Richard Jefferies

“ So to the luminous purple azure his heart ascended.
Bevis, the lover of the sky, gazed and forgot; forgot as we forget that our pulses beat, having no labour to make them. Nor did he hear the south wind singing in the fir tops.
I do not know how any can slumber with this over them; how any can look down at the clods. The greatest wonder on earth is that there are any not able to see the earth’s surpassing beauty. Such moments are beyond the chronograph and any measure of wheels, the passing of one cog may be equal to a century, for the mind has no time. ”

“ The mind opens with the enlarging day.
It is said the sandhills of the desert under the noonday sun emit strange sounds; that the rocky valleys are vocal; the primeval forest speaks in its depths; hollow ocean sends a muttering to the becalmed vessel; and up in the mountains the bound words are set loose. Of old times the huntsmen in our own woods met the noonday spirit under the leafy canopy.
Bevis and Mark listened, but heard nothing, except the entangled chafer, the midsummer hum, and, presently, Pan snuffling, as he buried his nostrils in his hair to bite a flea. ”

“ Large Sirius flashed; vast Orion strode the sky, lording the heavens with his sword. A scintillation rushed across from the zenith to the southern horizon. The black north held down the buds, but there was a force in them already that must push out in leaf as Arcturus rose in the East. Listening to the loud roar of the oak as the strength of the north wind filled them,—
“I should like to go straight to the real great sea like the wind,” said Mark.
“We must go to the great sea,” said Bevis. “Look at Orion!”
The wind went seawards, and the stars are always over the ocean. ”

“ Bevis saw him fly with a flight like a finch across to the ivy-grown oak, and heard his “top-top” from thence. One of the tits has a trick of tapping branches so much in the same manner that if he is not seen the sound may be mistaken.
There was now a little rabbit out, but not worth shooting. Restless as Bevis was, yet the moment he fixed his mind to do a thing his will magnetised the nerves and sinews. He became as still as a tree and scarcely heeded the lapse of time. Bees went by, which reminded him of the honey in the hollow ash, and he heard mice in the fern. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Crouching in the brambles, Mark soon lost sight of him, so soon that he seemed to have vanished; the ant-hills, the tall thistles, and the hawthorns concealed him.
Bevis stepped noiselessly round the green ant-hills, sometimes startling a lark, till, when he looked back, he scarcely knew which way he had come. In a meadow or a cornfield the smooth surface lets the glance travel at once to the opposite hedge, and the shape of the enclosure or one at least of its boundaries is seen, so that the position is understood. ”

“ On higher ground beyond, a herd of cows grazed in perfect peace, while the swallows threaded a maze in and out between them, but just above the grass. The New Sea was calm and smooth as glass, the sun shone in a cloudless sky, so that the shadow of the oak was pleasant; but the swallows had come down from the upper air, and Bevis, as he stood a little apart listening in an abstracted manner to the uproar, watched them swiftly gliding in and out. ”

“ Once on the island, as the perch were cooking, the game was spread out on the table—three moorhens, a coot, a dab-chick, a wood-pigeon, a hare, and the jack Mark had caught.
Of all the hare, or rather leveret, for it was a young one, was the finest. His black-tipped ears, his clean pads, his fur—every separate hair with three shades of colour—it was a pleasure to smooth his fur down with the hand.
“This is the jolliest day we’ve had,” said Mark. “All shooting and killing and real hunting—real island—and no work and no cooking, except just what we like. It’s splendid.” ”

“ At each long sweep Bevis felt a stronger hold, his head shot farther through above the surface like the stem of the Pinta when the freshening breeze drove her. He did not see where he was going, his vision was lost in the ecstasy of motion; all his mind was concentrated in the full use of his limbs. The delicious delirium of strength—unconsciousness of reason, unlimited consciousness of force—the joy of life itself filled him. ”

