Chapter 8 (Tom Sawyer (Full Cast))

01Chapter 8.

02Tom decides on his course.

03Old scenes re-enacted.

04Tom dodged hither and thither through lanes until he was well out of the track of returning scholars, and then fell into a moody jog.

05He crossed a small branch two or three times, because of a prevailing juvenile superstition that to cross water baffled pursuit.

06Half an hour later he was disappearing behind the Douglas mansion on the summit of Cardiff Hill, and the schoolhouse was hardly distinguishable away off in the valley behind him.

07He entered a dense wood, picked his pathless way to the centre of it, and sat down on a mossy spot under a spreading oak.

08There was not even a zephyr stirring.

09The dead noonday heat had even stilled the songs of the birds.

10Nature lay in a trance that was broken by no sound but the occasional far-off hammering of a woodpecker, and this seemed to render the pervading silence and sense of loneliness the more profound.

11The boy's soul was steeped in melancholy.

12His feelings were in happy accord with his surroundings.

13He sat long, with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, meditating.

14It seemed to him that life was but a trouble at best, and he more than half envied Jimmy Hodges, so lately released.

15It must be very peaceful, he thought, to lie and slumber and dream forever and ever, with the wind whispering through the trees, and caressing the grass and the flowers over the grave, and nothing to bother and grieve about ever any more.

16If he only had a clean Sunday-school record, he would be willing to go and be done with it all.

17Now, as to this girl, what had he done?

18Nothing.

19He had meant the best in the world, and had been treated like a dog, like a very dog.

20She would be sorry some day, maybe when it was too late.

21Ah, if he could only die temporarily!

22But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time.

23Tom presently began to drift insensibly back into the concerns of this life again.

24What if he turned his back now and disappeared mysteriously?

25What if he went away, ever so far away, into unknown countries beyond the seas, and never came back any more?

26How would she feel then?

27The idea of being a clown recurred to him now, only to fill him with disgust.

28For frivolity and jokes and spotted tights were an offence when they intruded themselves upon a spirit that was exalted into the vague, august realm of the romantic.

29No, he would be a soldier, and return after long years, all war-worn and illustrious.

30No, better still, he would join the Indians, and hunt buffaloes, and go on the war-path in the mountain ranges, in the trackless great plains of the far west, and away in the future come back a great chief, bristling with feathers, hideous with paint, and prance into Sunday school, some drowsy summer morning, with a blood-curdling war-whoop, and sear the eyeballs of all his companions with unappeasable envy.

31But no, there was something gaudier even than this.

32He would be a pirate.

33That was it.

34Now his future lay plain before him, and glowing with unimaginable splendor.

35How his name would fill the world and make people shudder!

36How gloriously he would go ploughing the dancing seas in his long, low, black-hulled racer, a spirit of the storm, with his grisly flag flying at the fore!

37And at the zenith of his fame, how he would suddenly appear at the old village and stalk into church, brown and weather-beaten, in his black velvet doublet and trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson sash, his belt bristling with horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cutlass at his side, his slouch-hat with waving plumes, his black flag unfurled, with the skull and cross-bones on it, and here, with swelling ecstasy, the whisperings.

38It's Tom Sile, the pirate!

39The Black Avenger of the Spanish Maine.

40Yes, it was settled.

41His career was determined.

42He would run away from home and enter upon it.

43He would start the very next morning.

44Therefore, he must now begin to get ready.

45He would collect his resources together.

46He went to a rotten log near at hand and began to dig under one end of it with his barlow knife.

47He soon struck wood that sounded Arlo.

48He put his hand there and uttered this incantation impressively.

49What hasn't come here, come.

50What's here, stay here.

51Then he scraped away the dirt and exposed a pine shingle.

52He took it up and disclosed a shapely little treasure-house, whose bottom and sides were of shingles.

53In it lay a marble.

54Tom's astonishment was boundless.

55He scratched his head with a perplexed air and said, Well, that beats anything.

56Then he tossed the marble away pettishly and stood cogitating.

57The truth was that a superstition of his had failed here, which he and all his comrades had always looked upon as infallible.

58If you buried a marble with certain necessary incantations, and left it alone a fortnight, and then opened the place with the incantation he had just used, you would find that all the marbles you had ever lost had gathered themselves together there, meantime, no matter how widely they had been separated.

