Bevis

"What are you going to be when you"re a man?" asked grandpa. "An engineer, a lawyer?"

"Pooh! I"m going to be a king, and wear a gold crown!"

A glowing March sunset made the tops of the elms, red with flower before the leaf, show clear against the sky. "They look like red seaweed dipped in water," he said.

Such were some of the short and disconnected jottings in mamma"s prayer-book: mere jottings, but well she could see the scene in her mind when the words were said. Latest of all, the second visit to the seaside, where, after rioting on the sands and hurling pebbles in the summer waves, suddenly he stopped, looked up at her and said, "O! wasn"t it a good thing the sea was made!" It was indeed.

Every one being so much in the field, mamma was left alone, and wearying of it, asked Frances to come up frequently to her: Frances was willing enough to do so, especially as she could talk unreservedly of Big Jack, so that it was a pleasure to her to come. At last, on the Friday, as Bevis did not write again, his mother proposed that they should drive up to Jack"s, and see how the boys were on the morrow. Frances was discreetly delighted: Jack could not come down to see her just now, and with Bevis"s mother she could go up and see him with propriety. So it was agreed that the dog-cart should be ready early on Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Charlie learned something of this--he played in and out the place, and waved his cap thrice as a warning.

Now, in the kitchen on Friday evening there was a curious talk of Bevis and Mark. Had it not been for the harvest something would have crept out about them among the cottagers. Such inveterate gossipers would have sniffed out something, some one would have supposed this, another would have said they were not at Big Jack"s, a third might have caught a glimpse of them when on the mainland. But the harvest filled their hands with work, sealed their eyes, and shut their mouths. An earthquake would hardly disturb the reapers. So soon as they had completed the day"s work they fell asleep. Pan"s nocturnal rambles would have been noticed had it not been for this, though he might have come down from Jack"s.

However, as it chanced, not a word was said till the Friday evening, when there came into the kitchen a labouring man, sent by his master to have some talk with the Bailiff respecting a proposed bargain. Every evening the Bailiff took his quart in the kitchen, and though it was summer always in the same corner by the hearth. He had no home, an old and much-crusted bachelor: he had a dim craving for company, and he liked to sit there and sip while Polly worked round briskly.

A deal of gossip was got through in that kitchen. Men came in and out, they lingered on the door-step with their fingers on the latch just to add one more remark. That evening when the bargain, a minor matter, had been discussed, this man, with much roundabout preliminary solemnly declared that as he had been working up in Rushland"s field (about half a mile from the New Sea), he had distinctly heard Bevis and Mark talking to each other, and it seemed to him that the sound came over the water.

Sometimes he said he could hear folk talk at a great distance, four or five times as far off as most could, and had frequently told people what they had been conversing about when they had been a mile or more away.

He could not hear like this always, but once now and then, and he was quite sure that he had heard Master Bevis and Master Mark talking something about shooting, and that the sound came from over the water.

He did not believe they were at Jack"s, there was "summat" (something) very curious about it.

The Bailiff and Polly and the visitor turned this over and over, and gossiped, and discussed it for some time, till the man had to go. They never for a moment doubted the perfect truth of what he had stated.

Half-educated people are always ready to believe the marvellous, nor was there anything so unusual in this claim to a second sight of hearing, so to say. Once now and then, in the country, you meet with people who lay serious claim to possess the power, and most astonishing instances are related of it.

Whether being so much in the open air sharpens the senses, whether the sound actually did travel over the water, it is not possible to say, or whether some little suspicion of the real facts had got out, and this fellow cunningly devised his story knowing that sooner or later confirmation of his wonderful powers of hearing would be derived in the discovery of what Bevis had been doing. The only persons who could tell were John Young and Loo: the one was spell-bound by the bribe he knew he should obtain, Loo was much too eager to share the game to breathe a word. Poachers, however, get about at odd hours in odd places, and see things they are not meant to.

Still in the country the belief lingers that here and there a person does possess the power, and the story so worked upon the Bailiff and Polly, that at last Polly ventured in to tell her mistress. Her mistress at once dismissed it as ridiculous. She was too well educated to dream dreams. Yet when she retired, do you know! she sat a little while and thought about it, so contagious is superst.i.tion. In the morning she sent down to Frances to come an hour earlier--she wanted to see Bevis.

