Bevis Part 30

"I tell you the knights were not the biggest; they very often fought huge people and monsters. And don't you remember how Ulysses served the giant with one eye?"

"I should like to bore a hole through Ted like that," said Mark. "He's a brute, and Phil's as cunning as ever he can be, and you've been and lost the battle."

"I tell you I've got Cecil, who is as quick as lightning, and all the sharp ones, and if you say any more I won't speak to you again, and I'll have some one else for lieutenant."

Mark nodded his head, and growled to himself, but he did not dare go farther. They worked all the afternoon in the bench-room, cutting off the swords to the same length, and fastening on the cross-pieces. They did not talk, Mark was sulky, and Bevis on his dignity. In the evening Phil came with the ribbons.

Next morning, while they were making two more eagles for Pompey, Val Cra.s.sus came to say he thought they ought to have telescopes, as officers had field-gla.s.ses; but Bevis said they were not invented in the time of their war. The day was very warm, still, and cloudless, and, after they had fixed the three bra.s.s rings on each long rod for standards, Bevis brought the old grey book of ballads out of the parlour into the orchard. Though he had used it so often he could not find his favourite place quickly, because the pages were not only frayed but some were broader than others, and would not run through the fingers, but adhered together.

When he had found "Kyng Estmere," he and Mark lay down on the gra.s.s under the shadow of a damson-tree, and chanted the verses, reading them first, and then singing them. Presently they came to where:--

"Kyng Estmere threwe the harpe asyde, And swith he drew his brand; And Estmere he, and Adler yonge, Right stiffe in stour can stand.

"And ay their swords soe sore can byte, Through help of gramarye, That soone they have slayne the Kempery men, Or forst them forth to flee."

These they repeated twenty times, for their minds were full of battle; and Bevis said after they had done the war they would study gramarye or magic. Just afterwards Cecil came to ask if they ought not to have bugles, as the Romans had trumpets, and Bevis had a bugle somewhere.

Bevis thought it was proper, but it was of no use, for n.o.body could blow the bugle but the old Bailiff, and he could only get one long note from it, so dreadful that you had to put your hands to your ears if you stood near. Cecil also said that in his garden at home there was a bay-tree, and ought they not to have wreaths for the victors? Bevis said that was capital, and Cecil went home with orders from Caesar to get his sisters to make some wreaths of bay for their triumph when they had won the battle.

Soon after sunset that evening the Bailiff looked in, and said there was some sheet lightning in the north, and he was going to call back some of the men to put tarpaulins over two or three loaded waggons, as he thought, after so much dry, hot weather, there would be a great storm.

The lightning increased very much, and after it grew dusk the flashes lit up the sky. Before sunset the sky had seemed quite cloudless, but now every flash showed innumerable narrow bands of clouds, very thin, behind which the electricity played to and fro.

While Bevis and Mark were watching it, Bevis's governor came out, and looking up said it would not rain and there was no danger; it was a sky-storm, and the lightning was at least a mile high. But the lightning became very fierce and almost incessant, sometimes crooked like a scimitar of flame, some times jagged, sometimes zigzag; and now and then vast acres of violet light, which flooded the ground and showed every tree and leaf and flower, all still and motionless; and after which, though lesser flashes were going on, it seemed for a moment quite dark, so much was the eye overpowered.

Bevis and Mark went up into the bench-room, where it was very close and sultry, and sat by the open window with the swords for Pompey bound up in two bundles and the standards, but they were half afraid no one would come for them. Their shadows were perpetually cast upon the white wall opposite as the flashes came and went. The crossbow and lance, the boomerang and k.n.o.bbed clubs were visible, and all the tools on the bench. Now and then, when the violet flashes came, the lightning seemed to linger in the room, to fill it with a blaze and stop there a moment.

In the darkness that followed one of these they heard a voice call "Bevis" underneath the window, and saw Phil and Val Cra.s.sus, who had come for the swords. Mark lowered the bundles out of window by a cord, but when they had got them they still stood there.

"Why don't you go?" said Mark.

"Lightning," said Val. "It's awful." It really was very powerful. The pears on the wall, and everything however minute stood out more distinctly defined than in daytime.

"It's a mile high," said Bevis. "It won't hurt you."

"Ted wouldn't come," said Phil. "He's gone to bed, and covered his head. You don't know how it looks out in the fields, all by yourself; it's all very well for you indoors."

"I'll come with you," said Bevis directly; up he jumped and went down to them, followed by Mark.

"Why wouldn't Ted come?" said Mark.

"He's afraid," said Phil, "and so was I till Val said he would come with me. Will lightning come to bra.s.s?" The flashes were reflected from the bra.s.s rings on the standards.

"I tell you it won't hurt," said Bevis, quite sure, because his governor had said so. But when they had walked up the field and were quite away from the house and the trees which partly obstructed the view, he was amazed at the spectacle, for all the meadow was lit up; and in the sky the streamers of flame rose in and out and over each other, till you could not tell which flash was which in the confusion of lightning.

