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Wood Magic: A Fable

by Richard Jefferies · English · Gutenberg #25299 · 570,610 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Wood Magic: A Fable

Author: Richard Jefferies


        
Release date: May 2, 2008 [eBook #25299]
                Most recently updated: January 3, 2021

Language: English

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      Obvious minor typesetting errors in punctuation have been
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WOOD MAGIC

A Fable

by

RICHARD JEFFERIES

Author of "The Gamekeeper at Home," "Field and Hedgerow," "The Toilers
of the Field," Etc.







[Illustration]


[Illustration]



New Impression

Longmans, Green, and Co.
39 Paternoster Row, London
New York, Bombay, and Calcutta
1907

All rights reserved




_BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE._

_First published, 2 vols., post 8vo, by Cassell & Co., in 1881; Reissued
by them in one volume in 1882._

_'Silver Library' Edition, June, 1883. Reprinted September, 1894;
January, 1899; February, 1903; April, 1907._




_Inscribed to Harold._








CONTENTS.




      I. Sir Bevis
     II. At Home
    III. Adventures of the Weasel
     IV. Brook-Folk
      V. Kapchack
     VI. The Squirrel
    VII. The Courtiers
   VIII. The Emperor Choo Hoo
     IX. The Council
      X. Traitors
     XI. The Storm in the Night
    XII. The Old Oak.--The King's Despair
   XIII. The Courtship in the Orchard
    XIV. The Great Battle
     XV. Palace Secrets
    XVI. The New King
   XVII. Sir Bevis and the Wind




PREFATORY NOTE.


Little need be said as to this re-issue of _Wood Magic_. It was
originally published in two volumes, post 8vo, by Messrs. Cassell & Co.
in 1881, and re-issued by them in one volume in 1882. The present
edition is reprinted from the original edition. The frontispiece and
vignette are drawn by the accomplished lady who chooses to be known as
E. V. B., whose illustrations to the _Story Without an End_ charmed many
boys and girls years ago, and I hope still fascinate their children.

C. J. L.







WOOD MAGIC.




CHAPTER I.

SIR BEVIS.


One morning as little "Sir" Bevis [such was his pet name] was digging in
the farmhouse garden, he saw a daisy, and throwing aside his spade, he
sat down on the grass to pick the flower to pieces. He pulled the
pink-tipped petals off one by one, and as they dropped they were lost.
Next he gathered a bright dandelion, and squeezed the white juice from
the hollow stem, which drying presently, left his fingers stained with
brown spots. Then he drew forth a bennet from its sheath, and bit and
sucked it till his teeth were green from the sap. Lying at full length,
he drummed the earth with his toes, while the tall grass blades tickled
his cheeks.

Presently, rolling on his back, he drummed again with his heels. He
looked up at the blue sky, but only for a moment, because the glare of
light was too strong in his eyes. After a minute, he turned on his side,
thrust out one arm, placed his head on it, and drew up one knee, as if
going to sleep. His little brown wrist, bared by the sleeve shortening
as he extended his arm, bent down the grass, and his still browner
fingers played with the blades, and every now and then tore one off.

A flutter of wings sounded among the blossom on an apple-tree close by,
and instantly Bevis sat up, knowing it must be a goldfinch thinking of
building a nest in the branches. If the trunk of the tree had not been
so big, he would have tried to climb it at once, but he knew he could
not do it, nor could he see the bird for the leaves and bloom. A puff of
wind came and showered the petals down upon him; they fell like
snowflakes on his face and dotted the grass.

Buzz! A great bumble-bee, with a band of red gold across his back, flew
up, and hovered near, wavering to and fro in the air as he stayed to
look at a flower.

Buzz! Bevis listened, and knew very well what he was saying. It was:
"This is a sweet little garden, my darling; a very pleasant garden; all
grass and daisies, and apple-trees, and narrow patches with flowers and
fruit-trees one side, and a wall and currant-bushes another side, and a
low box-hedge and a haha, where you can see the high mowing grass quite
underneath you; and a round summer-house in the corner, painted as blue
inside as a hedge-sparrow's egg is outside; and then another haha with
iron railings, which you are always climbing up, Bevis, on the fourth
side, with stone steps leading down to a meadow, where the cows are
feeding, and where they have left all the buttercups standing as tall
as your waist, sir. The gate in the iron railings is not fastened, and
besides, there is a gap in the box-hedge, and it is easy to drop down
the haha wall, but that is mowing grass there. You know very well you
could not come to any harm in the meadow; they said you were not to go
outside the garden, but that's all nonsense, and very stupid. _I_ am
going outside the garden, Bevis. Good-morning, dear." Buzz! And the
great bumble-bee flew slowly between the iron railings, out among the
buttercups, and away up the field.

Bevis went to the railings, and stood on the lowest bar; then he opened
the gate a little way, but it squeaked so loud upon its rusty hinges
that he let it shut again. He walked round the garden along beside the
box-hedge to the patch by the lilac trees; they were single lilacs,
which are much more beautiful than the double, and all bowed down with a
mass of bloom. Some rhubarb grew there, and to bring it up the faster,
they had put a round wooden box on it, hollowed out from the sawn butt
of an elm, which was rotten within and easily scooped. The top was
covered with an old board, and every time that Bevis passed he lifted up
the corner of the board and peeped in, to see if the large red, swelling
knobs were yet bursting.

One of these round wooden boxes had been split and spoilt, and half of
it was left lying with the hollow part downwards. Under this shelter a
toad had his house. Bevis peered in at him, and touched him with a twig
to make him move an inch or two, for he was so lazy, and sat there all
day long, except when it rained. Sometimes the toad told him a story,
but not very often, for he was a silent old philosopher, and not very
fond of anybody. He had a nephew, quite a lively young fellow, in the
cucumber frame on the other side of the lilac bushes, at whom Bevis also
peered nearly every day after they had lifted the frame and propped it
up with wedges.

The gooseberries were no bigger than beads, but he tasted two, and then
a thrush began to sing on an ash-tree in the hedge of the meadow.
"Bevis! Bevis!" said the thrush, and he turned round to listen: "My
dearest Bevis, have you forgotten the meadow, and the buttercups, and
the sorrel? You know the sorrel, don't you, that tastes so pleasant if
you nibble the leaf? And I have a nest in the bushes, not very far up
the hedge, and you may take just one egg; there are only two yet. But
don't tell any more boys about it, or we shall not have one left. That
is a very sweet garden, but it is very small. I like all these fields to
fly about in, and the swallows fly ever so much farther than I can; so
far away and so high, that I cannot tell you how they find their way
home to the chimney. But they will tell you, if you ask them.
Good-morning! I am going over the brook."

Bevis went to the iron railings and got up two bars, and looked over;
but he could not yet make up his mind, so he went inside the
summer-house, which had one small round window. All the lower part of
the blue walls was scribbled and marked with pencil, where he had
written and drawn, and put down his ideas and notes. The lines were
somewhat intermingled, and crossed each other, and some stretched out
long distances, and came back in sharp angles. But Bevis knew very well
what he meant when he wrote it all. Taking a stump of cedar pencil from
his pocket, one end of it much gnawn, he added a few scrawls to the
inscriptions, and then stood on the seat to look out of the round
window, which was darkened by an old cobweb.

Once upon a time there was a very cunning spider--a very cunning spider
indeed. The old toad by the rhubarb told Bevis there had not been such a
cunning spider for many summers; he knew almost as much about flies as
the old toad, and caught such a great number, that the toad began to
think there would be none left for him. Now the toad was extremely fond
of flies, and he watched the spider with envy, and grew more angry about
it every day.

As he sat blinking and winking by the rhubarb in his house all day long,
the toad never left off thinking, thinking, thinking about the spider.
And as he kept thinking, thinking, thinking, so he told Bevis, he
recollected that he knew a great deal about a good many other things
besides flies. So one day, after several weeks of thinking, he crawled
out of his house in the sunshine, which he did not like at all, and went
across the grass to the iron railings, where the spider had then got his
web. The spider saw him coming, and being very proud of his cleverness,
began to taunt and tease him.

"Your back is all over warts, and you are an old toad," he
said. "You are so old, that I heard the swallows saying their
great-great-great-grandmothers, when they built in the chimney, did
not know when you were born. And you have got foolish, and past doing
anything, and so stupid that you hardly know when it is going to rain.
Why, the sun is shining bright, you stupid old toad, and there isn't a
chance of a single drop falling. You look very ugly down there in the
grass. Now, don't you wish that you were me and could catch more flies
than you could eat? Why, I can catch wasps and bees, and tie them up so
tight with my threads that they cannot sting nor even move their wings,
nor so much as wriggle their bodies. I am the very cleverest and most
cunning spider that ever lived."

"Indeed, you are," replied the toad. "I have been thinking so all the
summer; and so much do I admire you, that I have come all this way,
across in the hot sun, to tell you something."

"Tell _me_ something!" said the spider, much offended, "_I_ know
everything."

"Oh, yes, honoured sir," said the toad; "you have such wonderful eyes,
and such a sharp mind, it is true that you know everything about the
sun, and the moon, and the earth, and flies. But, as you have studied
all these great and important things, you could hardly see all the very
little trifles like a poor old toad."

"Oh, yes, I can. I know everything--everything!"

"But, sir," went on the toad so humbly, "this is such a little--such a
very little--thing, and a spider like you, in such a high position of
life, could not mind me telling you such a mere nothing."

"Well, I don't mind," said the spider--"you may go on, and tell me, if
you like."

"The fact is," said the toad, "while I have been sitting in my hole, I
have noticed that such a lot of the flies that come into this garden
presently go into the summer-house there, and when they are in the
summer-house, they always go to that little round window, which is
sometimes quite black with them; for it is the nature of flies to buzz
over glass."

"I do not know so much about that," said the spider; "for I have never
lived in houses, being an independent insect; but it is possible you may
be right. At any rate, it is not of much consequence. You had better go
up into the window, old toad." Now this was a sneer on the part of the
spider.

"But I can't climb up into the window," said the toad; "all I can do is
to crawl about the ground, but you can run up a wall quickly. How I do
wish I was a spider, like you. Oh, dear!" And then the toad turned
round, after bowing to the clever spider, and went back to his hole.

Now the spider was secretly very much mortified and angry with himself,
because he had not noticed this about the flies going to the window in
the summer-house. At first he said to himself that it was not true; but
he could not help looking that way now and then, and every time he
looked, there was the window crowded with flies. They had all the garden
to buzz about in, and all the fields, but instead of wandering under
the trees, and over the flowers, they preferred to go into the
summer-house and crawl over the glass of the little window, though it
was very dirty from so many feet. For a long time, the spider was too
proud to go there too; but one day such a splendid blue-bottle fly got
in the window and made such a tremendous buzzing, that he could not
resist it any more.

So he left his web by the railings, and climbed up the blue-painted
wall, over Bevis's writings and marks, and spun such a web in the window
as had never before been seen. It was the largest and the finest, and
the most beautifully-arranged web that had ever been made, and it caught
such a number of flies that the spider grew fatter every day. In a
week's time he was so big that he could no longer hide in the crack he
had chosen, he was quite a giant; and the toad came across the grass one
night and looked at him, but the spider was now so bloated he would not
recognise the toad.

But one morning a robin came to the iron railings, and perched on the
top, and put his head a little on one side, to show his black eye the
better. Then he flew inside the summer-house, alighted in the window,
and gobbled up the spider in an instant. The old toad shut his eye and
opened it again, and went on thinking, for that was just what he knew
would happen. Ever so many times in his very long life he had seen
spiders go up there, but no sooner had they got fat than a robin or a
wren came in and ate them. Some of the clever spider's web was there
still when Bevis looked out of the window, all dusty and draggled, with
the skins and wings of some gnats and a dead leaf entangled in it.

As he looked, a white butterfly came along the meadow, and instantly he
ran out, flung open the gate, rushed down the steps, and taking no heed
of the squeak the gate made as it shut behind him, raced after the
butterfly.

The tall buttercups brushed his knees, and bent on either side as if a
wind was rushing through them. A bennet slipped up his knickerbockers
and tickled his leg. His toes only touched the ground, neither his heels
nor the hollow of his foot; and from so light a pressure the grass,
bowed but not crushed, rose up, leaving no more mark of his passage than
if a grasshopper had gone by.

