“Killed—no. How could he be killed?”
As soon as he understood that Bevis was really alive, not even hurt, Ted started off, to Val’s amazement, and never stopped till he entered the field where they were picking up the quoits as it grew too dark to play well. So Caesar and Pompey sat down to supper very lovingly, and talked over Pharsalia. Big Jack made them tell him the story over and over again, and wished he could have taken part in the combat. Like Mark, too, he envied Bevis’s real shipwreck. Now seeing Jack so interested they made use of his good-humour, and coaxed him till at last he promised to let them shoot with the rifle on the morrow in the evening, after he had finished in the fields.
All next day they rambled about the place, now in the garden, then in the orchard, then in the rick-yard or the stables, back again into the house, and up into the lumber-room at the top to see if they could find anything; down into the larder, where Jack’s dear old mother did her best to surfeit them with cakes and wines, and all the good things she could think of, for they reminded her of Jack when he was a boy and, in a sense, manageable. As for Jack’s old father, who was very old, he sat by himself in the parlour almost all day long, being too grim for anybody to approach.
He sat with his high hat on, aslant on his head, and when he wanted anything knocked the table or the floor as chance directed with a thick stick. When he walked out, every one slipped aside and avoided him, hiding behind the ricks, and Jack’s pointer slunk into his house, drooping his tail.
In the orchard Bevis and Mark squailed at the pears with short sticks. If they hit one it was bruised that side by the blow; then as it fell it had another good bump; but it is well-known that such thumping only makes pears more juicy. Tired of this they walked down by the mill-pool, in which there were a few small trout, Jack’s especial pets. The water was so clear that they could see the bottom of the pool for some distance; it looked very different to that of the New Sea below in the valley.
“We ought to have some of this water in our water-barrel when we go on our voyage,” said Bevis. “It’s clearer than the Nile.”
“The water-barrel must be got ashore somehow when we have the shipwreck,” said Mark, “or perhaps we shall not have any to drink.”
They were rather inclined to have a swim in the pool, but did not know how Jack would like it, as he was so jealous of his trout, and angry if they were disturbed. They would have had a swim though all the same, if the miller had not been looking over the hatch of his door. There he stood white and floury, blinking his eyes, and watching them.
“How anybody can be so stupid as to stand stock still, and stare, stare, stare, I can’t think,” said Mark, quite loud enough for the miller to hear. He did not smile nor stir; he did not even understand that he was meant; so sidelong a speech was beyond his comprehension. It would have needed very severe abuse indeed, hurled straight at his head, to have made him so much as lift his hand to dust the flour from his sleeve—the first thing he did when he began to feel a little.
Next they went indoors and had a look at the guns and rifle on the rack, which they dared not touch. Hearing the quick clatter of hoofs they ran out, and saw a labourer riding a pony bare back. He had been sent out to a village two miles away for some domestic requirement, and carried a parcel under his arm, while his heels but just escaped scraping the ground. The pony came up as sharp as he could, knowing his stable.