SIR BEVIS AND THE WIND.
Some two or three days after peace was concluded, it happened that one
morning the waggon was going up on the hills to bring down a load of
straw, purchased from the very old gentleman who in his anger shot King
Kapchack. When Bevis saw the horses brought out of the stable, and
learnt that they were to travel along the road that led towards the
ships (though but three miles out of the sixty), nothing would do but he
must go with them. As his papa and the bailiff were on this particular
occasion to accompany the waggon, Bevis had his own way as usual.
The road passed not far from the copse, and Bevis heard the woodpecker
say something, but he was too busy touching up the horses with the
carter's long whip to pay any heed. If he had been permitted he would
have lashed them into a sharp trot. Every now and then Bevis turned
round to give the bailiff a sly flick with the whip; the bailiff sat at
the tail and dangled his legs over behind, so that his broad back was a
capital thing to hit. By-and-by, the carter left the highway and took
the waggon along a lane where the ruts were white with chalk, and which
wound round at the foot of the downs. Then after surmounting a steep
hill, where the lane had worn a deep hollow, they found a plain with
hills all round it, and here, close to the sward, was the straw-rick
from which they were to load.
Bevis insisted upon building the load, that is putting the straw in its
place when it was thrown up; but in three minutes he said he hated it,
it was so hot and scratchy, so out he jumped. Then he ran a little way
up the green sward of the hill, and lying down rolled over and over to
the bottom. Next he wandered along the low hedge dividing the stubble
from the sward, so low that he could jump over it, but as he could not
find anything he came back, and at last so teased and worried his papa
to let him go up to the top of the hill, that he consented, on Bevis
promising in the most solemn manner that he would not go one single inch
beyond the summit, where there was an ancient earthwork. Bevis promised,
and his eyes looked so clear and truthful, and his cheek so rosy and
innocent, and his lips so red and pouting, that no one could choose but
believe him.
Away he ran thirty yards up the hill at a burst, but it soon became so
steep he had to stay and climb slowly. Five minutes afterwards he began
to find it very hard work indeed, though it looked so easy from below,
and stopped to rest. He turned round and looked down; he could see over
the waggon and the straw-rick, over the ash-trees in the hedges, over
the plain (all yellow with stubble) across to the hills on the other
side, and there, through a gap in them, it seemed as if the land
suddenly ceased, or dropped down, and beyond was a dark blue expanse
which ended in the sky where the sky came down to touch it.
By his feet was a rounded boulder-stone, brown and smooth, a hard
sarsen; this he tried to move, but it was so heavy that he could but
just stir it. But the more difficult a thing was, or the more he was
resisted, the more determined Bevis always became. He would stamp and
shout with rage, rather than let a thing alone quietly. When he did this
sometimes Pan, the spaniel, would look at him in amazement, and wonder
why he did not leave it and go on and do something else, as the world
was so big, and there were very many easy things that could be done
without any trouble. That was not Bevis's idea, however, at all; he
never quitted a thing till he had done it. And so he tugged and strained
and struggled with the stone till he got it out of its bed and on the
sloping sward.
Then he pushed and heaved at it, till it began to roll, and giving it a
final thrust with his foot, away it went, at first rumbling and rolling
slowly, and then faster and with a thumping, till presently it bounded
and leaped ten yards at a time, and at the bottom of the hill sprang
over the hedge like a hunter, and did not stop till it had gone twenty
yards out into the stubble towards the straw-rick. Bevis laughed and
shouted, though a little disappointed that it had not smashed the
waggon, or at least jumped over it. Then, waving his hat, away he went
again, now picking up a flint to fling as far down as he could, now
kicking over a white round puff ball--always up, up, till he grew hot,
and his breath came in quick deep pants.
