Bevis: The Story of a Boy Read online

larger strandsunwound tolerably well, but to divide them and part the fibres was sowearisome and so difficult that he did not know how to manage it. Witha nail he hacked at it, and got quite red in the face, but the toughrope was not to be torn to fragments in a minute; he flung it down, thenhe recollected some one would see it, so he hurled it over the hedgeinto the lane.

  He ran indoors to see if he could find anything that would do instead,and went up into the bench-room where there was another carpenter'sbench (put up for amateur work), and hastily turned over everything;then he pulled out the drawer in his mamma's room, the drawer in whichshe kept odds and ends, and having upset everything, and mixed hertreasures, he lighted on some rag which she kept always ready to bindround the fingers that used to get cut so often. For a makeshift this,he thought, would do. He tore a long piece, left the drawer open, andran to the shed with it. There was enough to fill the last chink hecould see; so it was done. But it was a hundred and twenty yards to thebrook, and though he could lift the case on one side at a time, he couldnot carry it.

  He sat down on the stool (dragged out from the workshop) to think; whyof course he would fasten a rope to it, and so haul it along! Lookingfor a nail in the nail-box on the bench, for the rope must be tied tosomething, he saw a staple which would do much better than a nail, so hebored two holes with a gimlet, and drove the staple into the raft.There was a cord in the summer-house by the swing, which he used for alasso--he had made a running noose, and could throw it over anything oranybody who would keep still--this he fetched, and put through thestaple. With the cord over his shoulder he dragged the raft by mainforce out of the shed, across the hard, dry ground, through the gate,and into the field. It came very hard, but it did come, and he thoughthe should do it.

  The grass close to the rails was not long, and the load slipped ratherbetter on it, but farther out into the field it was longer, and the edgeof the case began to catch against it, and when he came to the furrowsit was as much as he could manage, first to get it down into the furrow,next to lift it up a little, else it would not move, and then to pull itup the slope. By stopping a while and then hauling he moved it acrossthree of the furrows, but now the cord quite hurt his shoulder, and hadbegun to fray his jacket. When he looked back he was about thirty yardsfrom where he had started, not halfway to the gateway, through which wasanother meadow, where the mowing-grass was still higher.

  Bevis sat down on the sward to rest, his face all hot with pulling, andalmost thought he should never do it. There was a trail in the grassbehind where the raft had passed like that left by a chain harrow. Itwanted something to slip on; perhaps rollers would do like those theymoved the great pieces of timber on to the saw-pit. As soon as he hadgot his breath again, Bevis went back to the shed, and searched roundfor some rollers. He could not find any wood ready that would do, butthere was a heap of poles close by. He chose a large, round willow one,carried the stool down to it, got the end up on the stool, and workedaway like a slave till he had sawn off three lengths.

  These he took to the raft, put one under the front part, and arrangedthe other two a little way ahead. Next, having brought a stout stakefrom the shed, he began to lever the raft along, and was delighted atthe ease with which it now moved. But this was only on the level groundand down the slope of the next furrow, so far it went very well, butthere was a difficulty in getting it up the rise. As the grass grewlonger, too, the rollers would not roll; and quite tired out with allthis work, Bevis flung down his lever, and thought he would go indoorsand sit down and play at something else.

  First he stepped into the kitchen, as the door was open; it was a stepdown to it. The low whitewashed ceiling and the beam across it glowedred from the roasting-fire of logs split in four, and built up on thehearth; the flames rushed up the vast, broad chimney--a bundle of flamesa yard high, whose tips parted from the main tongues and rose disjointedfor a moment by themselves: the tiny panes of yellowish-green glass,too, in the window reflected the light. Such a fire as makes one's lipsmoist at the thought of the juicy meats and the subtle sweetnessimparted by the wood fuel, which has a volatile fragrance of its own.Bevis thought he would get the old iron spoon, and melt some lead, andcast some bullets in the mould--he had a mould, though they would notlet him have a pistol--he knew where there was a piece of lead-pipe, anda battered bit of guttering that came off the house.

