It was a very great relief to Francis, when he went back to school, to be rid of Tyke and Spotty. Their shadows no longer haunted the playground, and his teacher found him quite changed. A month’s freedom from fear and anxiety had made a big difference in him. He had put on weight and was alert and attentive in class. In short, he was happy.
And night by night he was learning more of those wonderful stories of Jesus, whom he knew had come to live in his heart, although he had not yet discovered what difference that made. He knew he was happier, but then there were other reasons for that. Mum was getting better, Tyke was out of the way, and Kate had become quite friendly and motherly. And over and above all, there was the river.
His love for the river grew as the days lengthened into summer, and he would wander off after tea, sometimes with Martin, sometimes alone, to launch the little boat or to wade over to the reed islands. On Saturdays Ram would join them, and they would run along to their special swimming place and swim lazily with the current and then scramble out and run back along the bank and dive in again. Martin and Chris, who had lived all their lives by the river, sometimes wondered what Francis found so exciting and would go off and do something else, but Francis spent nearly all his spare time, in, on, or by the river.
He woke one morning because the sun was shining right through the open window onto his face. It had just appeared over the rising wheat fields, and Francis knew that it must be very early, too early to wake Martin. He stuck his head far out and looked around. Even the cows were not stirring, yet every bird in Warwickshire seemed to be fluting, twittering, or caroling in the apple trees. He thought that if he went very quietly into the yard, he might see them all sitting in rows. He slipped on his clothes and his sandals and let himself out the front door.
He could not see the birds, and yet they were all around him in the lilac and the apple boughs. The yard lay in shadow, and the grass was cold and heavy with dew and cobwebs. The mists still lay on the river, tangled in the alders and weeping willows. Everything looked strange and mysterious, and Francis walked very softly, almost as though he were afraid to disturb the unawakened world.
He ran along the bank as fast as she could because he wanted to go a long way. No one would mind his being late for breakfast on a Saturday, but he must not be too late because Ram was coming. The sun soon caught up with him, stealing down across the fields, turning the dew to silver, setting the buttercups alight and scattering the mists. The shadows of the trees still lay across the river, and he thought he could run for a long, long way, past where the streams met, and not turn back till he reached the bridge in the next village. He had never been farther downstream than that before.
But the morning was so bracing and the sunshine so golden, that he seemed to reach the bridge in no time, running all the way because he felt so strong and light, and the church clock, rising above the yew trees, only pointed to seven o’clock. He would run on, on, and on, farther than he had even been before, and find out where the river went next.
The countryside seemed wilder beyond the bridge, and the river was mostly hidden by thick hazel bushes. Woods came down almost to the banks—deep woods where the ferns had sprung up above the dying bluebells and cuckoos called incessantly. He was thinking of turning back when suddenly the banks receded, the river broadened, and he found himself in a reedy, shallow place with little gravel beaches and marshy backwaters where rushes grew. It was an interesting place where gnats danced on the surface of the water and the first swallows skimmed the pools. He sat down under a weeping willow, for the morning was already hot, and looked about him.
And then he saw her coming—a magnificent white swan, turning her head from left to right, and Francis cowed behind the tree, for he knew that swans can be very fierce. She did not seem to see him, but she scented danger and made a strange hissing sound. Then she floated to the edge of the current in among the reeds, walked across the beach, and into the backwater.
Francis crept from his hiding place, lay flat on the grass, and peeped over the edge of the bank. There was a nest, roughly built in a hollow in the rushes, and on the nest lay four green-white eggs.
Francis was thrilled. He had found it, he alone—the nest that Martin had so often talked about. He wanted one of those eggs more than anything else in the world at that moment, and no one need ever know. They would think it a terrible crime at the farm to take a swan’s egg, but he need not tell them. He could hide it under his clothes in his drawer, and on Monday he would take it to school and show his friends. It was a wonderful, rare thing to find a swan’s nest, but unless he took an egg, who would ever believe him?
Of course, he would have to wait till the swan moved. She was now sitting firmly on her nest, but if he could alarm her a little or disturb the water, she might go away. He forgot all about breakfast and the time. He even forgot about Ram. He thought he could wait forever if only he could hold that warm, smooth egg in his hands.
He waited so long and lay so still that he almost fell asleep to the chatter of the shallow river. Suddenly he was jerked awake, for the swan had risen and stretched out her gleaming wings. She pushed through the reeds and launched herself on the stream. Just a little wriggle now, and he could seize that egg.
But while he was actually stretching out his hand, something happened. He knew it was wrong, and he suddenly did not want to do it. And that was a strange feeling, for he had never minded doing wrong before, if it was something he wanted to do badly. It was such a queer feeling that he drew back his hand and lay looking at the swan and thinking how beautiful she was. Suddenly he discovered that he cared about that swan, and he did not want her to come back and find her egg gone. And that was queer too, because he had never much minded hurting animals before. He wanted to come back himself and share her joy, and watch the eggs hatch into nestlings, and show them to Martin and Chris and Ram.
He got up and started running in the direction of home, knowing that he was different and wondering what had happened to him. It must be something to do with Jesus in my heart, he thought. I suppose that’s how He talks to me. I suppose, if I listen, He’ll always make me mind doing bad things. And he knew that somehow those clear streams of love and happiness had started to flow.
He thought he had never felt so happy before, nor run so fast. Wet and dirty, he burst in on the family members, who were still sitting at their late Saturday breakfast. “I’ve found a swan’s nest with four eggs!” he shouted. “Who wants to come and see it?”
Everyone wanted to see it, so they took a picnic lunch to the place, Mum and Dad bringing the food in the car, and the children walking. It was a glorious sun-drenched day, and Francis’s happiness overflowed as he led them, one by one, to the backwater in the reeds. And late that evening, when Ram had gone home, Auntie Alison found him sitting quietly on the step, stroking Whiskers.
“You’re getting like your namesake,” she said, sitting down beside him. “You and your nests and your cat!”
“Who’s my namesake?” asked Francis.
“Don’t you know? It’s a beautiful name. Francis of Assisi lived about seven hundred years ago in Italy. He loved birds and other wild creatures so much that he used to go out into the fields and preach to them. They say that they all used to come close to him and listen.”
“I don’t believe it. How could birds listen?”
“I don’t expect they did, but it looked like it, and the people in those days believed it. I expect his heart was so full of the love of God that it just flowed out and everybody felt it, even the birds and the animals.”
“Like you said—like rivers flowing out. Will you show me that book tomorrow?”
“Yes, I’ll find the parts you’d understand. Now, come in. It’s bedtime.”
But he lingered a little longer with his cheek resting on Whisker’s fur, listening to the song of the river. The same gurgling water that he could hear washing the roots of the alders would flow down under the bridge to the backwater where the swan sat with folded wings. How glad he felt that she was sitting on four warm eggs.