“Caw, caw!” a crow went over down to the shore, where he hoped to find a mussel surprised by the dawn in shallow water.
Bang! “Hoi! Hoo! Yah!” The discharge was half a mile away, but the crow altered his mind, and flew over the water as near the surface as he could without touching. Why do birds always cross the water in that way?
“That’s Tom,” said Mark. Tom was the bird-keeper. He shot first, and shouted after. He potted a hare in the corn with bits of flint, a button, three tin tacks, and a horse-stub, which scraped the old barrel inside, but slew the game. That was for himself. Then he shouted his loudest to do his duty—for other people. The sparrows had flown out of the corn at the noise of the gun, and settled on the hedge; when Tom shouted they were frightened from the hedge, and went back into the wheat. From which learn this, shoot first and shout after.
“Shall we say that was a gun at sea?” continued Mark.
“They are always heard at night,” said Bevis. “Pitch black, you know.”
“Everything is somehow else,” said Mark. Pan closed his idle old eyes, and grunted with delight as Bevis rubbed his ribs with his foot. Bevis put his hands in his pockets and sighed deeply. The sun looked down on these sons of care, and all the morning beamed.
“Savages!” shouted Mark kicking the gate to with a slam that startled Pan up. “Savages, of course!”
“Why?”
“They swim, donk: don’t they? They’re always in the water, and they have catamarans and ride the waves and dance on the shore, and blow shells—”
“Trumpets?”