Daintily fanning himself with his wings, the butterfly went before
Bevis, not yet knowing that he was chased, but sauntering along just
above the buttercups. He peeped as he flew under the lids of the
flowers' eyes, to see if any of them loved him. There was a glossy green
leaf which he thought he should like to feel, it looked so soft and
satin-like. So he alighted on it, and then saw Bevis coming, his hat on
the very back of his head, and his hand stretched out to catch him. The
butterfly wheeled himself round on the leaf, shut up his wings, and
seemed so innocent, till Bevis fell on his knee, and then under his
fingers there was nothing but the leaf. His cheek flushed, his eye lit
up, and away he darted again after the butterfly, which had got several
yards ahead before he could recover himself. He ran now faster than
ever.

"Race on," said the buttercups; "race on, Bevis; that butterfly disdains
us because we are so many, and all alike."

"Be quick," said a great moon-daisy to him; "catch him, dear. I asked
him to stay and tell me a story, but he would not."

"Never mind me," said the clover; "you may step on me if you like,
love."

"But just look at me for a moment, pet, as you go by," cried the purple
vetch by the hedge.

A colt in the field, seeing Bevis running so fast, thought he too must
join the fun, so he whisked his tail, stretched his long floundering
legs, and galloped away. Then the mare whinnied and galloped too, and
the ground shook under her heavy hoofs. The cows lifted their heads from
gathering the grass close round the slender bennets, and wondered why
any one could be so foolish as to rush about, when there was plenty to
eat and no hurry.

The cunning deceitful butterfly, so soon as Bevis came near, turned
aside and went along a furrow. Bevis, running in the furrow, caught his
foot in the long creepers of the crowfoot, and fell down bump, and
pricked his hand with a thistle. Up he jumped again, red as a peony, and
shouting in his rage, ran on so quickly that he nearly overtook the
butterfly. But they were now nearer the other hedge. The butterfly,
frightened at the shouting and Bevis's resolution, rose over the
brambles, and Bevis stopping short flung his hat at him. The hat did not
hit the butterfly, but the wind it made puffed him round, and so
frightened him, that he flew up half as high as the elms, and went into
the next field.

When Bevis looked down, there was his hat, hung on a branch of ash, far
beyond his reach. He could not touch the lowest leaf, jump as much as he
would. His next thought was a stone to throw, but there were none in the
meadow. Then he put his hand in his jacket pocket for his knife, to cut
a long stick. It was not in that pocket, nor in the one on the other
side, nor in his knickers. Now the knife was Bevis's greatest
treasure--his very greatest. He looked all round bewildered, and the
tears rose in his eyes.

Just then Pan, the spaniel, who had worked his head loose from the
collar and followed him, ran out of the hedge between Bevis's legs with
such joyful force, that Bevis was almost overthrown, and burst into a
fit of laughter. Pan ran back into the hedge to hunt, and Bevis, with
tears rolling down his cheeks into the dimples made by his smiles,
dropped on hands and knees and crept in after the dog under the briars.
On the bank there was a dead grey stick, a branch that had fallen from
the elms. It was heavy, but Bevis heaved it up, and pushed it through
the boughs and thrust his hat off.

Creeping out again, he put it on, and remembering his knife, walked out
into the field to search for it. When Pan missed him, he followed, and
presently catching scent of a rabbit, the spaniel rushed down a furrow,
which happened to be the very furrow where Bevis had tumbled. Going
after Pan, Bevis found his knife in the grass, where it had dropped when
shaken from his pocket by the jerk of his fall. He opened the single
blade it contained at once, and went back to the hedge to cut a stick.
As he walked along the hedge, he thought the briar was too prickly to
cut, and the thorn was too hard, and the ash was too big, and the willow
had no knob, and the elder smelt so strong, and the sapling oak was
across the ditch, and out of reach, and the maple had such rough bark.
So he wandered along a great way through that field and the next, and
presently saw a nut-tree stick that promised well, for the sticks grew
straight, and not too big.

He jumped into the ditch, climbed half up the mound, and began to cut
away at one of the rods, leaning his left arm on the moss-grown stole.
The bark was easily cut through, and he soon made a notch, but then the
wood seemed to grow harder, and the chips he got out were very small.
The harder the wood, the more determined Bevis became, and he cut and
worked away with such force that his chest heaved, his brow was set and
frowning, and his jacket all green from rubbing against the hazel.
Suddenly something passed between him and the light. He looked up, and
there was Pan, whom he had forgotten, in the hedge looking down at him.
"Pan! Pan!" cried Bevis. Pan wagged his tail, but ran back, and Bevis,
forsaking his stick, scrambled up into the stole, then into the mound,
and through a gap into the next field. Pan was nowhere to be seen.

There was a large mossy root under a great oak, and, hot with his
cutting, Bevis sat down upon it. Along came a house martin, the kind of
swallow that has a white band across his back, flying very low, and only
just above the grass. The swallow flew to and fro not far from Bevis,
who watched it, and presently asked him to come closer. But the swallow
said: "I shall not come any nearer, Bevis. Don't you remember what you
did last year, sir? Don't you remember Bill, the carter's boy, put a
ladder against the wall, and you climbed up the ladder, and put your
paw, all brown and dirty, into my nest and took my eggs? And you tried
to string them on a bennet, but the bennet was too big, so you went
indoors for some thread. And you made my wife and me dreadfully unhappy,
and we said we would never come back any more to your house, Bevis."

"But you have come back, swallow."

"Yes, we have come back--just once more; but if you do it again we shall
go away for ever."

"But I won't do it again; no, that I won't! Do come near."

So the swallow came a little nearer, only two yards away, and flew
backwards and forwards, and Bevis could hear the snap of his beak as he
caught the flies.

"Just a little bit nearer still," said he. "Let me stroke your lovely
white back."

"Oh, no, I can't do that. I don't think you are quite safe, Bevis. Why
don't you gather the cowslips?"

Bevis looked up and saw that the field was full of cowslips--yellow with
cowslips. "I will pick every one," said he, "and carry them all back to
my mother."

"You cannot do that," said the swallow, laughing, "you will not try long
enough."

"I _hate_ you!" cried Bevis in a passion, and flung his knife, which was
in his hand, at the bird. The swallow rose up, and the knife whizzed by
and struck the ground.

"I told you you were not safe," said the swallow over his head; "and I
am sure you won't pick half the cowslips."

Bevis picked up his knife and put it in his pocket; then he began to
gather the cowslips, and kept on for a quarter of an hour as fast as
ever he could, till both hands were full. There was a rustle in the
hedge, and looking up he saw Pan come out, all brown with sand sticking
to his coat. He shook himself, and sent the sand flying from him in a
cloud, just like he did with the water when he came up out of the pond.
Then he looked at Bevis, wagged his tail, cried "Yowp!" and ran back
into the hedge again.

Bevis rushed to the spot, and saw that there was a large rabbits' hole.
Into this hole Pan had worked his way so far that there was nothing of
him visible but his hind legs and tail. Bevis could hear him panting in
the hole, he was working so hard to get at the rabbit, and tearing with
his teeth at the roots to make the hole bigger. Bevis clapped his hands,
dropping his cowslips, and called "Loo! Loo!" urging the dog on. The
sand came flying out behind Pan, and he worked harder and harder, as if
he would tear the mound to pieces.

Bevis sat down on the grass under the shadow of the oak, by a maple
bush, and taking a cowslip, began to count the spots inside it. It was
always five in all the cowslips--five brown little spots--that he was
sure of, because he knew he had five fingers on each hand. He lay down
at full length on his back, and looked up at the sky through the boughs
of the oak. It was very, very blue, and very near down. With a long
ladder he knew he could have got up there easily, and it looked so
sweet. "Sky," said Bevis, "I love you like I love my mother." He pouted
his lips, and kissed at it. Then turning a little on one side to watch
Pan, in an instant he fell firm asleep.

Pan put his head out of the hole to breathe two or three times, and
looked aside at Bevis, and seeing that he was still, went back to work
again. Two butterflies came fluttering along together. The swallow
returned, and flew low down along the grass near Bevis. The wind came
now and then, and shook down a shower of white and pink petals from a
crab-tree in the hedge. By-and-by a squirrel climbing from tree to tree
reached the oak, and stayed to look at Bevis beneath in the shadow. He
knew exactly how Bevis felt--just like he did himself when he went to
sleep.




CHAPTER II.

AT HOME.


"Yowp, yow; wow-wow!" The yelling of Pan woke Bevis, who jumped up, and
seeing the bailiff beating the spaniel with a stick, instantly, and
without staying the tenth of a second to rub his eyes or stretch
himself, rushed at the man and hit him with his doubled fists. As if he
had seen it in his sleep, Bevis understood what was taking place
immediately his eyelids opened. So the bailiff beat the dog, and Bevis
beat the bailiff. The noise made quite an echo against the thick hedges
and a high bank that was near. When the bailiff thought he had thrashed
Pan sufficiently, he turned round and looked down at Bevis, whose face
was red, and his knuckles sore with striking the bailiff's hard coat.

"How fess you be, measter," said the bailiff (meaning fierce), "you mind
as you don't hurt yourself. Look'ee here, there've bin a fine falarie
about you, zur." He meant that there had been much excitement when it
was found that Bevis was not in the garden, and was nowhere to be found.
Everybody was set to hunt for him.

First they thought of the brook, lest he should have walked in among the
flags that were coming up so green and strong. Then they thought of the
tallet over the stable,--perhaps he had climbed up there again from the
manger, over the heads of the great cart-horses, quietly eating their
hay, while he put his foot on the manger and then on the projecting
steps in the corner, and into the hayrack--and so up. He had done it
once before, and could not get down, and so the tallet was searched. One
man was sent to the Long Pond, with orders to look everywhere, and
borrow the punt and push in among the bulrushes.

Another was despatched to the Close, to gruffly inquire where the
cottage boys were, and what they had been doing, for Bevis was known to
hanker after their company, to go catching loach under the stones in the
stream that crossed the road, and creeping under the arch of the bridge,
and taking the moor-hens' eggs from the banks of the ponds where the
rushes were thick. Another was put on the pony, to gallop up the road
after the carter and his waggon, 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
full length. Pan was gone. At first the bailiff thought Bevis had loosed
him, and that he had got a clue. But when he came near, he saw that the
collar was not unbuckled; Pan had worked his head out, and so escaped.

The bailiff turned the collar over thoughtfully with his foot, and felt
his scanty white beard with his hard hand; and then he went back to the
cart-house. Up in the cart-house, on the ledge of the wall beneath the
thatch, there were three or four sticks, each about four feet long and
as thick as your thumb, with the bark on--some were ground ash, some
crab-tree, and one was hazel. This one was straight and as hard as could
be. These sticks were put there for the time when the cows were moved,
so that the men might find their sticks quick. Each had his stick, and
the bailiff's was the hazel one. With the staff in his hand the bailiff
set out straight across the grass, looking neither to the right nor the
left, but walking deliberately and without hesitation.

He got through a gap in one hedge, and then he turned to the corner
making towards the rabbit-burrows, for he guessed that Pan had gone
there. As he approached he saw Bevis sleeping, and smiled, for looking
for the dog he had found the boy. But first stepping softly up to Bevis,
and seeing that he was quite right and unhurt, only asleep, the bailiff
went to the hedge and thrust his staff into the hole where Pan was at
work.

Out came Pan, and instantly down came the rod. Pan cowered in the grass;
he was all over sand, which flew up in a cloud as the rod struck him
again. "Yowp!--yow--wow--wow!" and this row awoke Bevis.

Bevis battled hard for his dog, but the bailiff had had his lunch
delayed, and his peace of mind upset about the boy, and he was
resolutely relieving himself upon the spaniel. Now the hazel rod, being
dry and stiff, was like a bar of iron, and did not yield or bend in the
least, but made the spaniel's ribs rattle. Pan could not get low enough
into the grass; he ceased to howl, so great was the pain, but merely
whimpered, and the tears filled his brown eyes. At last the bailiff
ceased, and immediately Bevis pulled out his handkerchief, and sat down
on the grass and wiped away the spaniel's tears.

"Now, measter, you come along wi' I," said the bailiff, taking his hand.
Bevis would not come, saying he hated him. But when the bailiff told him
about the hunt there had been, and how the people were everywhere
looking for him, Bevis began to laugh, thinking it was rare fun.

"Take me 'pick-a-back,'" said he.

So the bailiff stooped and took him. "Gee-up!" said Bevis, punching his
broad back and kicking him to go faster. Pan, now quite forgotten, crept
along behind them.

