down along the grass near Bevis. The wind came
now and then, and shook down a shower of white and pink petals from a
crab-tree in the hedge. By-and-by a squirrel climbing from tree to tree
reached the oak, and stayed to look at Bevis beneath in the shadow. He
knew exactly how Bevis felt--just like he did himself when he went to
sleep.

CHAPTER II.

AT HOME.

"Yowp, yow; wow-wow!" The yelling of Pan woke Bevis, who jumped up, and
seeing the bailiff beating the spaniel with a stick, instantly, and
without staying the tenth of a second to rub his eyes or stretch
himself, rushed at the man and hit him with his doubled fists. As if he
had seen it in his sleep, Bevis understood what was taking place
immediately his eyelids opened. So the bailiff beat the dog, and Bevis
beat the bailiff. The noise made quite an echo against the thick hedges
and a high bank that was near. When the bailiff thought he had thrashed
Pan sufficiently, he turned round and looked down at Bevis, whose face
was red, and his knuckles sore with striking the bailiff's hard coat.

"How fess you be, measter," said the bailiff (meaning fierce), "you mind
as you don't hurt yourself. Look'ee here, there've bin a fine falarie
about you, zur." He meant that there had been much excitement when it
was found that Bevis was not in the garden, and was nowhere to be found.
Everybody was set to hunt for him.

First they thought of the brook, lest he should have walked in among the
flags that were coming up so green and strong. Then they thought of the
tallet over the stable,--perhaps he had climbed up there again from the
manger, over the heads of the great cart-horses, quietly eating their
hay, while he put his foot on the manger and then on the projecting
steps in the corner, and into the hayrack--and so up. He had done it
once before, and could not get down, and so the tallet was searched. One
man was sent to the Long Pond, with orders to look everywhere, and
borrow the punt and push in among the bulrushes.

Another was despatched to the Close, to gruffly inquire where the
cottage boys were, and what they had been doing, for Bevis was known to
hanker after their company, to go catching loach under the stones in the
stream that crossed the road, and creeping under the arch of the bridge,
and taking the moor-hens' eggs from the banks of the ponds where the
rushes were thick. Another was put on the pony, to gallop up the road
after the carter and his wagg