. Bevis, running in the furrow, caught his
foot in the long creepers of the crowfoot, and fell down bump, and
pricked his hand with a thistle. Up he jumped again, red as a peony, and
shouting in his rage, ran on so quickly that he nearly overtook the
butterfly. But they were now nearer the other hedge. The butterfly,
frightened at the shouting and Bevis's resolution, rose over the
brambles, and Bevis stopping short flung his hat at him. The hat did not
hit the butterfly, but the wind it made puffed him round, and so
frightened him, that he flew up half as high as the elms, and went into
the next field.

When Bevis looked down, there was his hat, hung on a branch of ash, far
beyond his reach. He could not touch the lowest leaf, jump as much as he
would. His next thought was a stone to throw, but there were none in the
meadow. Then he put his hand in his jacket pocket for his knife, to cut
a long stick. It was not in that pocket, nor in the one on the other
side, nor in his knickers. Now the knife was Bevis's greatest
treasure--his very greatest. He looked all round bewildered, and the
tears rose in his eyes.

Just then Pan, the spaniel, who had worked his head loose from the
collar and followed him, ran out of the hedge between Bevis's legs with
such joyful force, that Bevis was almost overthrown, and burst into a
fit of laughter. Pan ran back into the hedge to hunt, and Bevis, with
tears rolling down his cheeks into the dimples made by his smiles,
dropped on hands and knees and crept in after the dog under the briars.
On the bank there was a dead grey stick, a branch that had fallen from
the elms. It was heavy, but Bevis heaved it up, and pushed it through
the boughs and thrust his hat off.

Creeping out again, he put it on, and remembering his knife, walked out
into the field to search for it. When Pan missed him, he followed, and
presently catching scent of a rabbit, the spaniel rushed down a furrow,
which happened to be the very furrow where Bevis had tumbled. Going
after Pan, Bevis found his knife in the grass, where it had dropped when
shaken from his pocket by the jerk of his fall. He opened the single
blade it contained at once, and went back to the hedge to cut a stick.
As he walked along the hedge, he thought the briar was too prickly to
cut, and the thorn was too hard, and the ash was too big, and the willow
had no knob, and the elder smelt so strong, and the sapling oak was
across the ditch, and out of rea