But still as determined as ever, he pushed on, and presently stood on
the summit, on the edge of the fosse. He looked down; the waggon seemed
under his feet; the plain, the hills beyond, the blue distant valley on
one side, on the other the ridge he had mounted stretched away, and
beyond it still more ridges, till he could see no further. He went into
the fosse, and there it seemed so pleasant that he sat down, and in a
minute lay extended at full length in his favourite position, looking up
at the sky. It was much more blue than he had ever seen it before, and
it seemed only just over his head; the grasshoppers called in the grass
at his side, and he could hear a lark sing, singing far away, but on a
level with him. First he thought he would talk to the grasshopper, or
call to one of the swallows, but he had now got over the effort of
climbing, and he could not sit still.
Up he jumped, ran up the rampart, and then down again into the fosse. He
liked the trench best, and ran along it in the hollow, picking up stray
flints and throwing them as far as he could. The trench wound round the
hill, and presently when he saw a low hawthorn-bush just outside the
broad green ditch, and scrambled up to it, the waggon was gone and the
plain, for he had reached the other side of the camp. There the top of
the hill was level and broad: a beautiful place for a walk.
Bevis went a little way out upon it, and the turf was so soft, and
seemed to push up his foot so, that he must go on, and when he had got a
little farther, he heard another grasshopper, and thought he would run
and catch him; but the grasshopper, who had heard of his tricks, stopped
singing, and hid in a bunch, so that Bevis could not see him.
Next he saw a little round hill--a curious little hill--not very much
higher than his own head, green with grass and smooth. This curious
little hill greatly pleased him; he would have liked to have had it
carried down into his garden at home; he ran up on the top of it, and
shouted at the sun, and danced round on the tumulus. A third grasshopper
called in the grass, and Bevis ran down after him, but he, too, was too
cunning; then a glossy ball of thistledown came up so silently, Bevis
did not see it till it touched him, and lingered a moment lovingly
against his shoulder. Before he could grasp it, it was gone.
A few steps farther and he found a track crossing the hill, waggon-ruts
in the turf, and ran along it a little way--only a little way, for he
did not care for anything straight. Next he saw a mushroom, and gathered
it, and while hunting about hither and thither for another, came upon
some boulder-stones, like the one he had hurled down the slope, but very
much larger, big enough to play hide-and-seek behind. He danced round
these--Bevis could not walk--and after he had danced round every one,
and peered under and climbed over one or two, he discovered that they
were put in a circle.
"Somebody's been at play here," thought Bevis, and looking round to see
who had been placing the stones in a ring, he saw a flock of rooks far
off in the air, even higher up than he was on the hill, wheeling about,
soaring round with outspread wings and cawing. They slipped past each
other in and out, tracing a maze, and rose up, drifting away slowly as
they rose; they were so happy, they danced in the sky. Bevis ran along
the hill in the same direction they were going, shouting and waving his
hand to them, and they cawed to him in return.
When he looked to see where he was he was now in the midst of long
mounds or heaps of flints that had been dug and stacked; he jumped on
them, and off again, picked up the best for throwing, and flung them as
far as he could. There was a fir-copse but a little distance farther, he
went to it, but the trees grew so close together he could not go
through, so he walked round it, and then the ground declined so gently
he did not notice he was going downhill. At the bottom there was a wood
of the strangest old twisted oaks he had ever seen; not the least like
the oak-trees by his house at home that he knew so well.
These were short, and so very knotty that even the trunks, thick as they
were, seemed all knots, and the limbs were gnarled, and shaggy with grey
lichen. He threw pieces of dead stick, which he found on the ground, up
at the acorns, but they were not yet ripe, so he wandered on among the
oaks, tapping every one he passed to see which was hollow, till
presently he had gone so far he could not see the hills for the boughs.
