Bevis Part 104

Slender larch boughs were coated with the yellow fluff of the decaying needles. Brown fern, shrivelled rush tip, grey rowen gra.s.s at the verge of the ditch showed that frost had wandered thither in the night. By the pond the brown bur-marigolds drooped, withering to seed, their dull disks like lesser sunflowers without the sunflower's colour. There was a beech which had been orange, but was now red from the topmost branch to the lowest, redder than the squirrels which came to it. Two or three last b.u.t.tercups flowered in the gra.s.s, and on a furze bush there were a few pale yellow blossoms not golden as in spring, but pale.

Thin threads of gossamer gleamed, the light ran along their loops as they were lifted by the breeze, and the sky was blue over the buff oaks.

Jays screeched in the oaks looking for acorns, and there came the m.u.f.fled tinkle of a sheep-bell. A humble-bee buzzed across their path, warmed into aimless life by the sun from his frost-chill of the night-- buzzed across and drifted against a hawthorn branch. There he clung and crept about the branch, his raft in the sunshine, as men chilled at sea cling and creep about their platform of beams in the waste of waves.

His feeble force was almost spent.

The sun shone and his rays fell on red hawthorn spray, on yellow larch bough, on brown fern, rush tip, and grey gra.s.s, on red beech and yellow gorse, on broad buff oaks and orange maple, and on the gleaming pond.

Wheresoever there was the least colour the sun's rays flew like a bee to a flower, and drew from it a beauty as they drew the song from the lark.

The wind came from the blue sky with drifting skeins of mist in it like those which curled in summer's dawn over the waters of the New Sea, the wind came and their blood glowed as they walked. King October reigned, and the wind of his mantle as he drew it about him puffed the leaves from the trees. June is the queen of the months, and October is king.

"Busk ye and bowne ye my merry men all:" sharpen your arrows and string your bows; set ye in order and march, march to the woods away.

The wind came and rippled their blood into a glow, as it rippled the water. A lissom steely sense strung their sinews; their backs felt like oak-plants, upright, st.u.r.dy but not rigid; their frames charged with force. This fierce sense of life is like the glow in the furnace where the draught comes; there's a light in the eye like the first star through the evening blue.

Afar above a flock of rooks soared, winding round and round a geometrical staircase in the air, with outstretched wings like leaves upborne and slowly rotating edge first. The ploughshare was at work under them planing the stubble and filling the breeze with the scent of the earth. Over the ploughshare they soared and danced in joyous measure.

Upon the tops of the elms the redwings sat--high-flying thrushes with a speck of blood under each wing--and called "kuck--quck" as they approached. When they came to the mound Bevis went one side of the hedge and Mark the other. Then at a word Pan rushed into the mound like a javelin, splintering the dry hollow "gix" stalks, but a thorn pierced his s.h.a.ggy coat and drew a "yap" from him.

At that the hare waited no longer, but lightly leaped from the mound thirty yards ahead. Bound! Bound! Bevis poised his gun, got the dot on the fleeting ears, and the hare rolled over and was still. So they pa.s.sed October, sometimes seeing a snipe on a sandy shallow of the brook under a willow as they came round a bend. The wild-fowl began to come to the New Sea, but these were older and wilder, and not easy to shoot.

One day as they were out rowing in the Pinta they saw the magic wave, and followed it up, till Mark shot the creature that caused it, and found it to be a large diving bird. Several times Bevis fired at herons as they came over. Towards the evening as they were returning homewards now and then one would pa.s.s, and though he knew the height was too much he could not resist firing at such a broad mark as the wide wings offered. The heron, perhaps touched, but unharmed by the pellets whose sting had left them, almost tumbled with fright, but soon recovered his gravity and resumed his course.

Somewhat later the governor having business in London took Bevis and Mark with him. They stayed a week at Bevis's grandpa's, and while there, for Bevis's special pleasure, the governor went with them one evening to see a celebrated American sportsman shoot. This pale-face from the land of the Indians quite upset and revolutionised all their ideas of how to handle a gun.

The perfection of first-rate English weapons, their accuracy and almost absolute safety, has obtained for them pre-eminence over all other fire-arms. It was in England that the art of shooting was slowly brought to the delicate precision which enables the sportsman to kill right and left in instantaneous succession. But why then did this one thing escape discovery? Why have so many thousands shot season after season without hitting upon it? The governor did not like his philosophy of the gun upset in this way; his cherished traditions overthrown.

