d it,
it was so hot and scratchy, so out he jumped. Then he ran a little way
up the green sward of the hill, and lying down rolled over and over to
the bottom. Next he wandered along the low hedge dividing the stubble
from the sward, so low that he could jump over it, but as he could not
find anything he came back, and at last so teased and worried his papa
to let him go up to the top of the hill, that he consented, on Bevis
promising in the most solemn manner that he would not go one single inch
beyond the summit, where there was an ancient earthwork. Bevis promised,
and his eyes looked so clear and truthful, and his cheek so rosy and
innocent, and his lips so red and pouting, that no one could choose but
believe him.

Away he ran thirty yards up the hill at a burst, but it soon became so
steep he had to stay and climb slowly. Five minutes afterwards he began
to find it very hard work indeed, though it looked so easy from below,
and stopped to rest. He turned round and looked down; he could see over
the waggon and the straw-rick, over the ash-trees in the hedges, over
the plain (all yellow with stubble) across to the hills on the other
side, and there, through a gap in them, it seemed as if the land
suddenly ceased, or dropped down, and beyond was a dark blue expanse
which ended in the sky where the sky came down to touch it.

By his feet was a rounded boulder-stone, brown and smooth, a hard
sarsen; this he tried to move, but it was so heavy that he could but
just stir it. But the more difficult a thing was, or the more he was
resisted, the more determined Bevis always became. He would stamp and
shout with rage, rather than let a thing alone quietly. When he did this
sometimes Pan, the spaniel, would look at him in amazement, and wonder
why he did not leave it and go on and do something else, as the world
was so big, and there were very many easy things that could be done
without any trouble. That was not Bevis's idea, however, at all; he
never quitted a thing till he had done it. And so he tugged and strained
and struggled with the stone till he got it out of its bed and on the
sloping sward.

Then he pushed and heaved at it, till it began to roll, and giving it a
final thrust with his foot, away it went, at first rumbling and rolling
slowly, and then faster and with a thumping, till presently it bounded
and leaped ten yards at a time, and at the bottom of the hill sprang
over the hedge like a hunter, and did not s