Bevis Part 3

Mark went to work with the spade, throwing the turf he dug up into the brook; while Bevis, lying at full length on the gra.s.s, drew his plan of the ca.n.a.l. He drew two curving lines parallel, and half an inch apart, to represent the bend of the brook, and then two, as straight as he could manage, across, so as to shorten the distance, and avoid the obstruction. The rootlets of the gra.s.s held tight, when Mark tried to lift the spadeful he had dug, so that he could not tear them off.

He had to chop them at the side with his spade first, and then there was a root of the willow in the way; a very obstinate stout root, for which the little hatchet had to be brought to cut it. Under the softer turf the ground was very hard, as it had long been dry, so that by the time Bevis had drawn his plan and stuck in little sticks to show the course the ca.n.a.l was to take, Mark had only cleared about a foot square, and four or five inches deep, just at the edge of the bank, where he could thrust it into the stream.

"I have been thinking," said Bevis as he came back from the other end of the line, "I have been thinking what we are, now we are making this ca.n.a.l?"

"Yes," said Mark, "what are we?--they do not make ca.n.a.ls on the Mississippi. Is this the Suez ca.n.a.l?"

"Oh no," said Bevis. "This is not Africa; there is no sand, and there are no camels about. Stop a minute. Put down that spade, don't dig another bit till we know what we are."

Mark put down the spade, and they both thought very hard indeed, looking straight at one another.

"I know," said Bevis, drawing a long breath. "We are digging a ca.n.a.l through Mount Athos, and we are Greeks."

"But was it the Greeks?" said Mark. "Are you sure--"

"Quite sure," said Bevis. "Perfectly quite sure. Besides, it doesn't matter. _We_ can do it if they did not, don't you see?"

"So we can: and who are you then, if we are Greeks?"

"I am Alexander the Great."

"And who am I!"

"O, you--you are anybody."

"But I _must_ be somebody," said Mark, "else it will not do."

"Well, you are: let me see--Pisistratus."

"Who was Pisistratus?"

"I don't know," said Bevis. "It doesn't matter in the least. Now dig."

Pisistratus dug till he came to another root, which Alexander the Great chopped off for him with the hatchet. Pisistratus dug again and uncovered a water-rat's hole which went down aslant to the water. They both knelt on the gra.s.s, and peered down the round tunnel: at the bottom where the water was, some of the fallen petals of the may-bloom had come in and floated there.

"This would do splendidly to put some gunpowder in and blow up, like the miners do," said Bevis. "And I believe that is the proper way to make a ca.n.a.l: it is how they make tunnels, I am sure."

"Greeks are not very good," said Mark. "I don't like Greeks: don't let's be Greeks any longer. The Mississippi was very much best."

"So it was," said Bevis. "The Mississippi is the nicest. I am not Alexander, and you are not Pisistratus. This is the Mississippi."

"Let us have another float down," said Mark. "Let me float down, and I will drag you all the way up this time."

"All right," said Bevis.

So they launched the raft, and Mark got in and floated down, and Bevis walked on the bank, giving him directions how to pilot the vessel, which as before was brought up by the willow leaning over the water. Just as they were preparing to tow it back again, and Bevis was climbing out on the willow to get into the raft they heard a splashing down the brook.

"What's that?" said Mark. "Is it Indians?"

"No, it's an alligator. At least, I don't know. Perhaps it's a canoe full of Indians. Give me the pole, quick; there now, take the hatchet.

Look out!"

The splashing increased; then there was a "Yowp!" and Pan, the spaniel, suddenly appeared out of the flags by the osier-bed. He raced across the ground there, and jumped into the brook again, and immediately a moorc.o.c.k, which he had been hunting, scuttled along the water, beating with his wings, and scrambling with his long legs hanging down, using both air and water to fly from his enemy. As he came near he saw Bevis on the willow, and rose out of the brook over the bank. Bevis. .h.i.t at him with his pole, but missed; and Mark hurled the hatchet in vain. The moorc.o.c.k flew straight across the meadow to another withy-bed, and then disappeared. It was only by threats that they stopped the spaniel from following.

Pan having got his plateful by patiently waiting about the doorway, after he had licked his chops, and turned up the whites of his eyes, to see if he could persuade them to give him any more, walked into the rick-yard, and choosing a favourite spot upon some warm straw--for straw becomes quite hot under sunshine--lay down and took a nap. When he awoke, having settled matters with the fleas, he strolled back to the ha-ha wall, and, seeing Bevis and Mark still busy by the brook, went down to know what they were doing. But first going to a place he well knew to lap he scented the moorc.o.c.k, and gave chase.

"Come here," said Bevis; and, seizing the spaniel by the skin of his neck, he dragged him in the raft, stepped in quickly after, and held Pan while Mark hauled at the tow-line. But when Bevis had to take the pole to guide the raft from striking the bank Pan jumped out in a moment, preferring to swim rather than to ride in comfort, nor could any persuasions or threats get him on again. He barked along the sh.o.r.e, while Mark hauled and Bevis steered the craft.

Having beached her at the drinking-place on the shelving strand, they thought they had better go up the river a little way, and see if there were any traces of Indians; and, following the windings of the stream, they soon came to the hatch. Above the hatch the water was smooth, as it usually is where it is deep and approaching the edge, and Bevis's quick eye caught sight of a tiny ripple there near one bank, so tiny that it hardly extended across the brook, and disappeared after the third wavelet.