59But now this thing had actually and unquestionably failed.

60Tom's whole structure of faith was shaken to its foundations.

61He had many a time heard of this thing succeeding, but never of its failing before.

62It did not occur to him that he had tried it several times before himself, but could never find the hiding-places afterward.

63He puzzled over the matter some time, and finally decided that some witch had interfered and broken the charm.

64He thought he would satisfy himself on that point, so he searched around till he found a small sandy spot with a little funnel-shaped depression in it.

65He laid himself down and put his mouth close to this depression, and called, Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know.

66Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know.

67The sand began to work, and presently a small black bug appeared for a second, and then darted under again in a fright.

68He doesn't tell.

69So it was a witch that done it.

70I just knowed it.

71He well knew the futility of trying to contend against witches, so he gave up, discouraged.

72But it occurred to him that he might as well have the marble he had just thrown away, and therefore he went and made a patient search for it.

73But he could not find it.

74Now he went back to his treasure-house, and carefully placed himself just as he had been standing when he tossed the marble away.

75Then he took another marble from his pocket, and tossed it in the same way, saying, Brother, go find your brother.

76He watched where it stopped, and went there and looked.

77But it must have fallen short or gone too far, so he tried twice more.

78The last repetition was successful.

79The two marbles lay within a foot of each other.

80Just here the blast of a toy tin trumpet came faintly down the green aisles of the forest.

81Tom flung off his jacket and trousers, turned a suspender into a belt, raked away some brush behind the rotten log, disclosing a rude bow and arrow, a laugh sword, and a tin trumpet, and in a moment had seized these things and bounded away, bare-legged, with fluttering shirt.

82He presently halted under a great elm, blew an answering blast, and then began to tiptoe and look warily out, this way and that.

83He said, cautiously, to an imaginary company, Hold, my merry men!

84Keep hid till I blow!

85Now appeared Joe Harper, as airily clad and elaborately armed as Tom.

86Tom called.

87Hold!

88Who comes into Sherwood Forest without my path?

89Guy of Gisborne wants no man's pass.

90Who art thou that—that?

91dares to hold such language?

92said Tom prompting, for they talked by the book from memory.

93Who art thou that dares to hold such language?

94Aye, indeed!

95I am Robin Hood, as I, Katie Carkis, soon shall know.

96Then art thou indeed that famous outlaw?

97Why, it gladly will I dispute with thee the passes of the merry wood.

98Have at thee!

99They took their lath-swords, dumped their other traps on the ground, struck a fencing attitude foot to foot, and began a grave, careful combat, two up and two down.

100Presently Tom said, Now if you've got the hang, go it lively.

101So they went it lively, panting and perspiring with the work.

102By and by, Tom shouted, Fall!

103Fall!

104Why don't you fall?

105I shan't!

106Why don't you fall yourself?

107You're getting the worst of it.

108Why, that ain't anything.

109I can't fall.

110That ain't the way it is in the book.

111The book says that with one back-handed stroke he slew poor guy a give-burn.

112You're to turn round and let me hit you in the back.

113There was no getting around the authorities, so Joe turned, received the whack, and fell.

114Now, said Joe, getting up.

115You got to let me kill you.

116That's fair.

117Why, I can't do that.

118It ain't in the book.

119Well, it's plain mean.

120That's all.

121Well, say, Joe, you can be Friar Tug for much the Miller's son, and land me with a quarterstaff, or I'll be the sheriff of Nottingham, and you'll be Robin Hood a little while, and kill me.

122This was satisfactory, and so these adventures were carried out.

123Then Tom became Robin Hood again, and was allowed by the treacherous nun to bleed his strength away through his neglected wound.

124And at last Joe, representing a whole tribe of weeping outlaws, dragged him sadly forth, gave his bow into his feeble hands, and Tom said, Where this arrow falls, there bury poor Robin Hood under the greenwood tree.

125Then he shot the arrow, and fell back, and would have died.

126But he lit on a nettle, and sprang up too gaily for a corpse.

127The boys dressed themselves, hid their accoutrements, and went off grieving that there were no outlaws any more, and wondering what modern civilization could claim to have done to compensate for their loss.

128They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President of the United States forever.

129End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8