Bevis listened to the lecture they gave him at home with a very bad
grace. He sulked and pouted, as if he had himself been the injured
party. But no sooner was he released from the dinner-table, than he was
down on his knees at his own particular corner cupboard, the one that
had been set apart for his toys and things ever since he could walk. It
was but a small cupboard, made across the angle of two walls, and with
one shelf only, yet it was bottomless, and always contained something
new.

There were the last fragments of the great box of wooden bricks, cut and
chipped, and notched and splintered by that treasure, his pocket-knife.
There was the tin box for the paste, or the worms in moss, when he went
fishing. There was the wheel of his old wheelbarrow, long since smashed
and numbered with the Noah's arks that have gone the usual way. There
was the brazen cylinder of a miniature steam-engine bent out of all
shape. There was the hammer-head made specially for him by the
blacksmith down in the village, without a handle, for people were tired
of putting new handles to it, he broke them so quickly. There was a
horse-shoe, and the iron catch of a gate, and besides these a boxwood
top, which he could not spin, but which he had payed away half the
savings in his money-box for, because he had seen it split the other
boys' tops in the road.

In one corner was a brass cannon, the touch-hole blackened by the
explosion of gunpowder, and by it the lock of an ancient pistol--the
lock only, and neither barrel nor handle. An old hunting-crop, some
feathers from pheasants' tails, part of a mole-trap, an old brazen
bugle, much battered, a wooden fig-box full of rusty nails, several
scraps of deal board and stumps of cedar pencil were heaped together in
confusion. But these were not all, nor could any written inventory
exhaust the contents, and give a perfect list of all that cupboard held.
There was always something new in it: Bevis never went there, but he
found something.

With the hunting-crop he followed the harriers and chased the doubling
hare; with the cannon he fought battles, such as he saw in the pictures;
the bugle, too, sounded the charge (the bailiff sometimes blew it in the
garden to please him, and the hollow "who-oo!" it made echoed over the
fields); with the deal boards and the rusty nails, and the hammer-head,
he built houses, and even cities. The jagged and splintered wooden
bricks, six inches long, were not bricks, but great beams and baulks of
timber; the wheel of the wheelbarrow was the centre of many curious
pieces of mechanism. He could see these things easily. So he sat down at
his cupboard and forgot the lecture instantly; the pout disappeared from
his lips as he plunged his hand into the inexhaustible cupboard.

"Bevis, dear," he heard presently, "you may have an apple."

Instantly, and without staying to shut the door on his treasures, he
darted upstairs--up two flights, with a clatter and a bang, burst open
the door, and was in the apple-room. It was a large garret or attic,
running half the length of the house, and there, in the autumn, the best
apples from the orchard were carried, and put on a thin layer of hay,
each apple apart from its fellow (for they ought not to touch), and each
particular sort, the Blenheim Oranges and the King Pippins, the Creepers
and the Grindstone Pippins (which grew nowhere else), divided from the
next sort by a little fence of hay.

The most of them were gone now, only a few of the keeping apples
remained, and from these Bevis, with great deliberation, chose the
biggest, measuring them by the eye and weighing them in his hand. Then
downstairs again with a clatter and a bang, down the second stairs this
time, past the gun-room, where the tools were kept, and a carpenter's
bench; then through the whole length of the ground floor from the
kitchen to the parlour slamming every door behind him, and kicking over
the chairs in front of him.

There he stayed half-a-minute to look at the hornet's nest under the
glass-case on the mantelpiece. The comb was built round a central pillar
or column, three stories one above the other, and it had been taken from
the willow tree by the brook, the huge hollow willow which he had twice
tried to chop down, that he might make a boat of it. Then out of doors,
and up the yard, and past the cart-house, when something moved in the
long grass under the wall. It was a weasel, caught in a gin.

The trap had been set by the side of a drain for rats, and the weasel
coming out, or perhaps frightened by footsteps, and hastening
carelessly, had been trapped. Bevis, biting his apple, looked at the
weasel, and the weasel said: "Sir Bevis, please let me out, this gin
hurts me so; the teeth are very sharp and the spring is very strong, and
the tar-cord is very stout, so that I cannot break it. See how the iron
has skinned my leg and taken off the fur, and I am in such pain. Do
please let me go, before the ploughboy comes, or he will hit me with a
stick, or smash me with a stone, or put his iron-shod heel on me; and I
have been a very good weasel, Bevis. I have been catching the horrid
rats that eat the barley-meal put for the pigs. Oh, let me out, the gin
hurts me so!"

Bevis put his foot on the spring, and was pressing it down, and the
weasel thought he was already free, and looked across at the wood pile
under which he meant to hide, when Bevis heard a little squeak close to
his head, and looked up and saw a mouse under the eaves of the
cart-house, peeping forth from a tiny crevice, where the mortar had
fallen from between the stones of the wall.

"Bevis, Bevis!" said the mouse, "don't you do it--don't you let that
weasel go! He is a most dreadful wicked weasel, and his teeth are ever
so much sharper than that gin. He does not kill the rats, because he is
afraid of them (unless he can assassinate one in his sleep), but he
murdered my wife and sucked her blood, and her body, all dry and
withered, is up in the beam there, if you will get a ladder and look.
And he killed all my little mouses, and made me very unhappy, and I
shall never be able to get another wife to live with me in this
cart-house while he is about. There is no way we can get away from him.
If we go out into the field he follows us there, and if we go into the
sheds he comes after us there, and he is a cruel beast, that wicked
weasel. You know you ate the partridge's eggs," added the mouse,
speaking to the weasel.

"It is all false," said the weasel. "But it is true that you ate the
wheat out of the ears in the wheat-rick, and you know what was the
consequence. If that little bit of wheat you ate had been thrashed, and
ground, and baked, and made into bread, then that poor girl would have
had a crust to eat, and would not have jumped into the river, and she
would have had a son, and he would have been a great man and fought
battles, just as Bevis does with his brazen cannon, and won great
victories, and been the pride of all the nation. But you ate those
particular grains of wheat that were meant to do all this, you wicked
little mouse. Besides which, you ran across the bed one night, and
frightened Bevis's mother."

"But I did not mean to," said the mouse; "and you did mean to kill my
wife, and you ate the partridge's eggs."

"And a very good thing I did," said the weasel. "Do you know what would
have happened, if I had not taken them? I did it all for good, and with
the best intentions. For if I had left the eggs one more day, there was
a man who meant to have stolen them all but one, which he meant to have
left to deceive the keeper. If he had stolen them, he would have been
caught, for the keeper was watching for him all the time, and he would
have been put to prison, and his children would have been hungry. So I
ate the eggs, and especially I ate every bit of the one the man meant to
have left."

"And why were you so particular about eating that egg?" asked Bevis.

"Because," said the weasel, "if that egg had come to a partridge chick,
and the chick had lived till the shooting-time came, then the sportsman
and his brother, when they came round, would have started it out of the
stubble, and the shot from the gun of the younger would have
accidentally killed the elder, and people would have thought it was done
to murder him for the sake of the inheritance."

"Now, is this true?" said Bevis.

"Yes, that it is; and I killed the mouse's wife also for the best of
reasons."

"You horrid wretch!" cried the mouse.

"Oh, you needn't call me a wretch," said the weasel; "I am sure you
ought to be grateful to me, for your wife was very jealous because you
paid so much attention to the Miss Mouse you want to marry now, and in
the night she meant to have gnawn your throat."

"And you frightened my mother," said Bevis, "by running across her bed
in the night;" and he began to press on the spring of the gin.

"Yes, that he did," said the weasel, overjoyed; "and he made a hole in
the boards of the floor, and it was down that hole that the
half-sovereign rolled and was lost, and the poor maid-servant sent away
because they thought she had stolen it."

"What do you say to that?" asked Bevis.

But the mouse was quite aghast and dumb-founded and began to think that
it was he after all who was in the wrong, so that for the moment he
could not speak. Just then Bevis caught sight of the colt that had come
up beside his mother, the cart mare, to the fence; and thinking that he
would go and try and stroke the pretty creature, Bevis started forward,
forgetting all about the weasel and the mouse. As he started, he pressed
the spring down, and in an instant the weasel was out, and had hobbled
across to the wood pile. When the mouse saw this, he gave a little
squeak of terror, and ran back to his hiding-place.

But when Bevis put out his hand to stroke the colt, the colt started
back, so he picked up a stick and threw it at him. Then he took another
stick and hunted the hens round and round the ricks to make them lay
their eggs faster, as it is well known that is the best way. For he
remembered that last year they had shown him three tiny bantam chicks,
such darling little things, all cuddled cosily together in the hollow of
a silver table-spoon. The hens clucked and raced, and Bevis raced after
and shouted, and the cock, slipping on one side, for it hurt his
dignity to run away like the rest, hopped upon the railings, napped his
wings, crew, and cried: "You'll be glad when I'm dead". That was how
Bevis translated his "hurra-ca-roorah".

In the midst of the noise out came Polly, the dairy-maid, with a bone
for Pan, which Bevis no sooner saw, than he asked her to let him give
Pan his dinner. "Very well, dear," said Polly, and went in to finish her
work. So Bevis took the bone, and Pan, all weary and sore from his
thrashing, crept out from his tub to receive it; but Bevis put the bone
on the grass (all the grass was worn bare where Pan could reach) just
where the spaniel could smell it nicely but could not get it. Pan
struggled, and scratched, and howled, and scratched again, and tugged
till his collar, buckled tightly now, choked him, and he gasped and
panted, while Bevis, taking the remnant of his apple from his pocket,
nibbled it and laughed with a face like an angel's for sweetness.

Then a rook went over and cawed, and Bevis, looking up at the bird,
caught a glimpse of the swing over the wall--it stood under the sycamore
tree. Dropping the bit of apple, away he ran to the swing, and sat in
it, and pushed himself off. As he swung forward he straightened his legs
and leant back; when he swung back he drew his feet under him and leant
forward, and by continuing this the weight of his body caused the swing
to rise like a pendulum till he went up among the sycamore boughs,
nearly as high as the ivy-grown roof of the summer-house, just
opposite. There he went to and fro, as easily as possible, shutting his
eyes and humming to himself.

Presently a cock chaffinch came and perched in the ash close by, and
immediately began to sing his war-song: "I am lord of this tree," sang
the chaffinch, "I am lord of this tree; every bough is mine, and every
leaf, and the wind that comes through it, and the sunshine that falls on
it, and the rain that moistens it, and the blue sky over it, and the
grass underneath it--all this is mine. My nest is going to be made in
the ivy that grows half-way up the trunk, and my wife is very busy
to-day bringing home the fibres and the moss, and I have just come back
a little while to tell you all that none of you must come into or touch
my tree. I like this tree, and therefore it is mine. Be careful that
none of you come inside the shadow of it, or I shall peck you with all
my might."

Then he paused awhile, and Bevis went on swinging and listening. In a
minute or two another chaffinch came to the elm in the hedge just
outside the garden, and quite close to the ash. Directly he perched, he
ruffled up and began to sing too: "I am lord of this tree, and it is a
very high tree, much higher than the ash, and even above the oak where
that slow fellow the crow is building. Mine is the very highest tree of
all, and I am the brightest and prettiest of all the chaffinches. See my
colours how bright they are, so that you would hardly know me from a
bullfinch. There is not a feather rumpled in my wing, or my tail, and I
have the most beautiful eyes of all of you."

Hardly had he done singing than another chaffinch came into the
crab-tree, a short way up the hedge, and he began to sing too: "I have a
much bigger tree than either of you, but as it is at the top of the
field I cannot bring it down here, but I have come down into this
crab-tree, and I say it is mine, and I am lord of two trees. I am
stronger than both of you, and neither of you dare come near me."

The two other chaffinches were silent for a minute, and then one of
them, the knight of the ash-tree, flew down into the hedge under the
crab-tree; and instantly down flew the third chaffinch, and they fought
a battle, and pecked and buffeted one another with their wings, till
Bevis's tears ran down with laughing. Presently they parted, and the
third chaffinch went home to his tree at the top of the field, leaving
one little feather on the ground, which the first chaffinch picked up
and carried to his nest in the ash.

But scarcely had he woven it into the nest than down flew the second
chaffinch from the elm into the shadow of the ash. Flutter, flutter went
the first chaffinch to meet him, and they had such a battle as Bevis had
never seen before, and fought till they were tired; then each flew up
into his tree, and sang again about their valour.

