the surface. Bevis climbed on therailings, half out of water, so that he could steady himself with hisknees against the rail.

  "Now, give me the bow," he said. He took good aim, and the nail, filedto a sharp point, was driven deep into the soft deal of the plank. Withthe string he hauled the catamaran gently back, but it would not comestraight; it slipped sideways (like the boomerang in the air), and cameashore under the aspen bough.

  When they came out they bathed again in the air and the sunshine; theyrolled on the sward, and ran. Bevis, as he ran and shouted, shot off anarrow with all his might to see how far it would go. It went up, up,and curving over, struck a bough at the top of one of the elms, andstopped there by the rooks' nests. Mark shouted and danced on thebird's-foot lotus, and darted his spear, heedless of the bone-head. Itwent up into the hazel boughs of the hedge among the young nuts, and hecould not get it till dressed, for the thistles.

  They ran again and chased each other in and out the sycamore trunks, andvisited the hollow, shouting their loudest, till the distant herd lookedup from their grazing. The sunlight poured upon them, and the light aircame along; they bathed in air and sunbeam, and gathered years of healthlike flowers from the field.

  After they had dressed they took the catamaran to the quarry to leave itthere (somewhat out of sight lest any one should take it for firewood),so as to save the labour of carrying it to and fro. There was a savageof another tribe in the quarry, and they crept on all fours, takinggreat pains that he should not see them. It was the old man who wassupposed to look after the boats, and generally to watch the water. Hadthey not been so occupied they would have heard the thump, thump of thesculls as he rowed, or rather moved the punt up to where the narrowmound separated the New, Sea from the quarry.

  He was at work scooping out some sand, and filling sacks with the best,with which cargo he would presently voyage home, and retail it to thedairymaids and at the roadside inns to eke out that spirit ofjuniper-berries needful to those who have dwelt long by marshy places.They need not have troubled to conceal themselves from this strangersavage; he would not have seen them if they had stood close by him. Anarrow life narrows the sweep of the eye. Miserable being, he could seeno farther than one of the mussels of the lake which travel in a groove.His groove led to the sanded inn-kitchen, and his shell was shut to allelse. But they crept like skirmishers, dragging the catamaranlaboriously behind them, using every undulation of the ground to hidethemselves, till they had got it into the hollow, where they left itbeside a heap of stones. Then they had to crawl out again, and forthirty yards along the turf, till they could stand up unseen.

  "Let's get the poison," said Mark, as they were going home.

  So they searched for the poison-plants. The woody nightshade they knewvery well, having been warned long ago against the berries. It was nowonly in flower, and it would be some time before there were any berries;but after thinking it over they decided to gather a bundle of stalks,and soak them for the deadly juice. There were stems of arum in theditches, tipped with green berries. These they thought would do, butshrank from touching. The green looked unpleasant and slimy.

  Next they hunted for mandragora, of which John Young had given them anaccount. It grew in waste places, and by the tombs in the churchyard,and shrieked while you pulled it up. This they could not find. Marksaid perhaps it wanted an enchanter to discover it, but he gathered aquantity of the dark green milfoil from the grass beside the hedge andpaths, and crammed his pockets with it. Some of the lads had told himthat it was a deadly poison. It is the reverse--thus reputationvaries--for it was used to cure mediaeval sword-cuts. They passed thewater-parsnip, unaware of its pernicious qualities, looking for noisomehemlock.

  "There's another kind of nightshade," said Bevis; "because I read aboutit in that old book indoors, and it's much stronger than this. We musthave some of it."

  They looked a long time, but could not find it; and, full of theirdireful object, did not heed sounds of laughter on the other side of thehedge they were searching, till they got through a gap and jumped intothe midst of a group of haymakers resting for lunch. The old men hadgot a little way apart by themselves, for they wanted to eat like Pan.All the women were together in a "gaggle," a semicircle of them sittinground a young girl who lounged on a heap of mown grass, with a hugelabourer lying full length at her feet. She had a piece of honey sucklein her hand, and he had a black wooden "bottle" near him.

  There was a courting going on between these two, and all the otherwomen, married and single, collected round them, to aid in the businesswith jokes and innuendoes.

  Bevis and Mark instantly recognised in the girl the one who at "Calais"had shown them the road home, and in the man at her feet the fellow whowas asleep on the flint heap.

  Her large eyes, like black cherries--for black eyes and black cherrieshave a faint tint of red behind them--were immediately bent full onBevis as she rose and curtseyed to him. Her dress at the throat hadcome unhooked, and showed the line to which the sun had browned her, andwhere the sweet clear whiteness of the untouched skin began. The softroundness of the swelling plum as it ripens filled her common print,torn by briars, with graceful contours. In the shadow of the oak herlarge black eyes shone larger, loving and untaught.

  Bevis did not speak. He and Mark were a little taken aback, havingjumped through the gap so suddenly from savagery into haymaking. Theyhastened through a gateway into another field.

  "How you do keep a-staring arter they!" said the huge young labourer tothe girl. "Yen you seen he afore? It's
onely our young measter."

  "I knows," said the girl, sitting down as Bevis and Mark disappearedthrough the gateway. "He put a bough on you to keep the flies off whileyou were sleeping."

  "Did a'? Then why didn't you axe 'un for a quart?"

  She had slipped along the fields by the road that day, and had seenBevis put the bough over her lover's face as he slept on the flintheap--where she left him. The grateful labourer's immediate idea was toask Bevis for some beer.

  Behind the hedge Bevis and Mark continued their search for deadlypoison. They took some "gix," but were not certain that it was the truehemlock.

  "There's a sort of sorrel that's poison," said Mark.

  "And heaps of roots," said Bevis.

  They were now near home, and went in to extract the essence from theplants they had. The nightshade yielded very little juice from itswoody bines, or stalks; the "gix" not much more: the milfoil, wellbruised and squeezed, gave most. They found three small phials, thenightshade and "gix" only filled a quarter of the phials used for them:Mark had a phial three-parts full of milfoil. These they arranged in arow on the bench in the bench-room under the crossbow and boomerang, forfuture use in war. They did not dip their arrows or harpoon in yet,lest they should poison any fish or animal they might kill, and sorender it unfit for food.

  Volume One, Chapter XII.

  SAVAGES CONTINUED--MAKING THE SAILS.

  The same evening, having got a great plateful of cherries, they went towork in the bench-room to cut out the sails from the parcel of canvas.There had been cherries in town weeks before, but these were the firstconsidered ripe in the country, which is generally later. With a cherryin his mouth, Bevis spread the canvas out upon the floor, and marked itwith his pencil. The rig was to be fore and aft, a mainsail and jib;the mast and gaff, or as they called it, the yard, were alreadyfinished. It took forty cherries to get it cut out properly, then theythrew the other pieces aside, and placed the sails on the floor in theposition they would be when fixed.

  "You are sure they're not too big," said Mark, "if a white squallcomes."

  "There are no white squalls now," said Bevis on his knees, thoughtfullysucking a cherry-stone. "It's cyclones now. The sails are just theright size, and of course we can take in a reef. You cut off--let mesee--twenty bits of string, a foot--no, fifteen inches long: it's forthe reefs."

  Mark began to measure off the string from a quantity of the largestmake, which they had bought for the purpose.

  "There's the block," he said. "How are you going to manage about thepulley to haul up the mainsail?"

  "The block's a bore," mused Bevis, rolling his cherry-stone about. "Idon't think we could make one--"

  "Buy one."

  "Pooh! There's nothing in Latten; why you can't buy anything." Markwas silent, he knew it was true. "If we make a slit in the mast and puta little wheel in off a window-blind or something--"

  "That would do first-rate."

  "No it wouldn't; it would weaken the mast, stupe, and the first cyclonewould snap it."

  "So it would. Then we should drift ashore and get eaten."

  "Most likely."

  "Well, bore a hole and put the cord through that; that would not weakenit much."

  "No; but I know! A curtain-ring! Don't you see, you fasten thecurtain-ring, it's brass, to the mast, and put the rope through, and itruns easy--brass is smooth."

  "Of course. Who's that?"

  Some small stones came rattling in at the open window, and two voicesshouted,--

  "I say. Holloa!"

  Bevis and Mark went to the window and saw two of their friends, Bill andWat, on the garden path below.

  "When's the war going to begin?" asked Wat.

  "Tell us about the war," said Bill.

  "The war's not ready," said Bevis.

  "Well how long is it going to be?"

  "Make haste."

  "Everybody's ready."

  "Lots of them. Do you think you shall want any more?"

  "I know six," said a third voice, and Tim came round the corner, havingwaited to steal a strawberry, "and one's a whopper."

  "Let's begin."

  "Now then."

