' WOOD MAGIC ' AND ' BEVIS ' 165 



' " So we will," said Mark. " But we shall not be back 

 to dinner." 



' " As if travellers ever thought of dinner ! Of course, 

 we shall take our provisions with us." 



* " Let's go and get our spears," said Mark. 

 ' " Let's take Pan," said Bevis. 



' " \Miere is your old compass ?" said Mark. 



' " Oh, I know — and I must make a map ; wait a minute. 

 We ought to have a medicine chest ; the savages will 

 worry us for physic ; and very likely we shall have dreadful 

 fevers." 



* " So wc shall, of course ; but perhaps there are wonder- 

 ful plants to cure us, and we know them, and the savages 

 don't — there's sorrel." 



' " Of course, and we can nibble some hawthorn leaf." 

 ' " Or a stalk of wheat." 



* " Or some watercress." 

 ' " Or some nuts." 



' " No, certainly not ; they're not ripe," said Bevis, 

 " and unripe fruit is very dangerous in tropical countries." 



' " We ought to keep a diary," said Mark. " When we 

 go to sleep, who shall watch first, you or I ?" 



' " We'll hght a fire," said Bevis. " That will frighten 

 the lions ; they will glare at us, but they can't stand fire. 

 You hit them on the head with a burning stick." 



' So they went in, and loaded their pockets with huge 

 double slices of bread-and-butter done up in paper, apples, 

 and the leg of a roast duck from the pantry. . . .'* 



And in or on Coate Reservoir — or the ' Longpond,' or 

 * New Sea ' — and on ' The Plain,' a great meadow of Day 

 House Farm that slopes down to its shores, they are to be 

 found all through the book. They learn to swim in it, they 

 fish in it, and ride on catamarans, and after fitting sails to an 

 old blue boat, with a pool of bilge- water, dead insects, and 

 willow-leaves at the bottom, they are free of many islands 

 and creeks. They organize a battle of Pharsalia with a 

 crowd of other boys on ' The Plain.' They discover the 



* Bevis : The Story of a Boy. 