Immediately afterwards ten sparrows came from the house-top into the
bushes, chattering and struggling all together, scratching, pecking,
buffeting, and all talking at once. After they had had a good fight
they all went back to the house-top, and began to tell each other what
tremendous blows they had given. Then there was such a great cawing from
the rook trees, which were a long way off, that it was evident a battle
was going on there, and Bevis heard the chaffinch say that one of the
rooks had been caught stealing his cousin's sticks.

Next two goldfinches began to fight, and then a blackbird came up from
the brook and perched on a rail, and he was such a boaster, for he said
he had the yellowest bill of all the blackbirds, and the blackest coat,
and the largest eye, and the sweetest whistle, and he was lord over all
the blackbirds. In two minutes up came another one from out of the
bramble bushes at the corner, and away they went chattering at each
other. Presently the starlings on the chimney began to quarrel, and had
a terrible set-to. Then a wren came by, and though he was so small, his
boast was worse than the blackbird's, for he said he was the sharpest
and the cleverest of all the birds, and knew more than all put together.

Afar off, in the trees, there were six or seven thrushes, all declaring
that they were the best singers, and had the most speckled necks; and up
in the sky the swallows were saying that they had the whitest bosoms.

"Oo! whoo," cried a wood-pigeon from the very oak under which Bevis had
gone to sleep. "There are none who can fly so fast as I can. I am a
captain of the wood-pigeons, and in the winter I have three hundred and
twenty-two pigeons under me, and they all do exactly as I tell them.
They fly when I fly, and settle down when I settle down. If I go to the
west, they go to the west; and if I go to the east, then they follow to
the east. I have the biggest acorns, and the best of the peas, for they
leave them especially for me. And not one of all the three hundred and
twenty-two pigeons dares to begin to eat the wheat in August till I say
it is ripe and they may, and not one of them dares to take a wife till I
say yes. Oo-whoo! Is not my voice sweet and soft, and delicious, far
sweeter than that screeching nightingale's in the hawthorn yonder?"

But he had no sooner finished than another one began in the fir copse,
and said he was captain of one thousand pigeons, and was ever so much
stronger, and could fly ten miles an hour faster. So away went the first
pigeon to the fir copse, and there was a great clattering of wings and
"oo-whoo"-ing, and how it was settled Bevis could not tell.

So as he went on swinging, he heard all the birds quarrelling, and
boasting, and fighting, hundreds of them all around, and he said to the
chaffinch on the ash:--

"Chaffinch, it seems to me that you are all very wicked birds, for you
think of nothing but fighting all day long".

The chaffinch laughed, and said: "My dear Sir Bevis, I do not know what
you mean by wicked. But fighting is very nice indeed, and we all feel
so jolly when fighting time comes. For you must know that the spring is
the duelling time, when all the birds go to battle. There is not a tree
nor a bush on your papa's farm, nor on all the farms all around, nor in
all the country, nor in all this island, but some fighting is going on.
I have not time to tell you all about it; but I wish you could read our
history, and all about the wars that have been going on these thousand
years. Perhaps if you should ever meet the squirrel he will tell you,
for he knows most about history. As we all like it so much, it must be
right, and we never hurt one another very much. Sometimes a feather is
knocked out, and sometimes one gets a hard peck; but it does not do any
harm. And after it is over, in the autumn, we are all very good friends,
and go hunting together. You may see us, hundreds of us in your papa's
stubble-fields, Bevis, all flying together very happy. I think the
skylarks fight the most, for they begin almost in the winter if the sun
shines warm for an hour, and they keep on all day in the summer, and
till it is quite dark and the stars are out, besides getting up before
the cuckoo to go on again. Yet they are the sweetest and nicest of all
the birds, and the most gentle, and do not mind our coming into their
fields. So I am sure, Bevis, that you are wrong, and fighting is not
wicked if you love one another. You and Mark are fond of one another,
but you hit him sometimes, don't you?"

"Yes, that I do," said Bevis, very eagerly, "I hit him yesterday so
hard with my bat that he would not come and play with me. It is very
nice to hit any one."

"But you cannot do it like we do it," said the chaffinch, swelling with
pride again, "for we sing and you can't, and if you can't sing you have
no business to fight, and besides, though you are much older than me you
are not married yet. Now I have such a beautiful wife, and to tell you
the truth, Bevis, we do the fighting because the ladies love to see it,
and kiss us for it afterwards. I am the knight of this tree!"

After which Bevis, being tired of swinging, went to the summer-house to
read what he had written with his stump of pencil till he was called to
tea. In the evening, when the sun was sinking, he went out and lay down
on the seat--it was a broad plank, grey with lichen--under the russet
apple-tree, looking towards the west, over the brook below. He saw the
bees coming home to the hives close by on the haha, and they seemed to
come high in the air, flying straight as if from the distant hills where
the sun was. He heard the bees say that there were such quantities of
flowers on the hills, and such pleasant places, and that the sky was
much more blue up there, and he thought if he could he would go to the
hills soon.




CHAPTER III.

ADVENTURES OF THE WEASEL.


After awhile the mowers came and began to cut the long grass in the Home
Field, and the meadow by the brook. Bevis could see them from the
garden, and it was impossible to prevent him from straying up the
footpath, so eager was he to go nearer. The best thing that could be
done, since he could not be altogether stopped, was to make him promise
that he would not go beyond a certain limit. He might wander as much as
he pleased inside the hedge and the Home Field, in which there was no
pond, nor any place where he could very well come to harm. But he must
not creep through the hedge, so that he would always be in sight from
the garden. If he wished to enter the meadow by the brook he must ask
special permission, that some one might be put to watch now and then.

But more expressly he was forbidden to enter the Little Field. The grass
there was not yet to be mown--it was too long to walk in--and they were
afraid lest he should get through the hedge, or climb over the high
padlocked gate in some way or other, for the Long Pond was on the other
side, though it could not be seen for trees. Nor was he to approach
nearer to the mowers than one swathe; he was always to keep one swathe
between him and the scythes, which are extremely sharp and dangerous
instruments.

Sir Bevis repeated these promises so seriously, and with so demure and
innocent an expression, that no one could doubt but that he would keep
them strictly, nor, indeed, did any idea of exceeding these limits occur
to him. He was so overjoyed at the vast extent of territory, almost a
new world thrown open for exploration, that he did not think it possible
he could ever want to go any farther. He rushed into the Home Field,
jumping over the swathes till he was tired, and kicking the grass about
with his feet. Then he wanted a prong, and a stout stick with a fork was
cut and pointed for him, and with this he went eagerly to work for five
minutes. Next he wanted some one to bury under the grass, and could not
be satisfied till the dairy-maid was sent out and submitted to be
completely hidden under a heap of it.

Next he walked all round the field, and back home down the middle.
By-and-by he sat down and looked at the mowers, who were just finishing
the last corner before they went into the meadow by the brook. While he
was sitting there a number of greenfinches, and sparrows, and two or
three hasty starlings (for they are always in a hurry), came to the
sward where the mowers had just passed, and searched about for food.
They seemed so happy and looked so pretty, Bevis thought he should like
to shoot one, so away he ran home to the summer-house for his bow and
arrow. Hastening back with these, he built a heap of the grass to hide
behind, like a breastwork, and then sat down and watched for the birds.

They did not come directly, as they ought to have done, so he kicked up
his heels, and rolled over on his back, and looked up at the sky, as was
his wont. Every now and then he could hear Pan whining woefully in his
tub a long way off. Since the whipping the spaniel had been in disgrace,
and no one would let him loose. Bevis, so delighted with his field to
roam about in, quite forgot him, and left him to sorrow in his tub.
Presently he heard a lark singing so sweetly, though at a great
distance, that he kept quite still to listen. The song came in verses,
now it rose a little louder, and now it fell till he could hardly hear
it, and again returned. Bevis got up on his knees to try and find where
the lark was, but the sky was so blue there or the bird so high up, he
could not see it, though he searched and searched. It was somewhere in
the next field, far beyond the great oak where he once fell asleep.

He then peered round his heap of grass, but there were no greenfinches
near; they had come out from the hedges, and the starling had come from
the hollow pollard where he had a nest, but all had settled a long way
off from his hiding-place. Bevis was very angry, so he stood up, and
pulled his bow with all his might, and let the arrow fly into the air
almost straight up. When it had risen so far, it turned over and came
down among the flock of birds and stuck in the ground.

They flew away in terror, and though he had not killed any, Bevis was
highly delighted at the fright they were in. He picked up his arrow,
and tried another long shot at a rook on the other side of the field,
but he could not send it so great a distance. As he ran for it, he saw
that the rook's back was towards him, and, thinking that the rook could
not see him, he raced on quietly to try and catch him, but just as he
got close, up rose the rook over the hedge with a "Caw, caw!" Whizz!
went Bevis's arrow after him, and fell on the other side of the hedge,
where he was not to go.

In his anger at the rook's behaviour Bevis forgot all about his promise;
he jumped into the ditch regardless of the stinging-nettles, pushed his
way up through the briars, tearing his sleeve, forced his way across the
mound, and went on his hands and knees through the young green fern on
the other side (just as Pan would have done) under the thick thorn
bushes, and so out into the next field. It was the very field where he
and Pan had wandered before, only another part of it. There was his
arrow ever so far off, sticking upright in the grass among the cowslips.
As he went to pick up his arrow he saw another flower growing a little
farther on, and went to gather that first; it was an orchid, and when he
stood up with it in his hand he heard a mouse rustle in the grass, and
stepped quietly to try and see it, but the mouse hid in a hole.

Then there was an enormous humble-bee, so huge that when it stayed to
suck a cowslip, the cowslip was bent down with its weight. Bevis walked
after the giant humble-bee, and watched it take the honey from several
cowslips; then he saw a stone standing in the field, it was not
upright, but leaned to one side--yet it was almost as tall as he was. He
went to the stone and looked all round it, and got up on it and sat
still a minute, and while he was there a cuckoo came by, so close, that
he jumped off to run after it. But the cuckoo flew fast, and began to
call "Cuckoo!" and it was no use to chase him.

When Bevis stopped and looked about he was in a hollow, like a big salad
bowl, only all grass, and he could see nothing but the grass and
cowslips all round him--no hedges--and the sky overhead. He began to
dance and sing with delight at such a curious place, and when he paused
the lark was on again, and not very far this time. There he was, rising
gradually, singing as he went. Bevis ran up the side of the hollow
towards the lark, and saw a hedge cut and cropped low, and over it a
wheat-field. He watched the lark sing, sing, sing, up into the sky, and
then he thought he would go and find his nest, as he remembered the
ploughboy had told him larks made their nests on the ground among the
corn.

He ran to the low hedge, but though it was low it was very thorny, and
while he was trying to find a place to get through, he looked over and
spied a hare crouched in the rough grass, just under the hedge between
it and the wheat. The hare was lying on the ground; she did not move,
though she saw Bevis, and when he looked closer he saw that her big eyes
were full of tears. She was crying very bitterly, all by herself, while
the sun was shining so brightly, and the wind blowing so sweetly, and
the flowers smelling so pleasantly, and the lark sing, sing, singing
overhead.

"Oh! dear," said Bevis, so eager and so sorry, that he pushed against
the hedge, and did not notice that a thorn was pricking his arm:
"Whatever is the matter?" But the hare was so miserable she would not
answer him at first, till he coaxed her nicely. Then she said: "Bevis,
Bevis, little Sir Bevis, do you know what you have done?"

"No," said Bevis, "I can't think: was it me?"

"Yes, it was you; you let the weasel loose, when he was caught in the
gin."

"Did I?" said Bevis, "I have quite forgotten it."

"But you did it," said the hare, "and now the weasel has killed my son,
the leveret, while he was sleeping, and sucked his blood, and I am so
miserable; I do not care to run away any more." Then the hare began to
weep bitterly again, till Bevis did not know what to do to comfort her.

"Perhaps the weasel only killed the leveret for your good," he said
presently.

"What!" cried the hare, putting her fore-feet down hard, and stamping
with indignation. "That is what the wicked old wretch told you, did he
not, about the mouse and the partridge's eggs. Cannot you see that it is
all a pack of lies? But I do not wonder that he deceives you, dear,
since he has deceived the world for so long. Let me tell you, Sir Bevis,
the weasel is the wickedest and most dreadful creature that lives, and
above all things he is so cunning he can make people believe anything
he chooses, and he has succeeded in making fools of us all--every one.