There the American stood on the stage as calm as a tenor singer, and every time the gla.s.s ball was thrown up, smash! a single rifle-bullet broke it. A single bullet, not shot, not a cartridge which opens out and makes a pattern a foot in diameter, but one single bullet. It was shooting flying with a rifle. It was not once, twice, thrice, but tens and hundreds. The man's accuracy of aim seemed inexhaustible.

Never was there any exhibition so entirely genuine: never anything so bewildering to the gunner bred in the traditionary system of shooting.

A thousand rifle-bullets pattering in succession on gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s jerked in the air would have been past credibility if it had not been witnessed by crowds. The word of a few spectators only would have been disbelieved.

"It is quite upside down, this," said the governor. "Really one would think the gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s burst of themselves."

"He could shoot partridges flying with his rifle," said Mark.

Bevis said nothing but sat absorbed in the exhibition till the last shot was fired and they rose from their seats, then he said, "I know how he did it!"

"Nonsense."

"I'm sure I do: I saw it in a minute."

"Well, how then?"

"I'll tell you when we get home."

"Pooh!"

"Wait and see."

Nothing more was said till they reached home, when half scornfully they inquired in what the secret lay?

"The secret is in this," said Bevis, holding out his left arm. "That's the secret."

"How? I don't see."

"He puts his left arm out nearly as far as he can reach," said Bevis, "and holds the gun almost by the muzzle. That's how he does it. Here, see--like this."

He took up his grandfather's gun which was a muzzle-loader and had not been shot off these thirty years, and put it to his shoulder, stretching out his left arm and grasping the barrels high up beyond the stock. His long arm reached within a few inches of the muzzle.

"There!" he said.

"Well, it was like that," said Mark. "He certainly did hold the gun like that."

"But what is the difference?" said the governor. "I don't see how it's done now."

"But I do," said Bevis. "Just think: if you hold the gun out like this, and put your left arm high up as near the muzzle as you can, you put the muzzle on the mark directly instead of having to move it about to find it. And that's it, I'm sure. I saw that was how he held it directly, and then I thought it out."

"Let me," said Mark. He had the gun and tried, aiming quickly at an object on the mantelpiece. "So you can--you put the barrels right on it."

"Give it to me," said the governor. He tried, twice, thrice, throwing the gun up quickly.

"Keep your left hand in one place," said Bevis. "Not two places--don't move it."

"I do believe he's right," said the governor.

"Of course I am," said Bevis in high triumph. "I'm sure that's it."

"So am I," said Mark.

"Well, really now I come to try, I think it is," said the governor.

"It's like a rod on a pivot," said Bevis. "Don't you see the left hand is the pivot: if you hold it out as far as you can, then the Long part of the rod is your side of the pivot, and the short little piece is beyond it--then you've only got to move that little piece. If you shoot in our old way then the long piece is the other side of the pivot, and of course the least motion makes such a difference. Here, where's some paper--I can see it, if you can't."

With his pencil he drew a diagram, being always ready to draw maps and plans of all kinds. He drew it on the back of a card that chanced to lie on the table.

"There, that long straight stroke, that's the line of the gun--it's three inches long--now, see, put A at the top, and B at the bottom like they do in geometry. Now make a dot C on the line just an inch above B.

Now suppose B is where the stock touches your shoulder, and this dot C is where your hand holds the gun in our old way at home. Then, don't you see, the very least mistake at C, ever so little, increases at A-- ratio is the right word, increases in rapid ratio, and by the time the shot gets to the bird it's half a yard one side."

"I see," said Mark. "Now do the other."

"Rub out the dot at C," said Bevis. "I haven't got any indiarubber, you suppose it's rubbed out: now put the dot, two inches above B, and only one inch from the top of the gun at A. That's how he held it with his hand at this dot, say D."

"I think he did," said the governor.

"Now you think," said Bevis. "It takes quite a sweep, quite a movement to make the top A incline much out of the perpendicular. I mean if the pivot, that's your hand, is at D a little mistake does not increase anything like so rapidly. So its much more easy to shoot straight quick."

They considered this some while till they got to understand it. All the time Bevis's mind was working to try and find a better ill.u.s.tration, and at last he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the governor's walking-stick. The k.n.o.b or handle he held in his right hand, and that represented the b.u.t.t of the gun which is pressed against the shoulder. His right hand he rested on the table, keeping it still as the shoulder would be still. Then he took the stick with the thumb and finger of his left hand about one third of the length of the stick up. That was about the place where a gun would be held in the ordinary way.

"Now look," he said, and keeping his right hand firm, he moved his left an inch or so aside. The inch at his hand increased to three or four at the point of the stick. This initial error in the aim would go on increasing till at forty yards the widest spread of shot would miss the mark.