But just as he was thinking he would ask a bee to show him the way out
(for there was not a single bird in the wood), he came to a place where
the oaks were thinner, and the space between them was covered with
bramble-bushes. Some of the blackberries were ripe, and his lips were
soon stained with their juice. Passing on from bramble-thicket to
bramble-thicket, by-and-by he shouted, and danced, and clapped his hands
with joy, for there were some nuts on a hazel bough, and they were ripe
he was sure, for the side towards the sun was rosy. He knew that nuts do
not get brown first, but often turn red towards the south. Out came his
pocket-knife, and with seven tremendous slashes, for Bevis could not do
anything steadily, off came a branch with a crook. He crooked down the
bough and gathered the nuts, there were eight on that bough, and on the
next four, and on the next only two. But there was another stole beyond,
from which, in a minute, he had twenty more, and then as he could not
stay to crack them, he crammed them into his pocket and ceased to
reckon.
"I will take fifty up to the squirrel," he said to himself, "and the
nut-crackers, and show him how to do it properly with some salt." So he
tugged at the boughs, and dragged them down, and went on from stole to
stole till he had roamed into the depths of the nut-tree wood.
Then, as he stopped a second to step over a little streamlet that oozed
along at his feet, all at once he became aware how still it was. No
birds sang, and no jay called; no woodpecker chuckled; there was not
even a robin; nor had he seen a rabbit, or a squirrel, or a dragon-fly,
or any of his friends. Already the outer rim of some of the hazel leaves
was brown, while the centre of the leaf remained green, but there was
not even the rustle of a leaf as it fell. The larks were not here, nor
the swallows, nor the rooks; the streamlet at his feet went on without a
murmur; and the breeze did not come down into the hollow. Except for a
bee, whose buzz seemed quite loud as he flew by, there was not a moving
thing. Bevis was alone; he had never before been so utterly alone, and
he stopped humming the old tune the brook had taught him, to listen.
He lifted his crook and struck the water; it splashed, but in a second
it was still again. He flung a dead branch into a tree; it cracked as it
hit a bough, on which the leaves rustled; then it fell thump, and lay
still and quiet. He stamped on the ground, the grass gave no sound. He
shouted "Holloa!" but there was no echo. His voice seemed to slip away
from him, he could not shout so loud as he had been accustomed to. For a
minute he liked it; then he began to think it was not so pleasant; then
he wanted to get out, but he could not see the hill, so he did not know
which way to go.
So he stroked a knotted oak with his hand, smoothing it down, and said:
"Oak, oak, tell me which way to go!" and the oak tried to speak, but
there was no wind, and he could not, but he dropped just one leaf on
the right side, and Bevis picked it up, and as he did so, a nut-tree
bough brushed his cheek.
He kissed the bough, and said: "Nut-tree bough, nut-tree bough, tell me
the way to go!" The bough could not speak for the same reason that the
oak could not; but it bent down towards the streamlet. Bevis dropped on
one knee and lifted up a little water in the hollow of his hand, and
drank it, and asked which way to go.
The stream could not speak because there was no stone to splash against,
but it sparkled in the sunshine (as Bevis had pushed the bough aside),
and looked so pleasant that he followed it a little way, and then he
came to an open place with twisted old oaks, gnarled and knotted, where
a blue butterfly was playing.
"Show me the way out, you beautiful creature," said Bevis.
"So I will, Bevis dear," said the butterfly. "I have just come from your
waggon, and your papa and the bailiff have been calling to you, and I
think they will soon be coming back to look for you. Follow me, my
darling."
So Bevis followed the little blue butterfly, who danced along as
straight as it was possible for him to go, for he, like Bevis, did not
like too much straightness. Now the oak knew the butterfly was there,
and that was why he dropped his leaf; and so did the nut-tree bough, and
that was why he drooped and let the sun sparkle on the water, and the
stream smiled to make Bevis follow him to where the butterfly was
playing. Without pausing anywhere, but just zig-zagging on, the blue
butterfly floated before Bevis, who danced after him, the nuts falling
from his crammed pockets; knocking every oak as he went with his stick,
asking them if they knew anything, or had anything to tell the people in
the copse near his house. The oaks were bursting with things to tell
him, and messages to send, but they could not speak, as there was no
breeze in the hollow. He whipped the bramble bushes with his crook, but
they did not mind in the least, they were so glad to see him.