"There is not one of all the animals in the hedge, nor one of the birds
in the trees, that he has not cheated. He is so very, very cunning, and
his talk is so soft and smooth. Do you please take care, Sir Bevis, or
perhaps he may deceive you, as he deceived the fox. Why, do you know, he
has made the people believe that his crimes are committed by the fox,
who consequently bears all the disgrace; and not only that, but he has
spread it abroad that the fox is the most cunning of all, in order that
he may not be suspected of being so clever as he is. I daresay the
weasel will have me some day, and I do not care if he does, now my
leveret is dead; and very soon his poor bones will be picked clean by
the ants, and after the corn is carried the plough will bury them."

Bevis was terribly distressed at the hare's story, and showed such
indignation against the weasel, and stamped his little foot so hard,
knitting his brow, that the hare was somewhat appeased, and began to
explain all about it.

"Of course you did not know, dear," she said, "when you stepped on the
spring of the gin, what trouble we had had to get him into the trap. For
we had all suffered so long from his cruelty, that we had all agreed at
last to try and put an end to it. The trees could not bear to stand
still and see it go on under them, yet they could not move. The earth
could not bear to feel him running about on his bloodthirsty business,
through the holes the rabbits had made. The grass hated to feel him
pushing through, for it had so often been stained with the blood that he
had shed. So we all took counsel together, and I carried the messages,
dear, from the oak, where you slept, to the ash and the elm, and to the
earth in the corner where the rabbits live; and the birds came up into
the oak and gave their adherence, every one; and the fox, too, though he
did not come himself, for he is too cunning to commit himself till he
knows which way the wind is going to blow, sent word of his high
approval.

"Thus we were all prepared to act against that midnight assassin, the
weasel, but we could not begin. The trees could not move, the earth
could not wag a step, the grass could do nothing, and so it went on for
some months, during all which time the weasel was busy with his
wickedness, till at last the bailiff set the gin for the rat by the
cart-house. Then the fox came out by day--contrary to his custom, for he
likes a nap--and went to a spot where he knew a rabbit sat in the grass;
and he hunted the poor rabbit (it was very good sport to see--I do not
like rabbits), till he had driven him across the ditch, where the weasel
was. Then the fox stopped, and hid himself in the furze; and the weasel,
first looking round to see that no one was near, stole after the rabbit.
Now the rabbit knew that the fox was about, and therefore he was afraid
to run across the open field; all he could do was to go down the hedge
towards the garden.

"Everything was going on well, and we sent word to the rat, to warn him
against the gin--we did not like the rat, but we did not want the gin
thrown--don't you see, dear? But when the rabbit had gone half-way down
the hedge, and was close to the garden, he became afraid to venture any
nearer your house, Bevis. Still the weasel crept after him, and
presently drove him almost up to your sycamore-tree. Then the rabbit did
not know what to do; for if he went forward the people in the house
might see him and bring out the gun, and if he turned back the weasel
would have him, and if he ran out into the field the fox would be there,
and he could not climb up a tree. He stopped still, trying to think,
till the weasel came so near he could smell the rabbit's blood, and
then, in his terror, the rabbit darted out from the hedge, and into the
ditch of your haha wall, under where the bee-hives are. There he saw a
dry drain, and hopped into it, forgetting in his fright that he might
not be able to get out at the other end.

"The weasel thought he had now got him safe, and was just going to rush
across and follow, when an ant spoke to him from the trunk of a tree it
was climbing. The ant said the fox had asked him yesterday to watch, and
if the weasel came that way, to warn him that there was a plot laid for
his life, and not to be too venturesome. This was a piece of the same
double-faced ways the fox has been notorious for these many years past.
No one hates the weasel so much as the fox, but he said to himself: 'The
weasel is so cunning, that even if he is caught, he is sure to find some
way to get free, and then he will perhaps discover that I had a hand in
it, and will turn round on me and spoil some of my schemes out of spite.
Besides which, I don't see why I should take much interest in the hare
or the mouse.' So, though he hunted the rabbit for us, yet he sent the
weasel this message, to take care and mind and not be too bold.

"When the weasel heard this he stopped, and thought to himself that it
was rather dangerous to go so near a house, almost under it; and yet he
could not help licking his mouth, as he remembered the sweet scent of
the rabbit's blood. But he was so very, very cunning, that he thought to
himself the rabbit would be obliged to come out again presently, and
would be sure to come up the hedge if he did not see the weasel. So the
weasel turned round to go up the hedge, and we were all in anxiety lest
the scheme should miscarry. But as the weasel was going under the elm,
the elm dropped a large dead branch, and as it came crashing down, it
fell so near the weasel as to pinch his foot, and, hearing another
branch go crack, he lost his presence of mind, turned back again, and
darted across the corner into the drain. There the scent of the rabbit
was so strong he could not help but follow it, and in a moment or two he
saw the poor creature crouched at the end where he could not pass.

"The weasel bounded forward, when the earth squeezed out a stone, and
the stone fell between the weasel and the rabbit. Before he could tell
what to do, the earth squeezed out another stone behind him and he was
caught, and could neither go forward or backward. Now we thought we had
got him, and that he must starve to death. As for the rabbit, when the
stone fell down it left a hole above, up which he scrambled into the
cow-yard, and there hid himself behind a bunch of nettles till night,
when he escaped into the field.

"Meantime the weasel in a dreadful fright was walking to and fro in his
narrow prison, gnashing his teeth with rage and terror, and calling to
all the animals and birds and insects and even to the mole (whom he
despised most of all) to help him out. He promised to be the nicest,
kindest weasel that ever was known; but it was no use, for they were all
in the secret, and overjoyed to see him on the point of perishing. There
he had to stay, and though he scratched and scratched, he could not make
any hole through the solid stone, and by-and-by he got weaker, and he
began to die. While he was dying the rat came and peeped down at him
through a chink, and laughed and said: 'What is the use of all your
cunning, you coward? If you had been bold like me you would never have
got into this scrape, by being afraid of a dead branch of a tree because
it pinched your foot. I should have run by quickly. You are a silly,
foolish, blind sort of creature; could you not see that all the things
had agreed to deceive you?'

"At this the weasel was so wroth it woke him up from his dying, and he
returned the taunt and said: 'Rat, you are by far the silliest to help
the hare and the mouse; it is true they sent you a message about the
gin, but that was not for love of you, I am sure, and I can't think why
they should send it; but you may depend it is some trick, and very
likely the gin is not where they said at all, but in another place, and
you will walk into it when you are not thinking, and then you will curse
the hare and the mouse'.

"'Ah,' said the rat, 'that sounds like reason; you are right, the hare
and the mouse are going to play me a trick. But I will spite them, I
will let you out.'

"'Will you?' said the weasel, starting up and feeling almost strong
again. 'But you can't, these stones are so thick you cannot move them,
nor scratch through them, nor raise them; no, you cannot let me out.'

"'Oh, yes, I can,' said the rat, 'I know a way to move the biggest
stones, and if you can only wait a day or two I will make this chink
large enough for you to come up.'

"'A day or two,' said the weasel in despair; 'why, I am nearly dead now
with hunger.'

"'Well then,' said the rat, 'gnaw your own tail;' and off he went
laughing at the joke. The miserable weasel cried and sniffed, and
sniffed and cried, till by-and-by he heard the rat come back and begin
to scratch outside. Presently the rat stopped, and was going away again,
when the weasel begged and prayed him not to leave him to die there in
the dark.

"'Very well,' said the rat, 'I will send the cricket to sing to you. In
a day or two you will see the chink get bigger, and meantime you can
eat your tail; and as you will get very thin, you will be able to creep
through a very small hole and get out all the quicker. Ha! ha! As for
me, I am going to have a capital dinner from Pan's dish, for he has
fallen asleep in his tub.'

"So the weasel was left to himself, and though he watched and watched,
he could not see the chink open in the least, and he got so dreadfully
hungry that at last, after sucking his paws, he was obliged to bring his
tail round and begin to gnaw it a little bit. The pain was dreadful, but
he could not help himself, he was obliged to do it or die. In the
evening the cricket came, as the rat had promised, to the top of the
chink, and at once began to sing. He sang all about the lady cricket
with whom he was in love, and then about the beautiful stars that were
shining in the sky, and how nice it was to be a cricket, for the
crickets were by far the most handsome and clever of all creatures, and
everybody would like to be a cricket if they could.

"Next, he went on to praise himself, that his lady might hear what fine
limbs he had, and so noble a form, and such a splendid chink to live in.
Thus he kept on the livelong night, and all about himself; and his
chirp, chirp, chirp filled the weasel's prison with such a noise that
the wretched thing could not sleep. He kept asking the cricket to tell
him if the rat had really done anything to enlarge the chink; but the
cricket was too busy to answer him till the dawn, and then, having
finished his song, he found time to attend to the weasel.

"'You have been very rude,' he said, 'to keep on talking while I was
singing, but I suppose, as you are only an ignorant weasel, you do not
understand good manners, and therefore I will condescend so far as to
inform you of the measures taken by my noble friend the rat to get you
out. If you were not so extremely ignorant and stupid you would guess
what he has done.'

"Now all this was very bitter to the weasel, who had always thought he
knew everything, to be insulted by a cricket; still he begged to be told
what it was. 'The rat,' went on the cricket, 'has brought a little piece
from a fungus, and has scratched a hole beside the stone and put it in
there. Now, when this begins to grow and the fungus pushes up, it will
move the stone and open a chink. In this way I have seen my lord the rat
heave up the heaviest paving stones and make a road for himself. Now are
you not stupid?' Then the cricket went home to bed.

"All day long the miserable weasel lay on the floor of his prison,
driven every now and then to gnaw his tail till he squeaked with the
pain. The only thing that kept him from despair was the hope of the
revenge he would have, if ever he did get out, on those who had laid the
trap for him. For hours he lay insensible, and only woke up when the rat
looked down the chink and asked him, with a jolly chuckle, how his tail
tasted, and then went off without waiting for an answer. Then the
cricket came again, and taking not the least notice of the prisoner,
sang all night.

"In the morning the weasel looked up, and saw that the chink had really
opened. He crawled to it, he was so faint he could not walk, so he had
to crawl over the floor, which was all red with his own blood. The
fungus, a thick, yellowish-green thing, like a very large and
unwholesome mushroom, was growing fast, so fast he could see it move,
and very slowly it shoved and lifted up the stone. The chink was now so
far open that in his thin, emaciated state, the weasel could have got
through; but he was so weak he could not climb up. He called to the rat,
and the rat came and tried to reach him, but it was just a little too
far down.

"'If I only had something to drink,' said the weasel, 'only one drop of
water, I think I could do it, but I am faint from thirst.'

"Off ran the rat to see what he could do, and as he passed the tub where
Pan lived he saw a bowl of water just pumped for the spaniel. The bowl
was of wood with a projecting handle--not a ring to put the fingers
through, but merely a short straight handle. He went round to the other
side of the tub in which Pan was dozing and began to scratch. Directly
Pan heard the scratching:--

"'Ho! ho!' said he, 'that's that abominable rat that steals my food,'
and he darted out, and in his tremendous hurry his chain caught the
handle of the bowl, just as the rat had hoped it would. Over went the
bowl, and all the water was spilt, but the rat, the instant he heard Pan
coming, had slipped away back to the weasel.

"When Pan was tired of looking where he had heard the scratching, he
went back to take a lap, but found the bowl upset, and that all the
water had run down the drain. As he was very thirsty after gnawing a
salt bacon-bone, he set up a barking, and the dairy-maid ran out,
thinking it was a beggar, and began to abuse him for being so clumsy as
to knock over his bowl. Pan barked all the louder, so she hit him with
the handle of her broom, and he went howling into his tub. He vowed
vengeance against the rat, but that did not satisfy his thirst.

"Meantime the water had run along the drain, and though the fungus
greedily sucked up most of it, the weasel had a good drink. After that
he felt better, and he climbed up the chink, squeezing through and
dragging his raw tail behind him, till he nearly reached the top. But
there it was still a little tight, and he could not manage to push
through, not having strength enough left. He felt himself slipping back
again, and called on the rat to save him. The rat without ceremony leant
down the chink, and caught hold of his ear with his teeth, and snipped
it so tight he bit it right through, but he dragged the weasel out.

"There he lay a long time half dead and exhausted, under a dock leaf
which hid him from view. The rat began to think that the weasel would
die after all, so he came and said: 'Wake up, coward, and come with me
into the cart-house; there is a very nice warm hole there, and I will
tell you something; if you stay here very likely the bailiff may see
you, and if Pan should be let loose he will sniff you out in a second'.
So the weasel, with very great difficulty, dragged himself into the
cart-house, and found shelter in the hole.