“ During the frost a blackbird had roosted in a corner of the hut under the rafters, sparrows too had sought its shelter, and wrens and blue-tits had crept into the crevices of the eaves. Next they went up on the cliff, the sun-dial stood as they had left it, but the sun was now down.
From the height, where they could hardly stand against the wind, they saw a figure afar on the green hill by the sycamores, which they knew must be Big Jack waiting for them to return. Walking back to the Pinta they passed under the now leafless teak-tree marked and scored by the bullets they had fired at it. ”

“ There was something moving in the hazel stoles across the glade which he could not make out, and he could not ask Bevis to look and see because of these minute kangaroos.
Ten minutes afterwards a squirrel leaped out from the hazel, and began to dart hither and thither along the sward, drawing his red tail softly over the grass at each arching leap as lightly as Jack drew the tassel of his whip over his mare’s shoulder when he wished to caress and soothe her. Another followed, and the two played along the turf, often hidden by bunches of grass. ”

“ They played round the huge sycamore trunks above the quarry, and the massive boughs stretched over—from a distance they would have seemed mere specks beneath the immense trees. They raced across to a round hollow in the field and sat down at the bottom, so that they could see nothing but the sky overhead, and the clouds drifting. They lay at full length, and for a moment were still and silent; the sunbeam and the wind, the soft touch of the grass, the gliding cloud, the eye-loved blue gave them the delicious sense of growing strong in drowsy luxury. ”

“ The swallow, pure artist of flight, feels the air with his wing-tips as with fingers, and lightly fanning glides.
Over the distant firs a heron came drifting like a cloud at his accustomed hour; from over the New Nile the call of a partridge, “caer-wit—caer-wit,” sounded along the surface of the water. There was a slight movement and Bevis saw the match descending, an inverted cone of smoke darted up from the priming, and almost before the report Pan leaped overboard. Mark had watched till two moorhens were near enough together, one he shot outright and Pan caught the other. ”

“ In the winter mornings the sun rose between the young oak and the third group of elms, red and vapour hung, and his beams presently shot through the window to the logs on the kitchen hearth. He sank then between the south-westerly ashes and the orchard, rising from the wall of the Downs, and sinking again behind it. At noon he was just over, only a little higher than the great southern oak. All day long the outer side of the garden wall was in shadow, and at night the northern sky was black to the horizon. ”

“ In ambush, under the ash-tree, and behind the fringe of fern—one frond was scorched where Mark had fired through it—Bevis watched with the gun ready on the rest. He had purposely gone a little too soon, that is, before the shadow stretched right out across the glade, because if you do not arrive till the last moment a kangaroo may be already out, and will be alarmed. Then it is necessary to wait till the others recover from their fear; for if one runs in, the sound of his hasty passage through the tunnels in the ground conveys the information to all in the bury. ”

“ He was a shrewd man, the governor, and he saw that Bevis and Mark had the ladies on their side; what is the use of saying anything when the ladies have made up their minds? Besides, there was this about it at any rate: they had gained the primeval health of the primeval forest-dwellers. Before gleaming eyes, red lips, sun-burned and yet clear skin, ringing voices and shouts of laughter, how could he help but waver and finally melt and become as curious as the rest. ”

“ In those days of running, racing, leaping, exploring, swimming, the skin nude to the sun, and wind and water, they built themselves up of steel, steel that would bear the hardest wear of the world. Had they been put in an open boat and thrust forth to sea like the viking of old, it would not have hurt them.
Frances played with Bevis’s golden ringlets, but did not kiss him as she had used to do. ”

“ As he listened and watched the swallows he thought, or rather felt—for he did not think from step to step upwards to a conclusion—he felt that all the power of a bird’s wing is in its tip.
It was with the slender-pointed and elastic tip, the flexible and finely divided feather point that the bird flew. An artist has a cumbrous easel, a heavy framework, a solid palette which has a distinct weight, but he paints with a tiny point of camel’s hair. With a camel’s hair tip the swallow sweeps the sky. ”