He whistled to the butterfly to stop a moment while he picked a
blackberry; the butterfly settled on a leaf. Then away they went again
together till they left the wood behind and began to go up the hill.
There the butterfly grew restless, and could scarce restrain his pace
for Bevis to keep up, as they were now in the sunshine. Bevis raced
after as fast as he could go uphill, but at the top the butterfly
thought he saw a friend of his, and telling Bevis that somebody would
come to him in a minute, away he flew. Bevis looked round, but it was
all strange and new to him; there were hills all round, but there was no
waggon, and no old trench or rampart; nothing but the blue sky and the
great sun, which did not seem far off.
While he wondered which way to go, the wind came along the ridge, and
taking him softly by the ear pushed him gently forward and said: "Bevis,
my love, I have been waiting for you ever so long; why did you not come
before?"
"Because you never asked me," said Bevis.
"Oh yes, I did; I asked you twenty times in the copse. I beckoned to you
out of the great oak, under which you went to sleep; and I whispered to
you from the fir-trees where the squirrel played, but you were so busy,
dear, so busy with Kapchack, and the war, and Choo Hoo, and the court,
and all the turmoil, that you did not hear me."
"You should have called louder," said Bevis.
"So I did," said the wind. "Don't you remember I whirled the little
bough against your window, and rattled the casement that night you saw
the owl go by?"
"I was so sleepy," said Bevis, "I did not know what you meant; you
should have kissed me."
"So I did," said the wind. "I kissed you a hundred times out in the
field, and stroked your hair, but you would not take any notice."
"I had so much to do," said Bevis; "there was the weasel and my
cannon-stick."
"But I wanted you very much," said the wind, "because I love you, and
longed for you to come and visit me."
"Well, now I am come," said Bevis. "But where do you live?"
"This is where I live, dear," said the wind. "I live upon the hill;
sometimes I go to the sea, and sometimes to the woods, and sometimes I
run through the valley, but I always come back here, and you may always
be sure of finding me here; and I want you to come and romp with me."
"I will come," said Bevis; "I like a romp, but are you very rough?"
"Oh no, dear; not with you."
"I am a great big boy," said Bevis; "I am eating my peck of salt very
fast: I shall soon get too big to romp with you. How old are you, you
jolly Wind?"
The wind laughed and said: "I am older than all the very old things. I
am as old as the brook."
"But the brook is very old," said Bevis. "He told me he was older than
the hills, so I do not think you are as old as he is."
"Yes I am," said the wind; "he was always my playfellow; we were
children together."
"If you are so very, very old," said Bevis, "it is no use your trying to
romp with me, because I am very strong; I can carry my papa's gun on my
shoulder, and I can run very fast; do you know the stupid old bailiff
can't catch me? I can go round the ricks ever so much quicker than he
can."
"I can run quick," said the wind.
"But not so quick as me," said Bevis; "now see if you can catch me."
Away he ran, and for a moment he left the wind behind; but the wind blew
a little faster, and overtook him, and they raced along together, like
two wild things, till Bevis began to pant. Then down he sat on the turf
and kicked up his heels and shouted, and the wind fanned his cheek and
cooled him, and kissed his lips and stroked his hair, and caressed him
and played with him, till up he jumped again and danced along, the wind
always pushing him gently.
"You are a jolly old Wind," said Bevis, "I like you very much; but you
must tell me a story, else we shall quarrel. I'm sure we shall."
"I will try," said the wind; "but I have forgotten all my stories,
because the people never come to listen to me now."
"Why don't they come?" said Bevis.
"They are too busy," said the wind, sighing; "they are so very, very
busy, just like you were with Kapchack and his treasure and the war, and
all the rest of the business; they have so much to do, they have quite
forsaken me."
"I will come to you," said Bevis; "do not be sorry. I will come and play
with you."
"Yes, do," said the wind; "and drink me, dear, as much as ever you can.
I shall make you strong. Now drink me."
Bevis stood still and drew in a long, long breath, drinking the wind
till his chest was full and his heart beat quicker. Then he jumped and
danced and shouted.