"Now the rat, though he had helped the weasel, did not half like him,
for he was afraid to go to sleep while the weasel was about, lest his
guest should fasten on his throat, for he knew he was treacherous to the
last degree. He cast about in his mind how to get rid of him, and at the
same time to serve his own purpose. By-and-by he said that there was a
mouse in the cart-house who had a very plump wife, and two fat little
mouses. At this the weasel pricked up his ears, for he was so terribly
hungry, and sat up and asked where they were. The rat said the wife and
the children were up in the beam; the wood had rotted, and they had a
hole there, but he was afraid the mouse himself was away from home just
then, most likely in the corn-bin, where the barley-meal for the pigs
was kept.

"'Never mind,' said the weasel, eagerly, 'the wife and the baby mice
will do very well,' and up he started and climbed up through the rat's
hole in the wall to the roof, and then into the hole in the beam, where
he had a good meal on the mice. Now the rat hated this mouse because he
lived so near, and helped himself to so much food, and being so much
smaller, he could get about inside the house where you live, Bevis,
without being seen, and so got very fat, and made the rat jealous. He
thought, too, that when the weasel had eaten the wife and the babies,
that he would be strong enough to go away. Presently the weasel came
down from his meal, and looked so fierce and savage that the rat, strong
as he was, was still more anxious to get rid of him as quickly as
possible.

"He told the weasel that there was a way by which he could get to the
corn-bin without the least danger, though it was close to the house, and
there he would be certain to find the mouse himself, and very likely
another Miss Mouse whom he used to meet there. At this the weasel was so
excited he could hardly wait to be shown the way, and asked the rat to
put him in the road directly; he was so hungry he did not care what he
did. Without delay the rat took him to the mouth of the hole, and told
him to stay there and listen a minute to be sure that no one was coming.
If he could not hear any footsteps, all he had to do was to rush across
the road there, only two or three yards, to the rough grass, the
dandelions, and the docks opposite. Just there there was an iron grating
made in the wall of the house to let in the air and keep the rats out;
but one of the bars had rusted off and was broken, and that was the
mouse's track to the corn-bin.

"The weasel put out his head, glanced round, saw no one, and without
waiting to listen rushed out into the roadway. In an instant the rat
pushed against a small piece of loose stone, which he kept for the
purpose, and it fell down and shut up the mouth of his hole. As the
weasel was running across the roadway suddenly one of the labourers came
round the corner with a bucket of food for the pigs. Frightened beyond
measure, the weasel hastened back to the rat's hole, but could not get
in because of the stone. Not knowing what to do, he ran round the
cart-house, where there was some grass under the wall, with the man
coming close behind him. Now it was just there that the bailiff had set
the gin for the rat, near the mouth of the drain, but the rat knew all
about it, and used the other hole.

"The grass, knowing that we wished to drive the weasel that way into the
gin, had tried to grow faster and hide the trap, but could not get on
very well because the weather was so dry. But that morning, when the rat
upset Pan's bowl of water, and it ran down the drain, some part of it
reached the roots of the grass and moistened them, then the grass shot
up quick and quite hid the trap, except one little piece. Now, seeing
the weasel rushing along in his fright, the grass was greatly excited,
but did not know what to do to hide this part, so the grass whispered to
his friend the wind to come to his help.

"This the wind was very ready to do, for this reason--he hated to smell
the decaying carcases of the poor creatures the weasel killed, and left
to rot and to taint the air, so that it quite spoilt his morning ramble
over the fields. With a puff the wind came along and blew a dead leaf,
one of last year's leaves, over the trap, and so hid it completely.

"The weasel saw the mouth of the drain, and thinking to be safe in a
minute darted at it, and was snapped up by the gin. The sudden shock
deprived him of sense or motion, and well for him it did, for had he
squeaked or moved ever so little the man with the bucket must have seen
or heard him. After a time he came to himself, and again began to beg
the rat to help him; but the rat, having had his revenge on the mouse,
did not much care to trouble about it, and, besides, he remembered how
very wolfish and fierce the weasel had looked at him when in his hole.
At least he thought he would have a night's sleep in comfort first, for
he had been afraid to sleep a wink with the weasel so near. Now the
weasel was in the gin he could have a nap.

"All night long the weasel was in the gin, and to a certainty he would
have been seen--for the bailiff would have been sure to come and look at
his trap--but if you remember, Bevis, dear, that was the very day you
were lost (while asleep under the oak), and everything was confusion,
and the gin was forgotten. Well, in the morning the weasel begged so
piteously of the rat to help him again, that the rat began to think he
would, now he had had a good sleep, when just as he was peeping out
along you came, Bevis, dear, and found the weasel in the gin.

"Now, I daresay you remember the talk you had with the weasel, and what
the mouse said; well, the rat was listening all the while, and he heard
the weasel say to you that he always killed the rats. 'Aha!' thought
the rat, 'catch me helping you again, sir;' and the weasel heard him say
it. So when you stepped on the spring and loosed the weasel, he did not
dare go into the drain, knowing that the rat (while awake) was stronger
than he, but hobbled as well as he could across to the wood-pile. There
he stopped, exhausted, and stiff from his wounds. Meantime the rat
deliberated how best he could drive the treacherous weasel away from the
place.

"At night, accordingly, he cautiously left his hole and went across to
the tub where Pan was sleeping, curled up comfortably within. The end of
Pan's chain, where it was fastened to the staple outside the tub, was
not of iron, but tar-cord. The last link had been broken, and it was
therefore tied in this manner. The rat easily gnawed through the
tar-cord, and then slipped back to his hole to await events. About the
middle of the night, when the weasel had rested and began to stir out,
Pan woke up, and seeing that it was light, stepped out to bay at the
moon. He immediately found that his chain was undone, and rushed about
to try and find some water, being very thirsty. He had not gone very far
before he smelt the weasel, and instantly began to chase him. The
weasel, however, slipped under a faggot, and so across and under the
wood-pile, where he was safe; but he was so alarmed that presently he
crept out the other side, and round by the pig-sty, and so past the
stable to the rick-yard, and then into the hedge, and he never stopped
running, stiff as he was, till he was half-a-mile away in the ash copse
and had crept into a rabbit's hole. He could not have got away from the
wood-pile, only Pan, being so thirsty, gave up looking for him, and went
down to the brook.

"In the morning, as they thought Pan had broken his chain, they kicked
the spaniel howling into his tub again. And now comes the sad part of
it, Bevis, dear. You must know that when the weasel was in the trap we
all thought it was quite safe, and that our enemy was done for at last,
and so we went off to a dancing-party, on the short grass of the downs
by moonlight, leaving our leverets to nibble near the wheat. We stayed
at the dancing-party so late that the dawn came and we were afraid to go
home in the daylight, and next night we all felt so merry we had another
dance, and again danced till it was morning.

"While we were sleeping in the day, the weasel, having now recovered a
good deal, crept out from the rabbit-hole in the copse. We were so far
off, you see, the mice could not send us word that he had escaped from
the gin in time, and, indeed, none of them knew exactly where to find
us; they told the swallows, and the swallows searched, but missed us.
The wind, too, blew as many ways as he could to try and reach us, but he
had to blow east that day, and could not manage it. If we had only been
at home we should have been on the watch; but my poor leveret, and my
two friends' poor leverets, were sleeping so comfortably when the wicked
weasel stole on them one by one, and bit their necks and killed them. He
could not eat them, nor half of them, he only killed them for revenge,
and oh! dear little Sir Bevis, what shall I do? what shall I do?"

"I will kill the weasel," said Bevis. "He is dreadfully wicked. I will
shoot him this minute with my bow and arrow."

But when he looked round he had got neither of them; he had dropped the
bow in the Home Field when he jumped into the ditch to scramble through
the hedge, and he had wandered so far among the cowslips that he could
not see the arrow. Bevis looked all round again, and did not recognise
any of the trees, nor the hedges, nor could he see the house nor the
ricks, nor anything that he knew. His face flushed up, and the tears
came into his eyes; he was lost.

"Don't cry," said the hare, much pleased at the eagerness with which he
took up the quarrel against the weasel; "don't cry, darling, I will show
you the way home and where to find your arrow. It is not very far,
though you cannot see it because of the ground rising between you and
it. But will you really kill the weasel next time?"

"Yes, indeed I will," said Bevis, "I will shoot my arrow and kill him
quite dead in a minute."

"But I am not sure you can hit him with your arrow; don't you remember
that you could not hit the greenfinches nor the rook?"

"Well then," said Bevis, "if you will wait till I am a man, papa will
lend me his gun, and then I can certainly kill him."

"But that will be such a long time, Sir Bevis; did not your papa tell
you you would have to eat another peck of salt before you could have a
gun?"

"Then I know what I will do," said Bevis, "I will shoot the weasel with
my brass cannon. Ah, that is the way! And I know where papa keeps his
gunpowder; it is in a tin canister on the topmost shelf, and I will tell
you how I climb up there. First, I bring the big arm-chair, and then I
put the stool on that, and then I stand on the lowest shelf, and I can
just reach the canister."

"Take care, Sir Bevis," said the hare, "take care, and do not open the
canister where there is a fire in the room, or a candle, because a spark
may blow you up just when you are not thinking."

"Oh! I know all about that; I'll take care," said Bevis, "and I will
shoot the wretch of a weasel in no time. Now please show me the way
home."

"So I will; you stay there till I come to you, I will run round by the
gateway."

"Why not come straight through the hedge?" said Bevis, "you could easily
creep through, I'm sure."

"No, dear. I must not come that way, that road belongs to another hare,
and I must not trespass."

"But you can run where you like--can you not?"

"Oh, dear no; all the hares have different roads, Sir Bevis, and if I
were to run along one of theirs that did not belong to me, to-night they
would bite me and thump me with their paws till I was all bruised."

"I can't see any path," said Bevis, "you can run where you like in the
field, I'm sure."

"No, I can't, dear; I shall have to go a quarter of a mile round to come
to you, because there are three paths between you and me, and I shall
have to turn and twist about not to come on them."

While Bevis was thinking about this, and how stupid it was of the hares
to have roads, the hare ran off, and in two or three minutes came to him
through the cowslips. "Oh, you pretty creature!" said Sir Bevis,
stooping down and stroking her back, and playing with the tips of her
long ears. "Oh, I do love you so!" At this the hare was still more
pleased, and rubbed her head against Bevis's hand.

"Now," she said, "you must come along quickly, because I dare not stay
on this short grass, lest some dog should see me. Follow me, dear." She
went on before him, and Bevis ran behind, and in a minute or two they
went over the rising ground, past the tall stone (put there for the cows
to rub their sides against), and then the hare stopped and showed Bevis
the great oak tree, where he once went to sleep. She told him to look at
it well, and recollect the shape of it, so that another time he could
find his way home by the tree. Then she told him to walk straight to the
tree, and on his way there he would find the arrow, and close by the
tree was the gap in the hedge, and when he got through the gap, he would
see the house and the ricks, and if he followed the ditch then he would
presently come to the place where he dropped his bow. "Thank you," said
Bevis, "I will run as fast as I can, for I am sure it must be nearly
dinner time. Good-bye, you pretty creature;" and having stroked her ears
just once more, off he started. In a few minutes he found his arrow, and
looked back to show it to the hare, but she was gone; so he went on to
the oak, got through the gap, and there was the house at the other side
of the field. He could hear Pan barking, so he felt quite at home, and
walked along the ditch till he picked up his bow. He was very hungry
when he got home, and yet he was glad when the dinner was over, that he
might go to the cupboard and get his brass cannon.

When he came to examine the cannon, and to think about shooting the
weasel with it, he soon found that it would not do very well, because he
could not hold it in his hand and point it straight, and when it went
off it would most likely burn his fingers. But looking at his papa's gun
he saw that the barrel, where the powder is put in, was fixed in a
wooden handle called the stock, so he set to work with his pocket-knife
to make a handle for his cannon. He cut a long thick willow stick,
choosing the willow because it was soft and easiest to cut, and chipped
away till he had made a groove in it at one end in which he put the
cannon, fastening it in with a piece of thin copper wire twisted round.
Next he cut a ramrod, and then he loaded his gun, and fired it off with
a match to see how it went.