Bevis became silent and fell into one of his dream states, when, as Mark said, he was like a tree. He was lost--something seemed to take him out of himself. He walked on, and they went with him, till he came to the gate opening on the sh.o.r.e of the New Sea.

"O, look!" they all said at once.

All the broad, still water, smooth as gla.s.s, shone and gleamed, reflecting back the bright light above; and far away they saw the wood (where Bevis and Mark once wandered) as plain as at noontide.

"I can't go home to-night," said Phil. Val Cra.s.sus said he could sleep at his house, which was much nearer; but he, too, hesitated to start.

"It _is_ awful," said Mark.

"It's nothing," said Bevis. "I like it." The continuous crackling of the thunder just then deepened, and a boom came rolling down the level water from the wooded hill. Bevis frowned, and held his lips tight together. He was startled, but he would not show it.

"I'll go with you," he said; and though Mark pointed out that they would have to come back by themselves, he insisted. They went with Pompey's lieutenants till Val's house, lit up by lightning, was in sight; then they returned. As they came into the garden, Bevis said the battle ought to be that night, because it would read so well in the history afterwards. The lightning continued far into the night, and still flashed when sleep overcame them.

Next morning Bevis sprang up and ran to the window, afraid it might be wet; but the sun was shining and the wind was blowing tremendously, so that all the willows by the brook looked grey as their leaves were turned, and the great elms by the orchard bowed to the gusts.

"It's dry," shouted Bevis, dancing.

"Hurrah!" said Mark, and they sang,--

"Kyng Estmere threwe his harpe asyde, And swith he drew his brand."

This was the day of the great battle, and they were impatient for the evening.

There was a letter on the breakfast-table from Bevis's grandpa, enclosing a P.O.O., a present of a sovereign for him. He asked the governor to advance him the money in two half-sovereigns. The governor did so, and Bevis immediately handed one of them to Mark.

About dinner-time there came a special messenger from Pompey with a letter, which was in Pompey's name, but Phil's handwriting. "Ted Pompey to Caesar Bevis. Please tell me who you are going to send to be with me in my camp, and let him come to the stile in Barn Copse at half-past five, and I will send Tim to be with you till the white handkerchiefs are up. And tell me if the lieutenants are to carry the eagles, or some one else."

Bevis wrote back:--"Caesar to Pompey greeting,"--this style he copied from his books,--"Caesar will send Charlie to be with you, as he can ran quick, though he is little. The lieutenants are not to carry the eagles, but a soldier for them. And Caesar wishes you health."

Then in the afternoon Mark had to go and tell Cecil and others, who were to send on the message to the rest of their party, to meet Bevis at the gate by the New Sea at half-past five, and to mind and not be one moment later. While Mark was gone, Bevis roamed about the garden and orchard, and back again to the stable and sheds, and then into the rick-yard, which was strewn with twigs and branches torn off from the elms that creaked as the gale struck them; then indoors, and from room to room.

He could not rest anywhere, he was so impatient.

At last he picked up the little book of the Odyssey, with its broken binding and frayed margin, from the chair where he had last loft it; and taking it up into the bench-room, opened it at the twenty-second book, where his favourite hero wreaked his vengeance on the suitors. With his own bow in his right hand, and the book in his left, Bevis read, marching up and down the room, stamping and shouting aloud as he came to the pa.s.sages he liked best:--

"Swift as the word, the parting arrow sings, And bears thy fate, Antinous, on its wings!

"For fate who fear'd amidst a feastful band?

And fate to numbers by a single hand?

"Two hundred oxen every prince shall pay; The waste of years refunded in a day.

Till then thy wrath is just,--Ulysses burn'd With high disdain, and sternly thus return'd.

"Soon as his store of flying fates was spent, Against the wall he set the bow unbent; And now his shoulders bear the ma.s.sy shield, And now his hands two beamy javelins wield."

Bevis had dropped his bow and seized one of Mark's spears, not hearing, as he stamped and shouted, Mark coming up the stairs. Mark s.n.a.t.c.hed up one of the swords, and as Bevis turned they rattled their weapons together, and shouted in their fierce joy. When satisfied they stopped, and Mark said he had come by the New Sea, and the waves were the biggest he had ever seen there, the wind was so furious.

They had their tea, or rather they sat at table, and rushed off as soon as possible; who cared for eating when war was about to begin! Seizing an opportunity, as the coast was clear, Mark ran up the field with the eagles, which, having long handles, were difficult to hide. Cecil and Bill took the greatcoat, and a railway-rug, which Bevis meant to represent his general's cloak. He followed with the basket of provisions on his shoulder, and was just thinking how lucky they were to get off without any inquiries, when he found they had forgotten the matches to light the camp-fire. He came back, took a box, and was going out again when he met Polly the dairymaid.

"What are you doing now?" said she. "Don't spoil that basket with your tricks--we use it. What's in it?" putting her hand on the lid.