There was nothing, the overthrown willow trunk lay still in the water flush with the surface, and close to it there was a little ripple coming out from under a bush, which he supposed was caused by a water-rat moving there. Till now he had been absorbed in what he was doing, but just then, remembering the cones which hung at the tops of the tall firs, he looked up and became conscious of the beauty of the morning, for it was more open there, and he could see a breadth of the sky.
The sun had not yet stood out from the orient, but his precedent light shone through the translucent blue. Yet it was not blue, nor is there any word, nor is a word possible to convey the feeling unless one could be built up of signs and symbols like those in the book of the magician, which glowed and burned to and fro the page. For the blue of the precious sapphire is thick to it, the turquoise dull, these hard surfaces are no more to be compared to it than sand and gravel. They are but stones, hard, cold, pitiful, that which gives them their l.u.s.tre is the light. Through delicate porcelain sometimes the light comes, and it is not the porcelain, it is the light that is lovely. But porcelain is clay, and the light is shorn, checked, and shrunken. Down through the beauteous azure came the Light itself, pure, unreflected Light, untouched, untarnished even by the dew-sweetened petal of a flower, descending, flowing like a wind, a wind of glory sweeping through the blue. A luminous purple glowing as Love glows in the cheek, so glowed the pa.s.sion of the heavens.
Two things only reach the soul. By touch there is indeed emotion. But the light in the eye, the sound of the voice! the soul trembles and like a flame leaps to meet them. So to the luminous purple azure his heart ascended.
Bevis, the lover of the sky, gazed and forgot; forgot as we forget that our pulses beat, having no labour to make them. Nor did he hear the south wind singing in the fir tops.
I do not know how any can slumber with this over them; how any can look down at the clods. The greatest wonder on earth is that there are any not able to see the earth"s surpa.s.sing beauty. Such moments are beyond the chronograph and any measure of wheels, the pa.s.sing of one cog may be equal to a century, for the mind has no time. What an incredible marvel it is that there are human creatures that slumber threescore and ten years, and look down at the clods and then say, "We are old, we have lived seventy years." Seventy years! The pa.s.sing of one cog is longer; seven hundred times seventy years would not equal the click of the tiniest cog while the mind was living its own life. Sleep and clods, with the glory of the earth, and the sun, and the sea, and the endless ether around us! Incredible marvel this sleep and clods and talk of years. But I suppose it was only a second or two, for some slight movement attracted him, and he looked, and instantly the vision above was forgotten.
Upon the willow trunk p.r.o.ne in the water, he saw a brown creature larger than any animal commonly seen, but chiefly in length, with sharp-pointed, triangular ears set close to its head. In his excitement he did not recognise it as he aimed. Behind the fir trunks he was hidden, and he was on high ground--animals seldom look up--the creature"s head too was farthest from him. He steadied the long, heavy barrel against a fir trunk, heedless of a streak of viscous turpentine sap which his hand pressed.
The trigger was partly drawn--his arm shook, he sighed--he checked himself, held his breath tight, and fired. The ball plunged and the creature was jerked up rebounding and fell in the water. He dashed down, leaped in--as it happened the water was very shallow--and seized it as it splashed a little from mere muscular contraction. Aimed at the head, the ball had pa.s.sed clean through between the shoulders and buried itself in the willow trunk. The animal was dead before he touched it.
He tore home and threw it on the bed: "Mark!"
"O!" said Mark. "An otter!"
Their surprise was great, for they had never suspected an otter. No one had ever seen one there that they had heard of, no one had even supposed it possible. These waters were far from a river, they were fed by rivulets supporting nothing beyond a kingfisher. To get there the otter must have ascended the brook from the river, a bold and adventurous journey, pa.s.sing hatches and farmhouses set like forts by the water"s edge, pa.s.sing mills astride the stream.
The hare had been admired, but it was nothing to the otter, which was as rare there as a black fox. They looked at its broad flat head--hold a cat"s head up under the chin, that is a little like it--the sharp, triangular ears set close to the head, the webbed feet, the fur, the long tail decreasing to a blunt point. It must be preserved; they could skin it, but could not stuff it; still it must be done. The governor must see it, mamma, the Jolly Old Moke, Frances, Val, Cecil, Charlie, Ted, Big Jack--all. Must!
This was the cause then of the curious wave they had seen which moved without wind--no, Mark remembered that once being near the wave he had seen something white under the surface. The wave was not caused by the otter, but most likely it was the otter Pan had scented on Bamboo Island when he seemed so excited, and they could see no reason. The otter must be preserved--must!
While they breakfasted, while they bathed, this was the talk. Presently they heard the slave"s whistle and fetched her on the raft. Now, Loo, cunning hussy, waited till she was safely landed on the island, and then told them that dear mamma and Frances were going that day up to Jack"s to see them. Loo had been sent for to go to the town on an errand, and she had heard it mentioned. Instead of going on the errand she ran to play slave.
Charlie had had some knowledge of this yesterday, and waved his cap instead of the white handkerchief as a warning, but they did not see it.
If mamma and Frances drove up to Jack"s to see them, of course it would be at once discovered that they were not at Jack"s, and then what a noise there would be.
"Hateful," said Mark. "It seems to me we"re getting near the hateful "Other Side.""
Volume Three, Chapter XV.
NEW FORMOSA--THE BLACK SAIL.
Now, at the Other Side, i.e. at home, things had gone smoothly for them till the day before, in a measure owing to the harvest, and for the rest to the slow ways of old-fashioned country people. When they had gone away to Jack"s before in disgrace, Bevis"s mother could not rest, the ticking of the clock in the silent house, the distant beat of the blacksmith"s hammer, every little circ.u.mstance of the day jarred upon her. But on this occasion they had, she believed, gone for their own pleasure, and though she missed them, they were not apart and separated by a gulf of anger.
Busy with the harvest, there was no visiting, no one came down from Jack"s, and so the two slipped for the moment out of the life of the hamlet. Presently Bevis"s short but affectionate letter arrived, and prevented any suspicion arising, for no one noticed the postmark. Mamma wrote by return, and when her letter addressed to Bevis was delivered at Jack"s you would have supposed the secret would have come out. So it would in town life--a letter would have been written saying that Bevis was not there, and asking where to forward it.
But not so at the old house in the hills. Jack"s mother put it on the shelf, remarking that no doubt Bevis was coming, and would be there to-morrow or next day. As for Jack he was too busy to think about it, and if he had not been he would have taken little notice, knowing from former experience that Bevis might turn up at any moment. The letter remained on the shelf.
On the Sat.u.r.day the carrier left a parcel for Bevis--at any other time a messenger would have been sent, and then their absence would have been discovered--but no one could be spared from the field. The parcel contained clean collars, cuffs, and similar things which they never thought of taking with them, but which mamma did not forget. Like the letter the parcel was put aside for Bevis when he did come; the parcel indeed was accepted as proof positive that he was coming. Jack"s mother never touched a pen if she could by any means avoid it, old country people put off letter-writing till absolutely compelled.
On the Sunday afternoon while Bevis and Mark were lying under the fir-trees in New Formosa, dear mamma, always thinking of her boy and his friend, was up in her bedroom turning over the yellowish fly-leaves at the end of an old Book of Common Prayer, too large to go to and fro to church, and which was always in the room. Upon these fly-leaves she had written down from time to time the curious little things that Bevis had said. In the very early morning (before he could talk) he used to sit up in the bed while she still slept, and try to pick her eyelids open with finger and thumb. What else could a dumb creature do that wished to be looked at with loving eyes and fondled?
There it was entered, too, how when he was a "Bobby," all little boys are "Bobbies," he called himself Bobaysche, and said mejjible-bone for vegetable marrow. Desiring to speak of wheat, and unable to recall its proper term, he called it bread-seed; and one day stroking his favourite kitten asked "If G.o.d had a p.u.s.s.y?" It was difficult for him to express what time he meant, "When that yesterday that came yesterday went away,"
was his paraphrase for the day before yesterday.