This he did at the bottom of the orchard, a long way from the house,
for he was afraid that if they saw what he was doing they might take it
from him, so he kept it hidden in the summer-house under an old sack.
The cannon went off with a good bang, and the shot he had put in it
stuck in the bark of an apple tree. Bevis jumped about with delight, and
thought he could now kill the weasel. It was too late to start that day,
but the next morning off he marched with his gun into the Home Field,
and having charged it behind the shelter of a tree out of sight, began
his chase for the weasel.

All round the field he went, looking carefully into the ditch and the
hedge, and asking at all the rabbits'-holes if they knew where the
scoundrel was. The rabbits knew very well, but they were afraid to
answer, lest the weasel should hear about it, and come and kill the one
that had betrayed him. Twice he searched up and down without success,
and was just going to call to the hare to come and show him, when
suddenly he discovered a thrush sitting on her nest in a bush. He put
down his gun, and was going to see how many eggs she had got, when the
weasel (who had no idea he was there) peeped over the bank, having a
fancy for the eggs, but afraid that the nest was too high for him to
reach.

"Ho! Ho!" cried Bevis, "there you are. Now I have you. Just stand still
a minute, while I get my gun and strike a match."

"Whatever for?" asked the weasel, very innocently.

"I am going to shoot you," said Bevis, busy getting his gun ready.

"Shoot _me_!" said the weasel, in a tone of the utmost astonishment;
"why ever do you want to shoot me, Sir Bevis? Did I not tell you that I
spent all my life doing good?"

"Yes, you rascal!" said Bevis, putting a pinch of powder on the
touch-hole, "you know you are a wicked story-teller; you killed the poor
leveret after I let you loose. Now!" and he went down on one knee, and
put his cannon-stick on the other as a rest to keep it straight.

"Wait a minute," said the weasel, "just listen to me a minute. I assure
you----"

"No; I sha'n't listen to you," said Bevis, striking his match.

"Oh," said the weasel, kneeling down, "if you will only wait one second,
I will tell you all the wickedness I have committed. Don't, please, kill
me before I have got this load of guilt off my mind."

"Well, make haste," said Bevis, aiming along his cannon.

"I will," said the weasel; "and first of all, if you are going to kill
me, why don't you shoot the thrush as well, for she is ever so much more
wicked and cruel than I have been?"

"Oh, what a dreadful story!" said the thrush. "How can you say so?"

"Yes, you are," said the weasel. "Sir Bevis, you remember the two snails
you found in the garden path--those you put on a leaf, and watched to
see which could crawl the fastest?"

"I remember," said Sir Bevis. "But you must make haste, or my match will
burn out."

"And you recollect that the snails had no legs and could not walk, and
that they had no wings and could not fly, and were very helpless
creatures?"

"Yes, I remember; I left them on the path."

"Well, directly you left them, out came this great ugly speckled thrush
from the shrubbery--you see how big the thrush is, quite a monster
beside the poor snails; and you see what long legs she has, and great
wings, and such a strong, sharp beak. This cruel monster of a thrush
picked up the snails, one at a time, and smashed them on the stones, and
gobbled them up."

"Well," said the thrush, much relieved, "is that all? snails are very
nice to eat."

"Was it not brutally cruel?" asked the weasel.

"Yes, it was," said Bevis.

"Then," said the weasel, "when you shoot me, shoot the thrush too."

"So I will," said Bevis, "but how can I hit you both?"

"I will show you," said the weasel. "I will walk along the bank till I
am just in a line with the thrush's nest, and then you can take aim at
both together."

So he went along the bank and stopped behind the nest, and Bevis moved
his cannon-stick and took another aim.

"Dear me!" cried the thrush, dreadfully alarmed, "you surely are not
going to shoot me? I never did any harm. Bevis, stop--listen to me!"

Now if the thrush had flown away she might have escaped, but she was
very fond of talking, and while she was talking Bevis was busy getting
his gun ready.

"It is straight now," said the weasel; "it is pointed quite straight.
Hold it still there, and I will sit so that I shall die quick;--here is
my bosom. Tell the hare to forgive me."

"Oh," said the thrush, "don't shoot!"

"Shoot!" cried the weasel.

Bevis dropped his match on the touch-hole, puff went the priming, and
bang went the cannon. Directly the smoke had cleared away, Bevis looked
in the ditch, to see the dead weasel and the thrush. There was the
thrush right enough, quite dead, and fallen out of the nest; the nest,
too, was knocked to pieces, and the eggs had fallen out (two were
broken), but there was one not a bit smashed, lying on the dead leaves
at the bottom of the ditch. But the weasel was nowhere to be seen.

"Weasel," cried Bevis, "where are you?" But the weasel did not answer.
Bevis looked everywhere, over the bank and round about, but could not
find him. At last he saw that under some grass on the bank there was a
small rabbit's-hole. Now the weasel had sat up for Bevis to shoot him
right over this hole, and when he saw him move the match, just as the
priming went puff, the weasel dropped down into the hole, and the shot
went over his head.

Bevis was very angry when he saw how the weasel had deceived him, and
felt so sorry for the poor thrush, whose speckled breast was all
pierced by the shot, and who would never sing any more. He did not know
what to do, he was so cross; but presently he ran home to fetch Pan, to
see if Pan could hunt out the weasel.

When he had gone a little way the weasel came out of the hole, and went
down into the ditch and feasted on the thrush's egg, which he could not
have got had not the shot knocked the nest to pieces, just as he had
contrived. He never tasted so sweet an egg as that one, and as he sucked
it up he laughed as he thought how cleverly he had deceived them all.
When he heard Pan bark he went back into the hole, and so along the
hedge till he reached the copse; and then creeping into another hole, a
very small one, where no dog could get at him, he curled himself up very
comfortably and went to sleep.




CHAPTER IV.

BROOK-FOLK.


Some time afterwards it happened one morning that Bevis was sitting on a
haycock in the Home Field, eating a very large piece of cake, and
thinking how extremely greedy the young rook was yonder across the
meadow. For he was as big and as black as his father and mother, who
were with him; and yet he kept on cawing to them to stuff his beak with
sweets. Bevis, who had another large slice in his pocket, having stolen
both of them from the cupboard just after breakfast, felt angry to see
such greediness, and was going to get up to holloa at this ill-mannered
rook, when he heard a grasshopper making some remarks close by the
haycock.

"S----s," said the grasshopper to a friend, "are you going down to the
brook? I am, in a minute, so soon as I have hopped round this haycock,
for there will be a grand show there presently. All the birds are going
to bathe, as is their custom on Midsummer Day, and will be sure to
appear in their best feathers. It is true some of them have bathed
already, as they have to leave early in the morning, having business
elsewhere. I spoke to the cricket just now on the subject, but he could
not see that it was at all interesting. He is very narrow-minded, as
you know, and cannot see anything beyond the mound where he lives.
S----s."

"S----s," replied the other grasshopper; "I will certainly jump that way
so soon as I have had a chat with my lady-love, who is waiting for me on
the other side of the furrow. S----s."

"S----s, we shall meet by the drinking-place," said the first
grasshopper; and was just hopping off when Bevis asked him what the
birds went down to bathe for.

"I'm sure I do not know," said the grasshopper, speaking fast, for he
was rather in a hurry to be gone, he never could stand still long
together. "All I can tell you is that on Midsummer Day every one of the
birds has to go down to the brook and walk in and bathe; and it has been
the law for so many, many years that no one can remember when it began.
They like it very much, because they can show off their fine feathers,
which are just now in full colour; and if you like to go with me you
will be sure to enjoy it."

"So I will," said Bevis, and he followed the grasshopper, who hopped so
far at every step that he had to walk fast to keep up with him. "But why
do the birds do it?"

"Oh, I don't know why," said the grasshopper; "what is why?"

"I want to know," said Bevis, "why do they do it?"

"Why?" repeated the grasshopper; "I never heard anybody say anything
about that before. There is always a great deal of talking going on,
for the trees have nothing else to do but to gossip with each other; but
they never ask why."

After that they went on in silence a good way except that the
grasshopper cried "S----s" to his friends in the grass as he passed, and
said good-morning also to a mole who peeped out for a moment.

"Why don't you hop straight?" said Bevis, presently. "It seems to me
that you hop first one side and then the other, and go in such a zig-zag
fashion it will take us hours to reach the brook."

"How very stupid you are," said the grasshopper. "If you go straight of
course you can only see just what is under your feet, but if you go
first this way and then that, then you see everything. You are nearly as
silly as the ants, who never see anything beautiful all their lives. Be
sure you have nothing to do with the ants, Bevis; they are a mean,
wretched, miserly set, quite contemptible and beneath notice. Now I go
everywhere all round the field, and spend my time searching for lovely
things; sometimes I find flowers, and sometimes the butterflies come
down into the grass and tell me the news, and I am so fond of the
sunshine, I sing to it all day long. Tell me, now, is there anything so
beautiful as the sunshine and the blue sky, and the green grass, and the
velvet and blue and spotted butterflies, and the trees which cast such a
pleasant shadow and talk so sweetly, and the brook which is always
running? I should like to listen to it for a thousand years."

"I like you," said Bevis; "jump into my hand, and I will carry you." He
held his hand out flat, and in a second up sprang the grasshopper, and
alighted on his palm, and told him the way to go, and thus they went
together merrily.

"Are you sure the ants are so very stupid and wicked?" asked Bevis, when
the grasshopper had guided him through a gateway into the meadow by the
brook.

"Indeed I am. It is true they declare that it is I who am wrong, and
never lose a chance of chattering at me, because they are always laying
up a store, and I wander about, laughing and singing. But then you see,
Bevis dear, they are quite demented, and so led away by their greedy,
selfish wishes that they do not even know that there is a sun. They say
they cannot see it, and do not believe there is any sunshine, nor do
they believe there are any stars. Now I do not sing at night, but I
always go where I can see a star. I slept under a mushroom last night,
and he told me he was pushing up as fast as he could before some one
came and picked him to put on a gridiron. I do not lay up any store,
because I know I shall die when the summer ends, and what is the use of
wealth then? My store and my wealth is the sunshine, dear, and the blue
sky, and the green grass, and the delicious brook who never ceases sing,
sing, singing all day and night. And all the things are fond of me, the
grass and the flowers, and the birds, and the animals, all of them love
me. So you see I am richer than all the ants put together." "I would
rather be you than an ant," said Bevis. "I think I shall take you home
and put you under a glass-case on the mantelpiece."

Off jumped the grasshopper in a moment, and fell so lightly on the grass
it did not hurt him in the least, though it was as far as if Bevis had
tumbled down out of the clouds. Bevis tried to catch him, but he jumped
so nimbly this way and that, and hopped to and fro, and lay down in the
grass, so that his green coat could not be seen. Bevis got quite hot
trying to catch him, and seeing this, the grasshopper, much delighted,
cried out: "Are you not the stupid boy everybody is laughing at for
letting the weasel go? You will never catch the weasel."

"I'll stamp on you," said Bevis, in a great rage.

"S----s," called the grasshopper--who was frightened at this--to his
friends, and in a minute there were twenty of them jumping all round in
every direction, and as they were all just alike Bevis did not know
which to run after. When he looked up there was the brook close by, and
the drinking-place where the birds were to meet and bathe. It was a spot
where the ground shelved gently down from the grass to the brook; the
stream was very shallow and flowed over the sandy bottom with a gentle
murmur.

He went down to the brook and stood on the bank, where it was high near
a bush at the side of the drinking-place. "Ah, dear little Sir Bevis!"
whispered a reed, bending towards him as the wind blew, "please do not
come any nearer, the bank is steep and treacherous, and hollow
underneath where the water-rats run. So do not lean over after the
forget-me-nots--they are too far for you. Sit down where you are, behind
that little bush, and I will tell you all about the bathing." Bevis sat
down and picked a June rose from a briar that trailed over the bush, and
asked why the birds bathed.

"I do not know why," said the reed. "There is no why at all. We have
been listening to the brook, me and my family, for ever so many
thousands of years, and though the brook has been talking and singing
all that time, I never heard him ask why about anything. And the great
oak, where you went to sleep, has been there, goodness me, nobody can
tell how long, and every one of his leaves (he has had millions of them)
have all been talking, but not one of them ever asked why; nor does the
sun, nor the stars which I see every night shining in the clear water
down there, so that I am quite sure there is no why at all.