Frances came, and the dog-cart was at the door when Loo (who had been sent on an errand to the town--a common thing on Sat.u.r.days) rushed up to the door, thrust a letter into mamma"s hand, and darted away.

"Why!" said she. "It"s Bevis--why!" she read aloud, Frances looking over her shoulder:--"Dear Mamma, Please come up to the place where the boats are kept directly you get this and mind you come this very minute," (twice dashed). "We are coming home from New Formosa in our ship the Calypso, and want you to be there to see the things we have brought you, and to hear all about it. Mind and be sure and come this very minute, please."

Wondering and excited with curiosity, the two ladies ran as fast as they could up the meadow footpath, and along the bank of the New Sea, till they came to a clear place where the trees did not interfere with the view. Then, a long way up, they saw a singular-looking boat with a black sail.

"There they are!"

"They"re coming!"

"What _can_ they have been doing?"

"That is not the Pinta!"

"This has a black sail!"

The sail was black because it was the rug, an old-fashioned one, black one side and grey the other. After long discussion Bevis and Mark had decided that the time had come when they must return from the island, for if Bevis"s mother went to Jack"s and found they were not there, her anxiety would be terrible, and they could not think of it. So Bevis wrote a letter and sent Loo back with it at once, and she was to watch and see if his mother did as she was asked. If she started for the sh.o.r.e Loo was to raise a signal, a handkerchief they lent her for the purpose.

Some time after Loo went they embarked on the raft, and drifted slowly down before the south wind till they reached the Mozambique, where they stayed the raft"s progress with their poles till Loo displayed the signal. The sail was then hoisted, and they bore down right before the wind.

With dark sail booming out the Calypso surged ahead, the mariners saw the two ladies on the sh.o.r.e, and waved their hands and shouted. Bevis steered her into port, and she grounded beside the Pinta. The first caress and astonishment over: "Where are your hats?" said Frances.

"Where are your collars?" said his mother. "And gracious, child! just look at his neck!"

As for hats and collars they had almost forgotten their existence, and having pa.s.sed most of the time in shirt sleeves like gold-miners, with necks and chests exposed, they were as brown as if they had been in the tropics. Mark especially was tanned, completely tanned: Bevis was too fair to brown well. The sun and the wind had purified his skin almost to transparency with a rosy olive behind the whiteness. There was a gleam in his eye, the clear red of his lips--lips speak the state of the blood--the easy motion of the limbs, the ringing sound of the voice, the upright back, all showed primeval health. Both of them were often surprised at their own strength.

In those days of running, racing, leaping, exploring, swimming, the skin nude to the sun, and wind and water, they built themselves up of steel, steel that would bear the hardest wear of the world. Had they been put in an open boat and thrust forth to sea like the viking of old, it would not have hurt them.

Frances played with Bevis"s golden ringlets, but did not kiss him as she had used to do. He looked too much a man. She placed her hand on her brother"s shoulder, but did not speak to him as once she had done.

Something told her that this was not the boy she ordered to and fro.

They could not believe that the two had really spent all the time on an island. This was the eleventh morn since they had left--it could not be: yet there was the raft in evidence.

"Let us row them up in the Pinta," said Mark.

"In a minute," said Bevis. "Get her ready; I"ll be back in a minute-- half a second." He ran along the bank to a spot whence he knew he could see the old house at home through the boughs. He wanted just to look at it--there is no house so beautiful as the one you were born in--and then he ran back.

There was a little water in the boat but not much, they hauled out some of the ballast, the ladies got in and were rowed direct to New Formosa.

The stockade--so well defended, the cage before the door, the hut, the cave, their interest knew no bounds.

"But you did not really sleep on this," said Bevis"s mother in a tone of horror, finding the bed was nothing but fir branches: she could not be reconciled to the idea.

The matchlock, the niche for the lantern, the marks where their fires had been, the sun-dial, there was no detail they did not examine: and lastly they went all round the island by the well-worn path. This occupied a considerable time, it was now too late to drive up to Jack"s and the object was removed, but Bevis"s mother, ever anxious for others"

happiness, whispered to Frances that she would write and send a messenger, and ask Jack to come down to-morrow--surely he could spare Sunday--to bring back the parcel, and see the wonderful island.

