, and Bevis, full of mischief always,
tried to slip away from the wind round the bush, but the wind laughed
and caught him.

A little farther and they came to the fosse of the old camp. Bevis went
down into the trench, and he and the wind raced round along it as fast
as ever they could go, till presently he ran up out of it on the hill,
and there was the waggon underneath him, with the load well piled up
now. There was the plain, yellow with stubble; the hills beyond it and
the blue valley, just the same as he had left it.

As Bevis stood and looked down, the wind caressed him, and said:
"Good-bye, darling, I am going yonder, straight across to the blue
valley and the blue sky, where they meet; but I shall be back again when
you come next time. Now remember, my dear, to drink me--come up here and
drink me."

"Shall you be here?" said Bevis, "are you quite sure you will be here?"

"Yes," said the wind, "I shall be quite certain to be here; I promise
you, love, I will never go quite away. Promise me faithfully, too, that
you will come up and drink me, and shout and race and be happy."

"I promise," said Bevis, beginning to go down the hill; "good-bye, jolly
old Wind."

"Good-bye, dearest," whispered the wind, as he went across out towards
the valley. As Bevis went down the hill, a blue harebell, who had been
singing farewell to summer all the morning, called to him and asked him
to gather her and carry her home as she would rather go with him than
stay now autumn was near.

Bevis gathered the harebell, and ran with the flower in his hand down
the hill, and as he ran the wild thyme kissed his feet and said: "Come
again, Bevis, come again". At the bottom of the hill the waggon was
loaded now; so they lifted him up, and he rode home on the broad back of
the leader.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOOD MAGIC***

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