“ I say,” said Mark, “when you were on the Unknown Island did you see the magician with long white robes, and the serpent a hundred feet long he keeps in a cave under the bushes?”
“No,” said Bevis, “I forgot him.” So he had. His imagination ran so rapidly, one thing took the place of the other as the particles of water take each other’s place in a running brook. “We shall find him, I dare say.”
“Let’s land and see.”
“So we will.”
“Are you sure you’re steering right?”
“O! yes; it’s nothing to do, you only have to keep the wind in the sails.” ”

“ The sunburnt woodbine, the oaks dotted with coppery leaves where the second shoot appeared, the ash-poles rising from the hollow stoles, and whose pale sprays touching above formed a green surface, hazel with white nuts, stiff, ragged thistles on the stream bank, burrs with brown-tipped hooks, the hard dry ground, all silent, fixed, held in the light.
The sun slipped through the sky like a yacht under the shore where the light wind coming over a bank just fills the sails, but leaves the surface smooth. ”

“ By the New Nile. “Do you see any canoes?” said Mark.
“No,” said Bevis. “Can you? Look very carefully.”
They gazed across the broad water over the gleaming ripples far away, for the light wind did not raise them by the shore, and traced the edge of the willows and the weeds.
“The savages are in hiding,” said Bevis, after a pause. “Perhaps they’re having a feast.”
“Or gone somewhere to war.”
“Are they cannibals?” said Mark. “I should not like to be gnawn.”
“Very likely,” said Bevis. “No one has ever been here before, so they are nearly sure to be; they always are where no one has been. ”

“ O! no, it’s not the gun. They can shoot sparrows in India with a single ball,” said Bevis; “and matchlocks kill tigers better than rifles. Matchlocks are splendid things.”
“Splendid things,” said Mark, stroking the stock of the gun, which he now carried on his shoulder, as if it had been a breathing pet that could appreciate his affection.
“This is a curious groove,” said Bevis, looking at the score in the bark of the teak where Mark’s bullet had struck it. “Look, it goes a little round; the bullet stuck to the tree and went a little way round, instead of just coming straight, so.” ”

“ Crashing through the new bamboos they at last reached the southern extremity of the island, where the shallow sea was covered with the floating leaves of weeds, over which blue dragon-flies flew to and fro.
“Everything’s gone to the river again,” said Mark; “and where’s Pan? He’s gone too, I dare say.”
A short bark in that direction in a few minutes made them look at an islet round which reed-mace rose in a tall fringe, and there was Pan creeping up out of the weeds, dragging his body after him on to the firm ground. ”

“ May it not be the same as it was with Bevis and Mark when they spread their coats like sails and flew before the gale with such speed that it needed some nerve to stand upright—till the vibration of the skates caused a peculiar numblike feeling in the ankles? They either did or seemed to go faster than the wind, and was not this the accumulation of velocity? As a bullet dropped from a window falls so many feet the first second, and a great many more the next second, increasing its pace, so as they were thrust forwards by the wind their bodies accumulated the impetus and shot beyond it. ”

“ The wavelets from his splashing rolled on to the sandy shore, rippling under the aspen. As he looked, a fly fell on its back out of the tree, and struggled in vain to get up. Bevis climbed over the rails, picked an aspen leaf, and put it under the fly, which thus on a raft, and tossed up and down as Mark dived, was floated slowly by the undulations to the strand. As he got over the rails a kingfisher shot out from the mouth of the Nile opposite, and crossed aslant the gulf, whistling as he flew. ”

“ Mark pulled the foresheet tight to the other side. It drew directly, and like a lever brought her head round, completing the turn. The mainsail flew across. Bevis hauled the sheet tight. She rolled, heaved, and sprang forward.
“Hurrah! We’ve done it! Hurrah!”
They shouted and kicked the boat. Wish! the spray flew, soaking Mark’s jacket the other side, filling his pocket with water, and even coming back as far as Bevis’s feet. Sish! sish! The wind puffed, and the rigging sang; the mast leaned; she showed her blue side; involuntarily they moved as near to windward as they could. ”