"But the birds come down to bathe every Midsummer Day, the goldfinches,
and the sparrows, and the blackbirds, and the thrushes, and the
swallows, and the wrens, and the robins, and almost every one of them,
except two or three, whose great-grandfathers got into disgrace a long
while ago. The rooks do not come because they are thieves, and steal the
mussels, nor the crows, who are a very bad lot; the swan does not come
either, unless the brook is muddy after a storm. The swan is so tired of
seeing himself in the water that he quite hates it, and that is the
reason he holds his neck so high, that he may not see more of himself
than he can help.

"It is no use your asking the brook why they come, because even if he
ever knew, he has forgotten. For the brook, though he sparkles so bright
in the sun, and is so clear and sweet, and looks so young, is really so
very, very old that he has quite lost his memory, and cannot remember
what was done yesterday. He did not even know which way the moor-hen
went just now, when I inquired, having a message to send to my relations
by the osier-bed yonder.

"But I have heard the heron say--he is talkative sometimes at night when
you are asleep, dear; he was down here this morning paddling about--that
the birds in the beginning learnt to sing by listening to the brook, and
perhaps that is the reason they pay him such deep respect. Besides,
everybody knows that according to an ancient prophecy which was
delivered by the raven before he left this country, if only the birds
can all bathe in the brook on Midsummer Day and hold their tongues, and
not abuse one another or quarrel, they will be able to compose their
differences, and ever afterwards live happily together.

"Then they could drive away the hawk, for there is only one hawk to ten
thousand finches, and if they only marched shoulder to shoulder all
together they could kill him with ease. They could smother the cat even,
by all coming down at once upon her, or they could carry up a stone and
drop on her head; and as for the crow, that old coward, if he saw them
coming he would take wing at once. But as they cannot agree, the hawk,
and the cat, and the crow do as they like. For the chaffinches all fight
one another, you heard them challenging, and saw them go to battle, and
then when at last they leave off and are good fellows again, they all
flock together and will have nothing to do with the goldfinches, or the
blackbirds. It is true the wood-pigeons, and the rooks, and the
starlings, and the fieldfares and redwings are often about in the same
field, but that is only because they eat the same things; if a hawk
comes they all fly away from each other, and do not unite and fight him
as they might do.

"But if once they could come down to the brook on Midsummer Day, and
never quarrel, then, according to the prophecy I told you of, all this
diversity would cease, and they would be able to do just as they
pleased, and build three or four nests in the summer instead of one, and
drive away and kill all the hawks, and crows, and cats. They tried to do
it, I can't tell you how many years, but they could never succeed, for
there was always a dispute about something, so at last they gave it up,
and it was almost forgotten (for they came to the conclusion that it was
no use to try), till last year, when the mole, the one that spoke to the
grasshopper just now, reminded them of it.

"Now the reason the mole reminded them of it was because one day a hawk
came down too quick for his wife (who was peeping out of doors), and
snapped her up in a minute, so he bore the hawk a grudge, and set about
to seek for vengeance. And as he could not fly or get at the hawk he
thought he would manage it through the other birds. So one morning when
the green woodpecker came down to pick up the ants with his tongue, the
mole looked out and promised to show him where there was a capital
feast, and to turn up the ground for him, if in return he would fly all
round the forest and the fields, and cry shame on the birds for letting
the hawk go on as he did when they could so easily prevent it, just by
holding their tongues one day.

"This the woodpecker promised to do, and after he had feasted off he
went, and having tapped on a tree to call attention, he began to cry
shame upon them, and having a very loud voice he soon let them know his
mind. At which the birds resolved to try again, and, do you know, last
year they very nearly succeeded. For it rained hard all Midsummer Day,
and when the birds came down to the brook they were so bedraggled, and
benumbed, and cold, and unhappy, that they had nothing to say for
themselves, but splashed about in silence, and everything would have
happened just right had not a rook, chancing to pass over, accidentally
dropped something he was carrying in his bill, which fell into the flags
there.

"The starling forgot himself, and remarked he supposed it was an acorn;
when the wood-pigeon called him a donkey, as the acorns were not yet
ripe, nor large enough to eat; and the usual uproar began again. But
afterwards, when they talked it over, they said to each other that, as
they had so nearly done it, it must be quite possible, and next year
they would all hold their tongues as tight as wax, though the sun should
drop out of the sky. Now the hawk, of course, being so high up, circling
round, saw and heard all this, and he was very much alarmed, as they had
so nearly succeeded; and he greatly feared lest next year, what he had
dreaded so long would come to pass, as the raven had foretold.

"So he flew down and took counsel of his ancient friend the weasel. What
they said I cannot tell you, nor has it been found out, but I have no
doubt they made up something wicked between them, and it is greatly to
be regretted that you let the weasel go, for the hawk, sharp as he is,
is not very clever at anything new, and if he had not got the weasel to
advise him I suspect he would not be much after all. We shall see
presently what they have contrived--I am much mistaken if they have not
put their heads together for something. Do you keep quite still, Bevis
dear, when the birds come, and take care and not frighten them."

"I will," said Bevis; "I will be very quiet."

"It is my turn to tell you a story now," said a green flag waving to and
fro in the brook. "The reed has been talking too much."

"No, it is my turn," said a perch from the water under the bank. Bevis
leaned over a little, and could see the bars across his back and sides.

"Hold your tongue," replied the flag; "you ate the roach this morning,
whose silvery scales used to flash like a light under the water."

"I will nibble you," said the perch, very angry. "I will teach you to
tell tales."

"I will ask the willow, he is a very old friend of mine, not to shake
any more insects into the brook for you from his leaves," replied the
flag.

"It was not I who ate the roach," said the perch; "it was the pike,
Bevis dear."

"Indeed it was not," said the pike, coming forward a little from under
some floating weeds, where he had been in hiding, so that Bevis could
now see his long body. "The perch says things that are not true."

"You know you hate me," said the perch; "because your
great-great-grandfather swallowed mine in a rage, and my
great-great-grandfather's spines stuck in your great-great-grandfather's
throat and killed him. And ever since then, Bevis dear, they have done
nothing but tell tales against me. I did not touch the roach; the pike
wanted him, I know, for breakfast."

"I deny it," said the pike; "but if it was not the perch it was the
rat."

"That's false," said the rat; "I have only this minute come down to the
brook. If it was not the pike nor the perch, depend upon it it was the
heron."

"I am sure it was not the heron," said a beautiful drake, who came
swimming down the stream. "I was here as early as any one, and I will
not have my acquaintance the heron accused in his absence. I assure you
it was not the heron."

"Well, who did it then?" said Bevis.

"The fact is," said a frog on the verge of the stream, "they are all as
bad as one another; the perch is a rogue and a thief; the pike is a
monster of iniquity; the heron never misses a chance of gobbling up
somebody; and as for the drake, for all his glossy neck and his innocent
look, he is as ready to pick up anything as the rest."

"Quack," cried the drake in a temper; "quack."

"Hush!" said a tench from the bottom of a deep hole under the bank--he
was always a peacemaker. "Hush! do stop the noise you are making. If you
would only lie quiet in the mud like me, how pleasant you would find
life."

"Bevis," began the reed; "Bevis dear. Ah, ah!" His voice died away, for
as the sun got higher the wind fell, and the reed could only speak while
the wind blew. The flag laughed as the reed was silenced.

"You need not laugh," said the perch; "you can only talk while the water
waggles you. The horse will come down to the brook to-morrow, and bite
off your long green tip, and then you will not be able to start any more
falsehoods about me."

"The birds are coming," said the frog. "I should like to swim across to
the other side, where I can see better, but I am afraid of the pike and
the drake. Bevis dear, fling that piece of dead stick at them."

Bevis picked up the dead stick and flung it at the drake, who hastened
off down the stream; the pike, startled at the splash, darted up the
brook, and the frog swam over in a minute. Then the birds began to come
down to the drinking-place, where the shore shelved very gently, and the
clear shallow water ran over the sandy bottom. They were all in their
very best and brightest feathers, and as the sun shone on them and they
splashed the water and strutted about, Bevis thought he had never seen
anything so beautiful.

They did not all bathe, for some of them were specially permitted only
to drink instead, but they all came, and all in their newest dresses. So
bright was the goldfinch's wing, that the lark, though she did not dare
speak, had no doubt she rouged. The sparrow, brushed and neat, so quiet
and subdued in his brown velvet, looked quite aristocratic among so much
flaunting colour. As for the blackbird, he had carefully washed himself
in the spring before he came to bathe in the brook, and he glanced round
with a bold and defiant air, as much as to say: "There is not one of you
who has so yellow a bill, and so beautiful a black coat as I have". In
the bush the bullfinch, who did not care much to mix with the crowd,
moved restlessly to and fro. The robin looked all the time at Bevis, so
anxious was he for admiration. The wood-pigeon, very consequential,
affected not to see the dove, whom Bevis longed to stroke, but could
not, as he had promised the reed to keep still.

All this time the birds, though they glanced at one another, and those
who were on good terms, like the chaffinch and the greenfinch, exchanged
a nod, had not spoken a word, and the reed, as a puff came, whispered to
Bevis that the prophecy would certainly come to pass, and they would
all be as happy as ever they could be. Why ever did they not make haste
and fly away, now they had all bathed or sipped? The truth was, they
liked to be seen in their best feathers, and none of them could make up
their minds to be the first to go home; so they strutted to and fro in
the sunshine. Bevis, in much excitement, could hardly refrain from
telling them to go.

He looked up into the sky, and there was the hawk, almost up among the
white clouds, soaring round and round, and watching all that was
proceeding. Almost before he could look down again a shadow went by, and
a cuckoo flew along very low, just over the drinking-place.

"Cuckoo!" he cried, "cuckoo! The goldfinch has the prettiest dress," and
off he went.

Now the hawk had bribed the cuckoo, who was his cousin, to do this, and
the cuckoo was not at all unwilling, for he had an interest himself in
keeping the birds divided, so he said that although he had made up his
mind to go on his summer tour, leaving his children to be taken care of
by the wagtail, he would stop a day or two longer, to manage this little
business. No sooner had the cuckoo said this, than there was a most
terrible uproar, and all the birds cried out at once. The blackbird was
so disgusted that he flew straight off, chattering all across the field
and up the hedge. The bullfinch tossed his head, and asked the goldfinch
to come up in the bush and see which was strongest. The greenfinch and
the chaffinch shrieked with derision; the wood-pigeon turned his back,
and said "Pooh!" and went off with a clatter. The sparrow flew to tell
his mates on the house, and you could hear the chatter they made about
it, right down at the brook. But the wren screamed loudest of all, and
said that the goldfinch was a painted impostor, and had not got half so
much gold as the yellow-hammer. So they were all scattered in a minute,
and Bevis stood up.

"Ah!" said the reed, "I am very sorry. It was the hawk's doings, I am
sure, and he was put up to the trick by the weasel, and now the birds
will never agree, for every year they will remember this. Is it not a
pity they are so vain? Bevis dear, you are going, I see. Come down
again, dear, when the wind blows stronger, and I will tell you another
story. Ah! ah!" he sighed; and was silent as the puff ceased.

Bevis, tired of sitting so long, went wandering up the brook, peeping
into the hollow willow trees, wishing he could dive like the rats, and
singing to the brook, who sang to him again, and taught him a very old
tune. By-and-by he came to the hatch, where the brook fell over with a
splash, and a constant bubbling, and churning, and gurgling. A
kingfisher, who had been perched on the rail of the hatch, flew off when
he saw Bevis, whistling: "Weep! weep!"

"Why do you say, weep, weep?" said Bevis. "Is it because the birds are
so foolish?" But the kingfisher did not stay to answer. The water
rushing over the hatch made so pleasant a sound that Bevis, delighted
with its tinkling music, sat down to listen and to watch the bubbles,
and see how far they would swim before they burst. Then he threw little
pieces of stick on the smooth surface above the hatch to see them come
floating over and plunge under the bubbles, and presently appear again
by the foam on the other side among the willow roots.

Still more sweetly sang the brook, so that even restless Bevis stayed to
hearken, though he could not quite make out what he was saying. A
moor-hen stole out from the rushes farther up, seeing that Bevis was
still enchanted with the singing, and began to feed among the green
weeds by the shore. A water-rat came out of his hole and fed in the
grass close by. A blue dragon-fly settled on a water-plantain. Up in the
ash-tree a dove perched and looked down at Bevis. Only the gnats were
busy; they danced and danced till Bevis thought they must be dizzy, just
over the water.

"Sing slower," said Bevis presently, "I want to hear what you are
saying." So the brook sang slower, but then it was too low, and he could
not catch the words. