"This is where I live, dear," said the wind. "I live upon the hill; sometimes I go to the sea, and sometimes to the woods, and sometimes I run through the valley, but I always come back here, and you may always be sure of finding me here; and I want you to come and romp with me."
"I will come," said Bevis; "I like a romp, but are you very rough?"
"Oh no, dear; not with you."
"I am a great big boy," said Bevis; "I am eating my peck of salt very fast: I shall soon get too big to romp with you. How old are you, you jolly Wind?"
The wind laughed and said: "I am older than all the very old things. I am as old as the brook."
"But the brook is very old," said Bevis. "He told me he was older than the hills, so I do not think you are as old as he is."
"Yes I am," said the wind; "he was always my playfellow; we were children together."
"If you are so very, very old," said Bevis, "it is no use your trying to romp with me, because I am very strong; I can carry my papa"s gun on my shoulder, and I can run very fast; do you know the stupid old bailiff can"t catch me? I can go round the ricks ever so much quicker than he can."
"I can run quick," said the wind.
"But not so quick as me," said Bevis; "now see if you can catch me."
Away he ran, and for a moment he left the wind behind; but the wind blew a little faster, and overtook him, and they raced along together, like two wild things, till Bevis began to pant. Then down he sat on the turf and kicked up his heels and shouted, and the wind fanned his cheek and cooled him, and kissed his lips and stroked his hair, and caressed him and played with him, till up he jumped again and danced along, the wind always pushing him gently.
"You are a jolly old Wind," said Bevis, "I like you very much; but you must tell me a story, else we shall quarrel. I"m sure we shall."
"I will try," said the wind; "but I have forgotten all my stories, because the people never come to listen to me now."
"Why don"t they come?" said Bevis.
"They are too busy," said the wind, sighing; "they are so very, very busy, just like you were with Kapchack and his treasure and the war, and all the rest of the business; they have so much to do, they have quite forsaken me."
"I will come to you," said Bevis; "do not be sorry. I will come and play with you."
"Yes, do," said the wind; "and drink me, dear, as much as ever you can.
I shall make you strong. Now drink me."
Bevis stood still and drew in a long, long breath, drinking the wind till his chest was full and his heart beat quicker. Then he jumped and danced and shouted.
"There," said the wind, "see, how jolly I have made you. It was I who made you dance and sing, and run along the hill just now. Come up here, my darling Sir Bevis, and drink me as often as ever you can, and the more you drink of me the happier you will be, and the longer you will live. And people will look at you and say: "How jolly he looks! Is he not nice? I wish I was like him." And presently they will say: "Where does he learn all these things?"
"For you must know, Bevis, my dear, that although I have forgotten my stories, yet they are all still there in my mind, and by-and-by, if you keep on drinking me I shall tell you all of them, and n.o.body will know how you learn it all. For I know more than the brook, because, you see, I travel about everywhere: and I know more than the trees; indeed, all they know I taught them myself. The sun is always telling me everything, and the stars whisper to me at night: the ocean roars at me: the earth whispers to me: just you lie down, Bevis love, upon the ground and listen."
So Bevis lay down on the gra.s.s, and heard the wind whispering in the tufts and bunches, and the earth under him answered, and asked the wind to stay and talk. But the wind said: "I have got Bevis to-day: come on, Bevis," and Bevis stood up and walked along.
"Besides all these things," said the wind, "I can remember everything that ever was. There never was anything that I cannot remember, and my mind is so clear that if you will but come up here and drink me, you will understand everything."
"Well then," said Bevis, "I will drink you--there, I have just had such a lot of you: now tell me this instant why the sun is up there, and is he very hot if you touch him, and which way does he go when he sinks beyond the wood, and who lives up there, and are they nice people, and who painted the sky?"
The wind laughed aloud, and said: "Bevis, my darling, you have not drunk half enough of me yet, else you would never ask such silly questions as that. Why, those are like the silly questions the people ask who live in the houses of the cities, and never feel me or taste me, or speak to me.
And I have seen them looking through long tubes----"
"I know," said Bevis; "they are telescopes, and you look at the sun and the stars, and they tell you all about them."
"Pooh!" said the wind, "don"t you believe such stuff and rubbish, my pet. How can they know anything about the sun who are never out in the sunshine, and never come up on the hills, or go into the wood? How can they know anything about the stars who never stopped on the hills, or on the sea all night? How can they know anything of such things who are shut up in houses, dear, where I cannot come in?
"Bevis, my love, if you want to know all about the sun, and the stars, and everything, make haste and come to me, and I will tell you, dear. In the morning, dear, get up as quick as you can, and drink me as I come down from the hill. In the day go up on the hill, dear, and drink me again, and stay there if you can till the stars shine out, and drink still more of me.