  "O! don't make such a noise," said Bevis. The sails and the savages hadrather put the war aside, but Mark had talked of it to others, and theidea spread in a minute; everybody jumped at it, and all the cry wasWar!

  "Make me lieutenant," said Andrew, appearing from the orchard.

  "I want to carry the flag."

  "Come down and tell us."

  "How are we to tell you if you keep talking?" said Mark; Bevis put hishead out of window by the pears, and they were quiet.

  "I tell you the war's not ready," he said; "and you're as bad asrebels--I mean you're a mutiny to come here before you're sent for, andyou ought to be shot,"--("Executed," whispered Mark behindhim)--"executed, of course."

  "How are we to know when it's ready?"

  "You'll be summoned," said Bevis. "There will be a muster-roll and atrumpet blown, and you'll have to march a thousand miles."

  "All right."

  "And the swords have to be made, and the eagles, besides the map of theroads and the grub,"--("Provisions," said Mark)--"provisions, of course,and all the rest, and how do you think a war is to be got ready in aminute, you stupes!" in a tone of great indignation.

  They grumbled: they wanted a big battle on the spot.

  "If you bother me much," said Bevis, "while I'm getting the fleet ready,there shan't be a war at all."

  "Are you getting a fleet?"

  "Here are the sails," said Mark, holding up some canvas.

  "Well, you won't be long?"

  "You'll let us know?"

  "Shall we tell anybody else?"

  "Lots," said Bevis; "tell lots. We're going to have the biggest armiesever seen."

  "Thousands," said Mark. "Millions!"

  "Millions!" said Bevis.

  "Hurrah!" they shouted.

  "Here," said Bevis, throwing the remainder of the cherries out like ashower among them.

  "Are you coming to quoits?"

  "O! no," said Mark, "we have so much to do; now go away." The soldierymoved off through the garden, snatching lawlessly at any fruit they saw.

  "Mark," said Bevis on his knees again, "these sails will have to behemmed, you know."

  "So they will."

  "We can't do it. You must take them home to Frances, and make herstitch them; roll them up and go directly."

  "I don't want to go home," said Mark. "And perhaps she won't stitchthem."

  "I'm sure she will; she will do anything for me."

  "So she will," said Mark rather sullenly. "Everybody does everythingfor you."

  Bevis had rolled up the sails, quite indifferent as to what people didfor him, and put them into Mark's unwilling hands.

  "Now you can have the donkey, and mind and come back before breakfast."

  "I can't catch him," said Mark.

  "No; no more can I--stop. John Young's sure to be in the stable, hecan."

  "Ah," said Mark, brightening up a little, "that moke is a beast."

  John Young, having stipulated for a "pot," went to catch the donkey;they sat down in the shed to wait for him, but as he did not come forsome time they went after him. They met him in the next field leadingthe donkey with a halter, and red as fire from running. They took thehalter and sent John away for the "pot." There was a wicked thought intheir hearts, and they wanted witnesses away. So soon as John had gone,Mark looked at Bevis, and Bevis looked at Mark. Mark growled, Bevisstamped his feet.

  "Beast!" said Mark.

  "Wretch!" said Bevis.

  "You--you--you, Thing," said Mark; they ground their teeth, and glaredat the animal. They led him all fearful to a tree, a little tree butstout enough; it was an ash, and it grew somewhat away from the hedge.They tied him firmly to the tree, and then they scourged this miserablecitizen.

  All the times they had run in vain to catch him;
all the times they hadhad to walk when they might have ridden one behind the other on hisback; all his refusals to be tempted; all the wrongs they had endured athis heels boiled in their breasts. They broke their sticks upon hisback, they cut new ones, and smashed them too, they hurled the fragmentsat him, and then got some more. They thrashed, thwacked, banged,thumped, poked, prodded, kicked, belaboured, bumped, and hit him,working themselves into a frenzy of rage.

  Mark fetched a pole to knock him the harder as it was heavy; Beviscrushed into the hedge, and brought out a dead log to hurl at him, a loghe could but just lift and swung to throw with difficulty,--the sameBevis who put an aspen leaf carefully under the fly to save it fromdrowning. The sky was blue, and the evening beautiful, but no one cameto help the donkey.

  When they were tired, they sat down and rested, and after they werecooler and had recovered from the fatigue, they loosed him--quite cowedthis time and docile, and Mark, with the parcel of sails, got on hisback. After all this onslaught there did not seem any difference in himexcept that his coat had