"Keep Pan there!" he said. "Hit him--hit him harder than that; he doesn't mind."

Mark punched the spaniel, who crouched; but, nevertheless, his body crept, as it were, towards the hatch, where Bevis was climbing over.

Bevis took hold of the top rail, put his foot on the rail below, all green and slippery with weeds where the water splashed, like the rocks where the sea comes, then his other foot further along, and so got over with the deep water in front, and the roar of the fall under, and the bubbles rushing down the stream. The bank was very steep, but there was a notch to put the foot in, and a stout hawthorn stem--the thorns on which had long since been broken off for the purpose--gave him something to hold to and by which to lift himself up.

Then he walked stealthily along the bank--it overhung the dark deep water, and seemed about to slip in under him. There was a plantation of trees on that side, and on the other a hawthorn hedge, so that it was a quiet and sheltered spot. As he came to the place where he had seen the ripple, he looked closer, and in among a bunch of rushes, with the green stalks standing up all round it, he saw a moorhen's nest. It was made of rushes, twined round like a wreath, or perhaps more like a large green turban, and there were three or four young moorhens in it. The old bird had slipped away as he came near, and diving under the surface rose ten yards off under a projecting bush.

Bevis dropped on his knee to take one of the young birds, but in an instant they rolled out of the nest, with their necks thrust out in front, and fell splash in the water, where they swam across, one with a piece of sh.e.l.l clinging to its back, and another piece of sh.e.l.l was washed from it by the water. Pan was by his side in a minute; he had heard the splash, and seen the young moorhens, and with a whine, as Mark kicked him--unable to hold him any longer--he rushed across.

"They are such pretty dear little things," said Bevis, in an ecstasy of sentiment, calling to Mark. "Lie down!" banging Pan with a dead branch which he hastily s.n.a.t.c.hed up. The spaniel's back sounded hollow as the wood rebounded, and broke on his ribs. "Such dear little things! I would not have them hurt for anything."

Bang again on Pan's back, who gave up the attempt, knowing from sore experience that Bevis was not to be trifled with. But by the time Mark had got there the little moorhens had hidden in the gra.s.ses beside the stream, though one swam out for a minute, and then concealed itself again.

"Don't you love them?" said Bevis. "I do. I'll _smash_ you,"--to Pan, cowering at his feet.

The moorhens did not appear again, so they went back and sat on the top of the steep bank, their legs dangling over the edge above the bubbling water.

A broad cool shadow from the trees had fallen over the hatch, for the afternoon had gone on, and the sun was declining behind them over the western hills. A broad cool shadow, whose edges were far away, so that they were in the midst of it. The thrushes sang in the ashes, for they knew that the quiet evening, with the dew they love, was near. A bullfinch came to the hawthorn hedge just above the hatch, looked in and out once or twice, and then stepped inside the spray near his nest. A yellow-hammer called from the top of a tree, and another answered him across the field. Afar in the mowing-gra.s.s the crake lifted his voice, for he talks more as the sun sinks.

The swirling water went round and round under the fall, with lines of white bubbles rising, and quivering ma.s.ses of yellowish foam ledged on the red rootlets under the bank and against the flags. The swirling water, ceaselessly beaten by the descending stream coming on it with a long-continued blow, returned to be driven away again. A steady roar of the fall, and a rippling sound above it of bursting bubbles and crossing wavelets of the hastening stream, notched and furrowed over stones, frowning in eager haste. The rushing and the coolness, and the song of the brook and the birds, and the sense of the sun sinking, stilled even Bevis and Mark a little while. They sat and listened, and said nothing; the delicious brook filled their ears with music.

Next minute Bevis seized Pan by the neck and pitched him over into the bubbles. In an instant, before he came to the surface, as his weight carried him beneath, Pan was swept down the stream, and when he came up he could not swim against it, but was drifted away till he made for the flags, which grew on a shallow spot. There he easily got out, shook himself, and waited for them to come over.

"I am hungry," said Mark. "What ought we to have to eat; what is right on the Mississippi? I don't believe they have tea. There is Polly shouting for us."

"No," said Bevis thoughtfully; "I don't think they do. How stupid of her to stand there shouting and waving her handkerchief, as if we could not find our way straight across the trackless prairie. I know--we will have some honey! Don't you know? Of course the hunters find lots of wild honey in the hollow trees. We will have some honey; there's a big jar full."

So they got over the hatch, and went home, leaving their tools scattered hither and thither beside the Mississippi. They climbed up the ha-ha wall, putting the toes of their boots where the flat stones of which it was built, without mortar, were farthest apart, and so made steps while they could hold to the wiry gra.s.s-tufts on the top.

"Where's your hat?" said Polly to Bevis.

"I don't know," said Bevis. "I suppose it's in the brook. It doesn't matter."

Volume One, Chapter IV.

DISCOVERY OF THE NEW SEA.

Next morning Bevis went out into the meadow to try and find a plant whose leaves, or one of them, always pointed to the north, like a green compa.s.s lying on the ground. There was one in the prairies by which the hunters directed themselves across those oceans of gra.s.s without a landmark as the mariners at sea. Why should there not be one in the meadows here--in these prairies--by which to guide himself from forest to forest, from hedge to hedge, where there was no path? If there was a path it was not proper to follow it, nor ought you to know your way; you ought to find it by sign.