  Or else he would put in a nail, make it white hot, and hammer it into anarrowhead, using the wrought-iron fire-dog as an anvil. The heat was sogreat, especially as it was a warm May day, that before he could decidehe was obliged to go out of the kitchen, and so wandered into thesitting-room. His fishing-rod stood in the corner where he had left it;he had brought it in because the second joint was splitting, and heintended (as the ferrule was lost) to bind it round and round withcopper wire. But he did not feel much inclined to do that either; hehad half a mind to go up in the bench-room, and take the lock of the oldgun to pieces to see how it worked. Only the stock (with the lockattached) was left; the barrel was gone.

  While he was thinking he walked into the parlour, and seeing thebookcase open--the door was lined within with green material--put hishand involuntarily on an old grey book. The covers were grey and wornand loose; the back part had come off; the edges were rough anddifficult to turn over, because they had not been cut by machinery; themargin, too, was yellow and frayed. Bevis's fingers went direct to therhyme he had read so often, and in an instant everything around himdisappeared, room and bookcase and the garden without, and he forgothimself, for he could see the "bolde men in their deeds," he could hearthe harper and the minstrel's song, the sound of trumpet and the clashof steel; how--

  "As they were drinking ale and wine Within Kyng Estmere's halle: When will ye marry a wyfe, brother, A wyfe to glad us all?"

  How the kyng and "Adler younge" rode to the wooing, and the fight theyhad, fighting so courageously against crowds of enemies,--

  "That soone they have slayne the Kempery men, Or forst them forth to flee."

  Bevis put himself so into it, that he did it all, _he_ bribed theporter, _he_ played the harp, and drew the sword; these were no words tohim, it was a living picture in which he himself acted.

  He was inclined to go up into the garret and fetch down the old cutlassthat was there among the lumber, and go forth into the meadow and slashaway at "gix" and parsley and burdocks, and kill them all for Kemperymen, just as he out them down before when he was Saint George. As hewas starting for the cutlass he recollected that the burdocks and therest where not up high enough yet, the Paynim scoundrels had not growntall enough in May to be slain with any pleasure, and a sense that youwere valiantly swording. Still there was an old wooden bedstead upthere, on which he could hoist up a sail, and sail away to any port hechose, to Spain, or Rhodes, or where the lotus-eaters lived. But hismind, so soon as he had put down the grey book, ran still on his raft,and out he raced to see it again, fresh and bright from the rest ofleaving it alone a little while.

  Volume One, Chapter II.

  THE LAUNCH.

  As he came near a butterfly rose from the raft, having stayed a momentto see what this could be among the dandelions and buttercups, but Beviswas too deeply occupied to notice it. The cord was of no use; therollers were of no use; the wheelbarrow occurred to him, but he couldnot lift it on, besides it was too large, nor could he have moved it ifit would go on. Pan was not strong enough to help him haul, even if hewould submit to be harnessed, which was doubtful. The cart-horses wereall out at work, nor indeed had they been in the stable would he havedared to touch them.

  What he wanted to do was to launch his raft before any one saw orguessed what he was about, so that it might be a surprise to them and atriumph to him. Especially he was anxious to do it before Mark came; hemight come across the fields any minute, or along the road, and Beviswished to be afloat, so that Mark might admire his boat, and askpermission to stop on board. Mark might appear directly; it was odd hehad not heard his whi
stle before. Full of this thought away went Bevisback to the house, to ask Polly the dairymaid to help him; but shehunted him out with the mop, being particularly busy that day with thebutter, and quite deaf to all his offers and promises. As he came outhe looked up the field, and remembered that John was stopping the gaps,and was at work by himself that day; perhaps he would slip away and helphim.

  He raced up the meadow and found the labourer, with his thick whiteleather gloves and billhook, putting thorn bushes in the gaps, which noone had made so much as Bevis himself.

  "Come and help me," said Bevis. Now John was willing enough to leavehis work and help Bevis do anything--for anything is sweeter than thework you ought to do--besides which he knew he could get Bevis to bringhim out a huge mug of ale for it.

  But he grinned and said nothing, and simply pointed through the hedge.Bevis looked, and there was the Bailiff with his back against the greatoak,