"There," said the wind, "see, how jolly I have made you. It was I who
made you dance and sing, and run along the hill just now. Come up here,
my darling Sir Bevis, and drink me as often as ever you can, and the
more you drink of me the happier you will be, and the longer you will
live. And people will look at you and say: 'How jolly he looks! Is he
not nice? I wish I was like him.' And presently they will say: 'Where
does he learn all these things?'
"For you must know, Bevis, my dear, that although I have forgotten my
stories, yet they are all still there in my mind, and by-and-by, if you
keep on drinking me I shall tell you all of them, and nobody will know
how you learn it all. For I know more than the brook, because, you see,
I travel about everywhere: and I know more than the trees; indeed, all
they know I taught them myself. The sun is always telling me everything,
and the stars whisper to me at night: the ocean roars at me: the earth
whispers to me: just you lie down, Bevis love, upon the ground and
listen."
So Bevis lay down on the grass, and heard the wind whispering in the
tufts and bunches, and the earth under him answered, and asked the wind
to stay and talk. But the wind said: "I have got Bevis to-day: come on,
Bevis," and Bevis stood up and walked along.
"Besides all these things," said the wind, "I can remember everything
that ever was. There never was anything that I cannot remember, and my
mind is so clear that if you will but come up here and drink me, you
will understand everything."
"Well then," said Bevis, "I will drink you--there, I have just had such
a lot of you: now tell me this instant why the sun is up there, and is
he very hot if you touch him, and which way does he go when he sinks
beyond the wood, and who lives up there, and are they nice people, and
who painted the sky?"
The wind laughed aloud, and said: "Bevis, my darling, you have not drunk
half enough of me yet, else you would never ask such silly questions as
that. Why, those are like the silly questions the people ask who live in
the houses of the cities, and never feel me or taste me, or speak to me.
And I have seen them looking through long tubes----"
"I know," said Bevis; "they are telescopes, and you look at the sun and
the stars, and they tell you all about them."
"Pooh!" said the wind, "don't you believe such stuff and rubbish, my
pet. How can they know anything about the sun who are never out in the
sunshine, and never come up on the hills, or go into the wood? How can
they know anything about the stars who never stopped on the hills, or on
the sea all night? How can they know anything of such things who are
shut up in houses, dear, where I cannot come in?
"Bevis, my love, if you want to know all about the sun, and the stars,
and everything, make haste and come to me, and I will tell you, dear. In
the morning, dear, get up as quick as you can, and drink me as I come
down from the hill. In the day go up on the hill, dear, and drink me
again, and stay there if you can till the stars shine out, and drink
still more of me.
"And by-and-by you will understand all about the sun, and the moon, and
the stars, and the earth which is so beautiful, Bevis. It is so
beautiful, you can hardly believe how beautiful it is. Do not listen,
dear, not for one moment, to the stuff and rubbish they tell you down
there in the houses where they will not let me come. If they say the
earth is not beautiful, tell them they do not speak the truth. But it is
not their fault, for they have never seen it, and as they have never
drank me their eyes are closed, and their ears shut up tight. But every
evening, dear, before you get into bed, do you go to your window--the
same as you did the evening the owl went by--and lift the curtain and
look up at the sky, and I shall be somewhere about, or else I shall be
quiet in order that there may be no clouds, so that you may see the
stars. In the morning, as I said before, rush out and drink me up.
"The more you drink of me, the more you will want, and the more I shall
love you. Come up to me upon the hills, and your heart will never be
heavy, but your eyes will be bright, and your step quick, and you will
sing and shout----"
"So I will," said Bevis, "I will shout. Holloa!" and he ran up on to the
top of the little round hill, to which they had now returned, and danced
about on it as wild as could be.
"Dance away, dear," said the wind, much delighted. "Everybody dances who
drinks me. The man in the hill there----"
"What man?" said Bevis, "and how did he get in the hill? just tell him I
want to speak to him."
