Meantime they taught Big Jack to swim. He came down to look at the cave
on New Formosa, and Frances so taunted and tormented him because the
boys could swim and he could not, that at last the giant, as it were,
heaved himself up for the effort, and rode down every morning. Bevis
and Mark gave him lessons, and in a fortnight he could swim four or five
strokes to the railings. Directly he had the stroke he got on rapidly,
for those vast lungs of his, formed by the air of the hills, floated him
as buoyantly as a balloon. So soon as ever he could swim, Frances
turned round and tormented him because the boys had taught him and not
he the boys.
Bevis and Mark could not break off the habit of bathing every morning,
and they continued to do so far into October, often walking with bare
feet on the hoar-frost on the grass, and breaking the thin ice at the
edge of the water by tapping it with their toes. The bath was now only
a plunge and out again, but it gave them a pleasant glow all day, and
hardened them as the smith hardens iron.
Up at Jack’s they tried again with his little rifle, and applying what
they had learnt from the matchlock while shooting with ball, soon found
out the rifle’s peculiarities. It only wanted to be understood and
coaxed like everything else. Then they could hit anything with it up to
sixty yards. Beyond that the bullet, being beaten out of shape when
driven home by the ramrod, could not be depended upon. In October they
could shoot where they pleased on condition of sparing the pheasants for
their governors. There were no preserved covers, but a few pheasants
wandered away and came there. October was a beautiful month.
One morning Tom, the ploughboy, and some time bird-keeper, came to the
door and asked to see them. “There be a pussy in the mound,” he said,
with the sly leer peculiar to those who bring information about game.
He “knowed” there was a hare in the mound, and yet he could not have
given any positive reason for it. He had not actually seen the hare
enter the mound, nor found the run, nor the form, neither had he Pan’s
intelligent nostrils, but he “knowed” it all the same.
Rude as he looked he had an instinctive perception--supersensuous
perception--that there was a hare on that mound, which twenty people
might have passed without the least suspicion. “Go into the kitchen,”
said Bevis, and Tom went with a broad smile of content on his features,
for he well knew that to be sent into the kitchen was equivalent to a
cheque drawn on the cellar and the pantry.
Bevis and Mark took their guns, Pan followed very happily, and they
walked beside the hedges down towards the place, which was at some
distance. The keenness of the morning air, from which the sun had not
yet fully distilled the frost of the night, freshened their eagerness
for sport. A cart laden with swedes crossed in front of them, and
though the sun shone the load of roots indicated that winter was
approaching. They passed an oak growing out in the field.
Under the tree there stood an aged man with one hand against the hoary
trunk, and looking up into the tree as well as his bowed back, which had
stiffened in its stoop, and his rounded shoulders would let him. His
dress was old and sober tinted, his smock frock greyish, his old hat had
lost all colour. He was hoary like the lichen-hung oak trunk. From his
face the blood had dried away, leaving it a dull brown, the tan of
seventy harvest fields burned into the skin, a sapless brown wrinkled
face like a withered oak leaf.
Though he looked at them, and Bevis nodded, his eyes gave no sign of
recognition; like a dead animal’s, there was no light in them, the glaze
was settling. In the evening it might occur to him that he had seen
them in the morning. His years pressed heavy on him, very heavy like a
huge bundle of sticks; he was lost under his age. All those years
“Jumps” had never once been out of sight of the high Down yonder (not
far from Jack’s), the landmark of the place. Within sight of that hill
he was born, within such radius he had laboured, and therein he was
decaying, slowly, very slowly, like an oak branch. James was his real
name, corrupted to “Jumps;” as “Jumps” he had been known for two
generations, and he would have answered to no other.
One day it happened that “Jumps” searching for dead sticks came along
under the sycamore-trees and saw Jack, and Bevis and Mark swimming. He
watched them some time with his dull glazing eyes, and a day or two
afterwards opened his mouth about it. “Never seed nobody do thuck
afore,” he said, repeating it a score of times as his class do,
impressing an idea on others by reiteration, as it takes so much
iteration to impress it on them. “Never saw any one do that before.”
For seventy harvests he had laboured in that place, and never once gone
out of sight of the high Down yonder, and in all that seventy years no
one till Bevis and Mark, and now their pupil Jack, had learned to swim.
Bevis’s governor was out of the question, he had crossed the seas. But
of the true country-folk, of all who dwelt round about those waters, not
one had learned to swim. Very likely no one had learned since the
Norman conquest. When the forests were enclosed and the commonalty
forbidden to hunt, the spirit of enterprising exercise died out of them.
Certainly it is a fact that until quite recently you might search a
village from end to end and not find a swimmer, and most probably if you
found one now he would be something of a traveller and not a
home-staying man.
Tom, the ploughboy and bird-keeper, with his companions, the other
plough-lads and young men, sometimes bathed in summer in the brook far
down the meadows, splashing like blackbirds in the shallow water,
running to and fro on the sward under the grey-leaved willows with the
sunshine on their limbs. I delight to see them, they look Greek; I wish
some one would paint them, with the brimming brook, the willows
pondering over it, the pointed flags, the sward, and buttercups, the
distant flesh-tints in the sunlight under the grey leaves. But this was
not swimming. “Never saw any one do that before,” said the man of
seventy harvests.
Under the oak he stood as Bevis and Mark passed that October morning.
