"The Longpond?" said the girl. "You can"t go round, there"s the marsh-- not unless you goes back to Wood Lane, and nigh handy your place."
"Which way did "ee come?" asked the old woman.
"They come through the wood," said the girl. "I seen um; and they had the spannul."
She was stroking Pan, who loved her, as she had fed him with a bone.
She knew the enormity of taking a strange dog through a wood in the breeding-season.
"How be um going to get whoam?" said the old woman.
"We"re going to walk, of course," said Bevis.
"It"s four miles."
"Pooh! We"ve come thousands. Come on, Mark; we"ll get round somehow."
But the girl convinced him after a time that it was not possible, because of the marsh and the brook, and showed him too how the shadows of the elms were lengthening in the meadow outside the garden at the foot of the hill. Bevis reluctantly decided that they must abandon the expedition for that day, and return home. The girl offered to show them the way into the road. She led them by a narrow path beside the streamlet in the gully, and then along the steep side of the hill, where there were three or four more cottages, all built on the slope, steep as it was. The path in front of the doors had a kind of breastwork, that folk might not inadvertently tumble over and roll--if not quite sober-- into the gully beneath. Yet there were small gardens behind, which almost stood up on end, the vegetables appearing over the roofs.
Upon the breastwork or mound they had planted a few flowers, all yellow, or yellow-tinged, marigolds, sunflowers, wall-flowers, a stray tulip, the gaudiest they knew. These specks of brightness by the dingy walls and 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 yellow flag.
Six or eight children were about. One sat crying in the midst of the path, 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 with unchecked rudeness; one or two curtseyed or tugged at their forelocks.
The happiest of all was sitting on the breastwork (of dry earth) eating a small turnip from which he had cut the dirt and rind with a rusty table-knife. As they pa.s.sed he grinned and pushed the turnip in their faces, as much as to say, "Have a bite." Two or three women looked out after they had gone by, and then some one cried, "Baa!" making a noise like a sheep, at which the girl who led them flushed up, and walked very quickly, with scorn and rage, and hatred flashing in her eye. It was a taunt. Her father was in gaol for lamb-stealing. Her name was Aholibah, 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, and now they could see the village, of which these detached cottages were an outpost, scattered over the slope, and on the plain on the other side of the coombe, a quarter of a mile distant.
"There"s the windmill," said the girl, pointing to the tower-like building. "You go tow-ward he. He be on the road. Then you turn to the 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 had unconsciously held in his hand ever since he had taken it out to pay for the 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 would have liked to have kissed him. She watched them till she saw they had got into the straight road, and then went back, but not past the cottages.
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 a flint 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 step they took they went slower and slower. There were no lions here, or monstrous 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 on the hedge, a dog-cart came swiftly up behind them. It ran swift and smooth and even balanced, the slender shafts bending slightly like the spars 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 s.p.a.ce and carrying the car of a G.o.d in the sky, throwing her feet as if there were no road but elastic air beneath them. The man was very tall and broad and sat upright--a wonderful thing in a countryman. His head was broad like himself, his eyes blue, and he had a long thick yellowy beard. The reins were strained taut like a yacht"s cordage, but the mare was in the hollow of his strong hand.
They did not hear the hoofs till he was close, for they were on a flint heap, 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 upon him who they were till he had gone past a hundred yards, and then he pulled 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 look in the direction they were going. They drove two miles and Jack said nothing, then he spoke:--
"Where have you been?"
"To Calais."
"Bad--bad," said Jack. "Don"t go there again." At the turnpike it took him 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 broad shoulders he could barely muster up a groat. He pulled up presently when there were but two fields between them and the house at Longcot; he wanted 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, and the 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 just pinch it it shows."
"Hum!" and Jack was gone.
Late in the evening they tried hard to catch the donkey, that Mark might ride 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 and down--six times as far as it was to Mark"s house--but in vain, the moke knew them of old, and was not to be charmed or cowed. He showed them his heels, and they failed. So Mark stopped and slept with Bevis, as he had done so many times before. As they lay awake in the bedroom, looking out of the window opposite at a star, half awake and half asleep, 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 a history about it."
"Shall we wear armour?"