"Darling," said the wind, very quiet and softly, "he is dead, and he is
in the little hill you are standing on, under your feet. At least, he
was there once, but there is nothing of him there now. Still it is his
place, and as he loved me, and I loved him, I come very often and sing
here."
"When did he die?" said Bevis. "Did I ever see him?"
"He died about a minute ago, dear; just before you came up the hill. If
you were to ask the people who live in the houses, where they will not
let me in (they carefully shut out the sun too), they would tell you he
died thousands of years ago; but they are foolish, very foolish. It was
hardly so long ago as yesterday. Did not the brook tell you all about
that?
"Now this man, and all his people, used to love me and drink me, as much
as ever they could all day long and a great part of the night, and when
they died they still wanted to be with me, and so they were all buried
on the tops of the hills, and you will find these curious little mounds
everywhere on the ridges, dear, where I blow along. There I come to them
still, and sing through the long dry grass, and rush over the turf, and
I bring the scent of the clover from the plain, and the bees come
humming along upon me. The sun comes too, and the rain. But I am here
most; the sun only shines by day, and the rain only comes now and then.
"But I am always here, day and night, winter and summer. Drink me as
much as you will, you cannot drink me away; there is always just as much
of me left. As I told you, the people who were buried in these little
mounds used to drink me, and oh! how they raced along the turf, dear;
there is nobody can run so fast now; and they leaped and danced, and
sang and shouted. I loved them as I love you, my darling; there, sit
down and rest on the thyme, dear, and I will stroke your hair and sing
to you."
So Bevis sat down on the thyme, and the wind began to sing, so low and
sweet and so strange an old song, that he closed his eyes and leaned on
his arm on the turf. There were no words to the song, but Bevis
understood it all, and it made him feel so happy. The great sun smiled
upon him, the great earth bore him in her arms gently, the wind caressed
him, singing all the while. Now Bevis knew what the wind meant; he felt
with his soul out to the far-distant sun just as easily as he could feel
with his hand to the bunch of grass beside him; he felt with his soul
down through into the earth just as easily as he could touch the sward
with his fingers. Something seemed to come to him out of the sunshine
and the grass.
"There never was a yesterday," whispered the wind presently, "and there
never will be to-morrow. It is all one long to-day. When the man in the
hill was you were too, and he still is now you are here; but of these
things you will know when you are older, that is if you will only
continue to drink me. Come, dear, let us race on again." So the two went
on and came to a hawthorn-bush, and Bevis, full of mischief always,
tried to slip away from the wind round the bush, but the wind laughed
and caught him.
A little farther and they came to the fosse of the old camp. Bevis went
down into the trench, and he and the wind raced round along it as fast
as ever they could go, till presently he ran up out of it on the hill,
and there was the waggon underneath him, with the load well piled up
now. There was the plain, yellow with stubble; the hills beyond it and
the blue valley, just the same as he had left it.
As Bevis stood and looked down, the wind caressed him, and said:
"Good-bye, darling, I am going yonder, straight across to the blue
valley and the blue sky, where they meet; but I shall be back again when
you come next time. Now remember, my dear, to drink me--come up here and
drink me."
"Shall you be here?" said Bevis, "are you quite sure you will be here?"
"Yes," said the wind, "I shall be quite certain to be here; I promise
you, love, I will never go quite away. Promise me faithfully, too, that
you will come up and drink me, and shout and race and be happy."
"I promise," said Bevis, beginning to go down the hill; "good-bye, jolly
old Wind."
"Good-bye, dearest," whispered the wind, as he went across out towards
the valley. As Bevis went down the hill, a blue harebell, who had been
singing farewell to summer all the morning, called to him and asked him
to gather her and carry her home as she would rather go with him than
stay now autumn was near.
Bevis gathered the harebell, and ran with the flower in his hand down
the hill, and as he ran the wild thyme kissed his feet and said: "Come
again, Bevis, come again". At the bottom of the hill the waggon was
loaded now; so they lifted him up, and he rode home on the broad back of
the leader.