When at last they landed the ladies, there was Charlie on the bank, and Cecil and Val, who had somehow got wind of it--they were wild with curiosity not unmingled with resentment. These had to be rowed to New Formosa and they stayed longer even than the ladies, and insisted on a shot each with the matchlock. So it was a most exciting afternoon for these returned shipwrecked folks. In the evening they had the dog-cart, and drove in to Latten with the otter to have it preserved.

They did not see much or think much of the governor till towards supper-time--Mark had s.n.a.t.c.hed half an hour to visit his Jolly Old Moke and returned like the wind. The governor was calmly incredulous: he professed to disbelieve that they had done it all themselves, there must have been a man or two to help them. And if it was true, how did they suppose they were going to pay for all the damage they had done to the trees on the island?

This was a difficult question, they did not know that the governor could cut the trees if he chose, indeed they had never thought about it. But having faced so many dangers they were not going to tremble at this.

They could not quite make the governor out, whether he was chaffing them, or whether he really disbelieved, or whether it was a cover to his anger. In truth, he hardly knew himself, but he could not help admiring the ingenuity with which they had effected all this.

He was a shrewd man, the governor, and he saw that Bevis and Mark had the ladies on their side; what is the use of saying anything when the ladies have made up their minds? Besides, there was this about it at any rate: they had gained the primeval health of the primeval forest-dwellers. Before gleaming eyes, red lips, sun-burned and yet clear skin, ringing voices and shouts of laughter, how could he help but waver and finally melt and become as curious as the rest.

In the end they actually promised, as a favour, to row him up to their island to-morrow.

Volume Three, Chapter XVI.

SHOOTING WITH DOUBLE-BARRELS.

The governor having been rowed to the island, examined the fortifications, read the journal, and looked at the iron-pipe gun, and afterwards reflecting upon these things came to the conclusion that it would be safer and better in every way to let Bevis have the use of a good breech-loader. He evidently must shoot, and if so he had better shoot with a proper gun. When this decision was known, Mark"s governor could do nothing less, and so they both had good guns put into their hands.

In truth, the prohibition had long been rather hollow, more traditional than effectual. Bevis had accompanied his governor several autumns in the field, and shot occasionally, and he had been frequently allowed to try his skill at the starlings flying to and fro the chimney. Besides which they shot with Jack and knew all about it perfectly well. They were fortunate in living in the era of the breech-loader which is so much safer than the old muzzle-loading gun. There was hardly a part of the muzzle-loader which in some way or other did not now and then contribute to accidents. With the breech-loader you can in a moment remove the very possibility of accident by pulling out the cartridges and putting them in your pocket.

Bevis and Mark knew very well how to shoot, both from actual if occasional practice, and from watching those who did shoot. The governor, however, desirous that they should excel, gave them a good drilling in this way.

Bevis had to study his position at the moment when he stopped and lifted the gun. His left foot was to be set a little in front of the other, and he was to turn very slightly aside, the left shoulder forwards. He was never to stand square to the game. He was to stand upright, perfectly upright like a bolt. The back must not stoop nor the shoulders be humped and set up till the collar of the coat was as high as the poll. Humping the shoulders at the same time contracts the chest, and causes the coat in front to crease, and these creases are apt to catch the b.u.t.t of the gun as it comes to the shoulder and divert it from its proper place.

There is no time to correct this in the act of shooting, so that the habit of a good position should be acquired that it may be avoided. He had, too, to hold his head nearly upright and not to crane his neck forward till the cheek rested on the stock while the head was aside in the manner of the magpie peering into a letter. He was to stand upright, with his chest open and his shoulders thrown back, like Robin Hood with his six foot yew drawing the arrow to his ear.

Bevis was made to take his double-barrel upstairs, into the best bedroom--this is the advantage of the breech-loader, take the cartridges out and it is as harmless as a fire-iron--where there was a modern cheval-gla.s.s. The mirrors down stairs were old and small, and the gla.s.s not perfectly h.o.m.ogeneous so that unless the reflection of the face fell just in the centre a round chin became elongated. Before the cheval-gla.s.s he was ordered to stand sideways and throw up the gun quickly to the present, then holding it there, to glance at himself.