One day in the sitting-room he fancied himself a hunter with a dart, and seizing the poker balanced it over his head. He became so excited he launched his dart at the flying quarry, and it went through the window-pane. In a day or two--workmen are not to be got in a hurry in the country--an old glazier trudged out to put in fresh gla.s.s, and while he cut out the dry putty and measured his gla.s.s, and drew the diamond point across, Bevis emptied his tool-basket and admired the chisels and hammers. By and by, tired of things which he was not permitted to use lest he should cut himself, he threw them in and handed the basket to the workman: "Here," he said, "Here--take your toys!"
Toys indeed. The old man had laboured fifty years with these toys till his mind had become with monotony as h.o.r.n.y and unimpressionable as his hand. He smiled: he did not see the other meaning that those childish words convey.
Nothing then pleased Bevis so much as moving furniture, the noise and disturbance so distasteful to us was a treat to him. It was "thunder-boy" and "cuckoo-boy," as the thunder rolled or the cuckoo called; he could not conceive anything being caused unseen without human agency.
The Deity was human.
"Ah!" said he thoughtfully, "He got a high ladder and climbed up over the hedges to make the thunder."
"Has He got any little Bobbies?"
"No."
"I suppose He had when He was down here?"
"No."
"No," (with pity) "He didn"t have no peoples." The pleasure of refusal was not to be resisted.
"Now do, Bobby, dear?"
"I san"t: say it again."
"O! _do_ do it."
"I san"t: say it again."
"Now, _do_."
"I san"t," shaking his head, as much as to say it"s very dreadful of me, but I shan"t. They could not explain to him that the glowing sunset was really so far away, he wanted to go to it. "It"s only just over the blackberry hedge." Some one was teaching him that G.o.d loved little boys; "But does he love ladies too?"
As for papa he had to tell stories by the hour, day after day, and when he ceased and said he could not remember any more, Bevis frowned. "Rack your brains! rack your brains!" said he. A nightingale built in the hedge near the house, and all night long her voice echoed in the bed room. Listening one night as he was in bed he remarked, "The nightingale has two songs: first he sings "Sir-rup--sir-rup," and then he sings "Tweet.""
For his impudence he had a box on the ear: "Pooh! It went pop like a foxglove," he laughed.
At Brighton he was taken over the Pavilion, and it was some trouble to explain to him that this fine house had been built for a gentleman called a king. By-and-by, in the top stories, rather musty from old carpets and hangings: "Hum!" said he; "seems stuffy. I can smell that gentleman"s dinner," i.e. George the Fourth"s.
Visiting a trim suburban villa, while the ladies talked they sent him out on the close-mown lawn to play. When he came in, "Well, dear, did you enjoy yourself?"
"Don"t think much of _your_ garden," said Bevis; "no b.u.t.tercups."
At prayers: "Make Bobby a good boy, and see that you do everything I tell you."
"You longered your promise," did not fulfil it for a long time.
"Straight yourselves," when out walking he wished them to go straight on and not turn. "Round yourselves, round yourselves," when he wanted them to take a turning. When he grew up to be a big man he expressed his determination to "knock down the policeman and kill the hanging-man,"
then he could do as he liked. "Tiff.e.c.k" was the cat"s cough.
Driving over Westminster Bridge the first time, and seeing the Houses of Parliament, which reminded him of his toy bricks, he inquired "If there was anything inside?" Older people have asked that of late years. As he did not get his wishes quickly, it appeared to him there were "too many perhapses in this place:" he wanted things done "punctually at now." A waterfall was the "tumbling water."
They told him there was one part of us that did not die. "Then," he said directly, "I suppose that is the thinking part." What more, O!
Descartes, Plato, philosophers, is there in your tomes? The crucifixion hurt his feelings very much, the cruel nails, the unfeeling spear: he looked at the picture a long time, and then turned over the page, saying, "If G.o.d had been there He would not have let them do it."