on, for he had set off that morning with a
load of hay for the hills that could be seen to the southward.

Running over every possible thing that Bevis could have done in his
mind, his papa remembered that he had lately taken to asking about the
road, and would not be satisfied till they had taken him up to the
sign-post--a mile beyond the village, and explained the meaning of it.
Some one had told him that it was the road to Southampton--the place
where the ships came. Now, Bevis was full of the ships, drawing them on
the blue wall of the summer-house, and floating a boat on the trough in
the cow-yard, and looking wistfully up the broad dusty highway, as if
he could see the masts and yards sixty miles away or more. Perhaps when
the carter went with the waggon that way, Bevis had slipped up the
footpath that made a short cut across the fields, and joined the waggon
at the cross-roads, that he might ride to the hills thinking to see the
sea on the other side.

And the bailiff, not to be behindhand, having just come in for his
lunch, ran out again without so much as wetting his stubbly white beard
in the froth of the drawn quart of ale, and made away as fast as his
stiff legs could carry him to where there was a steam ploughing engine
at work--a mile distant. The sight of the white steam, and the humming
of the fly-wheel, always set Bevis "on the jig," as the village folk
called it, to get to the machinery, and the smell of the cotton waste
and oil wafted on the wind was to him like the scent of battle to the
war-horse.

But Bevis was not in the tallet, nor the brook, nor among the bulrushes
of the Long Pond, nor under the bridge dabbling for loach, nor watching
the steam plough, and the cottage boys swore their hardest (and they
knew how to swear quite properly) that they had not seen him that
morning. But they would look for him, and forthwith eagerly started to
scour the fields and hedges. Meantime, Bevis, quite happy, was sleeping
under the oak in the shadow, with Pan every now and then coming out of
the rabbit-hole to snort out the sand that got into his nostrils.

But, by-and-by, when everything had been done and everybody was
scattered over the earth seeking for him, the bailiff came back from the
steam plough, weary with running, and hungry, thirsty, and cross. As he
passed through the yard he caught a glimpse of Pan's kennel, which was a
tub by the wood pile, and saw that the chain was lying stretched to its