His hand was like wood upon wood, and as he leaned against the oak, his
knees were bent one way and his back the other, and thus stiff and
crooked and standing with an effort supported by the tree, it seemed as
if he had been going as a beast of the field upon all fours and had
hoisted himself upright with difficulty. Something in the position, in
the hoary tree, and the greyish hue of his dress gave the impression of
an arboreal animal.
But against the tree there leaned also a long slender pole, “teeled up”
as “Jumps” would have said, and at the end of the pole was a hook. The
old man had permission to collect the dead wood, and the use of his
crook was to tear down the decaying branches for which he was now
looking. A crook is a very simple instrument--the mere branch of a tree
will often serve as a crook--but no arboreal animal has ever used a
crook. Ah! “Jumps,” poor decaying “Jumps,” with lengthened narrow
experience like a long footpath, with glazing eyes, crooked knee, and
stiffened back, there was a something in thee for all that, the unseen
difference that is all in all, the wondrous mind, the soul.
Up in the sunshine a lark sung fluttering his wings; he arose from the
earth, his heart was in the sky. Shall not the soul arise?
Past the oak Bevis and Mark walked beside the hedge upon their way.
Frost, and sunshine after had reddened the hawthorn sprays, and already
they could see through the upper branches--red with haws--for the grass
was strewn with the leaves from the exposed tops of the bushes. On the
orange maples there were bunches of rosy-winged keys. There was a gloss
on the holly leaf, and catkins at the tips of the leafless birch. As
the leaves fell from the horse-chestnut boughs the varnished sheaths of
the buds for next year appeared; so there were green buds on the
willows, black tips to the ash saplings, green buds on the sycamores.
They waited asleep in their sheaths till Orion strode the southern sky
and Arcturus rose in the East.
Slender larch boughs were coated with the yellow fluff of the decaying
needles. Brown fern, shrivelled rush tip, grey rowen grass 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 buttercups flowered in the grass, 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
muffled 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 grass, 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, sturdy 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 shaggy 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
passed 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 pass, 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 glass 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 glass balls 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 glass balls 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 illustration, and
at last he snatched up the governor’s walking-stick. The knob or handle
he held in his right hand, and that represented the butt 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.
“And now this way,” said Bevis. He slipped his left hand up the stick
to within seven or eight inches of the point. This represented the new
position. A small error here--or lateral motion of the hand--only
produced a small divergence. The muzzle, the top of the stick, only
varied from the straight line the amount of the actual movement of the
left hand. In the former case a slight error of the hand multiplied
itself at the muzzle. This convinced them.
“How we shall shoot!” said Mark. “We shall beat Jack hollow!”
They returned home two days afterwards, and immediately tried the
experiment with their double-barrels. It answered perfectly. As Bevis
said, the secret was in the left arm.
When about to shoot grasp the gun at once with the left hand as high up
the barrel as possible without inconveniently straining the muscles, and
so bring it to the shoulder. Push the muzzle up against the mark, as if
the muzzle were going to actually touch it. The left hand aims,
positively putting the muzzle on the game. All is centred in the left
hand. The left hand must at once with the very first movement take hold
high up, and must not be slid there, it must take hold high up as near
the muzzle as possible without straining. The left hand is thrust out,
and as it were put on the game. Educate the left arm; teach it to
correspond instantaneously with the direction of the glance; teach it to
be absolutely stable for the three necessary seconds; let the mind act
through the left wrist. The left hand aims.
This is with the double-barrel shot gun; with the rifle at short
sporting ranges the only modification is that as there is but one pellet
instead of two hundred, the sight must be used and the dot put on the
mark, while with the shot gun in time you scarcely use the sight at all.
With the rifle the sight must never be forgotten. The left hand puts
the sight on the mark, and the quicker the trigger is pressed the
better, exactly reversing tradition. A slow deliberative rifleman was
always considered the most successful, but with the new system the fire
cannot be delivered too quickly, the very instant the sight is on the
mark, thus converting the rifleman into a snap-shooter. Of course it is
always understood that this applies to short sporting ranges, the method
is for sporting only, and does not apply to long range.
One caution is necessary in shooting like this with the double-barrel.
Be certain that you use a first-class weapon, quite safe. The left hand
being nearly at the top of the barrel, the left hand itself, and the
whole length of the left arm are exposed in case of the gun bursting. I
feel that some cheap guns are not quite safe. With a good gun by a
known maker there is no danger.
The American has had many imitators, but no one has reached his degree
of excellence in the new art which he invented. Perhaps it is fortunate
that it is not every one who can achieve such marvellous dexterity, for
such shooting would speedily empty every cover in this country.
Big Jack learned the trick from them in a very short time. His strong
left arm was as steady as a rock. He tried it with his little rifle,
and actually killed a hare, which he started from a furze bush, as it
ran with a single bullet. But the governor though convinced would not
adopt the new practice. He adhered to the old way, the way he had
learned as a boy. What we learn in youth influences us through life.
But Bevis and Mark, and Big Jack used it with tremendous effect in
snap-shooting in lanes where the game ran or flew across, in ferreting
when the rabbits bolted from hole to hole, in snipe shooting, in
hedge-hunting, one each side--the best of all sport, for you do not know
what may turn out next, a hare, a rabbit, a partridge from the dry
ditch, or a woodcock from the dead leaves.
Volume Three, Chapter XVIII.