The Weathercock: Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias

by George Manville Fenn

It was a curious condition of mind to be in, and, if asked, he could not have explained why he felt no anxiety nor wonder whether, after waiting tea for a long time, the doctor would send to meet him, and later on despatch a messenger to the village, where no news would be forthcoming. Perhaps his uncle and aunt would be anxious and would send people in search of him, and if these people were sent they would come along the deep lane and over the moorland piece, thinking that perhaps he would have gone that way for a short cut.

Perhaps. It all seemed to be perhaps, in a dull, misty way, and it was much more pleasant to lie listening to the partridges calling out on the moor—that curiously harsh cry, answered by others at a distance, and watch the sky growing gradually grey, and the clouds in the west change from gold to crimson, then to purple, and then turn inky black, while now from somewhere not far away he heard the flapping of wings and a hoarse, crocketing sound which puzzled him for the moment, but as it was repeated here and there, he knew it was the pheasants which haunted that part of the forest, flying up to their roosts for the night, to be safe from prowling animals—four-legged, or biped who walked the woods by night armed with guns.

For it did not matter; nothing mattered now. He was tired; and then all was blank.

Sleep or stupor, one or the other. Vane had been insensible for hours when he woke up with a start to find that lie was aching and that his head burned. He was puzzled for a few minutes before he could grasp his position. Then all he had passed through came, and he lay wondering whether any search had been made.

But still that did not trouble him. He wanted to lie still and listen to the sounds in the wood, and to watch the bright points of light just out through the narrow opening where he had seen the broad red face of the sun dip down, lower and lower out of sight. The intense darkness, too, beneath the beeches was pleasant and restful, and though there were no partridges calling now, there were plenty of sounds to lie and listen to, and wonder what they could be.

At another time he would have felt startled to find himself alone out there in the darkness, but in his strangely dulled state now every feeling of alarm was absent, and a sensation akin to curiosity filled his brain. Even the two gipsy lads were forgotten. He had once fancied that they might return, but he had had reasoning power enough left to argue that they would have come upon him long enough before, and to feel that he must have beaten them completely,—frightened them away.

And as he lay he awoke to the fact that all was not still in that black darkness, for there was a world of active, busy life at work. Now there came, like a whispering undertone, a faint clicking noise as the leaves moved. There were tiny feet passing over him; beetles of some kind that shunned the light; wood-lice and pill millipedes, hurrying here and there in search of food; and though Vane could not see them he knew that they were there.

Again there was the soft rustling movement of a leaf, and then of another a short distance away on the other side of his head. And Vane smiled as he lay there on his back staring up at the overhanging boughs through which now and then he could catch sight of a fine bright ray.

For he knew that sound well enough. It was made by great earth worms which reached out of their holes in the cool, moist darkness, feeling about for a soft leaf which they could seize with their round looking mouths, hold tightly, and draw back after them into the hole from which their tails had not stirred.

Vane lay listening to this till he was tired, and then waited for some other sound of the night.