Part 30 (1/2)

”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.