"And by-and-by you will understand all about the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the earth which is so beautiful, Bevis. It is so beautiful, you can hardly believe how beautiful it is. Do not listen, dear, not for one moment, to the stuff and rubbish they tell you down there in the houses where they will not let me come. If they say the earth is not beautiful, tell them they do not speak the truth. But it is not their fault, for they have never seen it, and as they have never drank me their eyes are closed, and their ears shut up tight. But every evening, dear, before you get into bed, do you go to your window--the same as you did the evening the owl went by--and lift the curtain and look up at the sky, and I shall be somewhere about, or else I shall be quiet in order that there may be no clouds, so that you may see the stars. In the morning, as I said before, rush out and drink me up.
"The more you drink of me, the more you will want, and the more I shall love you. Come up to me upon the hills, and your heart will never be heavy, but your eyes will be bright, and your step quick, and you will sing and shout----"
"So I will," said Bevis, "I will shout. Holloa!" and he ran up on to the top of the little round hill, to which they had now returned, and danced about on it as wild as could be.
"Dance away, dear," said the wind, much delighted. "Everybody dances who drinks me. The man in the hill there----"
"What man?" said Bevis, "and how did he get in the hill? just tell him I want to speak to him."
"Darling," said the wind, very quiet and softly, "he is dead, and he is in the little hill you are standing on, under your feet. At least, he was there once, but there is nothing of him there now. Still it is his place, and as he loved me, and I loved him, I come very often and sing here."
"When did he die?" said Bevis. "Did I ever see him?"
"He died about a minute ago, dear; just before you came up the hill. If you were to ask the people who live in the houses, where they will not let me in (they carefully shut out the sun too), they would tell you he died thousands of years ago; but they are foolish, very foolish. It was hardly so long ago as yesterday. Did not the brook tell you all about that?
"Now this man, and all his people, used to love me and drink me, as much as ever they could all day long and a great part of the night, and when they died they still wanted to be with me, and so they were all buried on the tops of the hills, and you will find these curious little mounds everywhere on the ridges, dear, where I blow along. There I come to them still, and sing through the long dry gra.s.s, and rush over the turf, and I bring the scent of the clover from the plain, and the bees come humming along upon me. The sun comes too, and the rain. But I am here most; the sun only shines by day, and the rain only comes now and then.
"But I am always here, day and night, winter and summer. Drink me as much as you will, you cannot drink me away; there is always just as much of me left. As I told you, the people who were buried in these little mounds used to drink me, and oh! how they raced along the turf, dear; there is n.o.body can run so fast now; and they leaped and danced, and sang and shouted. I loved them as I love you, my darling; there, sit down and rest on the thyme, dear, and I will stroke your hair and sing to you."
So Bevis sat down on the thyme, and the wind began to sing, so low and sweet and so strange an old song, that he closed his eyes and leaned on his arm on the turf. There were no words to the song, but Bevis understood it all, and it made him feel so happy. The great sun smiled upon him, the great earth bore him in her arms gently, the wind caressed him, singing all the while. Now Bevis knew what the wind meant; he felt with his soul out to the far-distant sun just as easily as he could feel with his hand to the bunch of gra.s.s beside him; he felt with his soul down through into the earth just as easily as he could touch the sward with his fingers. Something seemed to come to him out of the sunshine and the gra.s.s.
"There never was a yesterday," whispered the wind presently, "and there never will be to-morrow. It is all one long to-day. When the man in the hill was you were too, and he still is now you are here; but of these things you will know when you are older, that is if you will only continue to drink me. Come, dear, let us race on again." So the two went on and came to a hawthorn-bush, and Bevis, full of mischief always, tried to slip away from the wind round the bush, but the wind laughed and caught him.
A little farther and they came to the fosse of the old camp. Bevis went down into the trench, and he and the wind raced round along it as fast as ever they could go, till presently he ran up out of it on the hill, and there was the waggon underneath him, with the load well piled up now. There was the plain, yellow with stubble; the hills beyond it and the blue valley, just the same as he had left it.
As Bevis stood and looked down, the wind caressed him, and said: "Good-bye, darling, I am going yonder, straight across to the blue valley and the blue sky, where they meet; but I shall be back again when you come next time. Now remember, my dear, to drink me--come up here and drink me."
"Shall you be here?" said Bevis, "are you quite sure you will be here?"
"Yes," said the wind, "I shall be quite certain to be here; I promise you, love, I will never go quite away. Promise me faithfully, too, that you will come up and drink me, and shout and race and be happy."
"I promise," said Bevis, beginning to go down the hill; "good-bye, jolly old Wind."
"Good-bye, dearest," whispered the wind, as he went across out towards the valley. As Bevis went down the hill, a blue harebell, who had been singing farewell to summer all the morning, called to him and asked him to gather her and carry her home as she would rather go with him than stay now autumn was near.
Bevis gathered the harebell, and ran with the flower in his hand down the hill, and as he ran the wild thyme kissed his feet and said: "Come again, Bevis, come again". At the bottom of the hill the waggon was loaded now; so they lifted him up, and he rode home on the broad back of the leader.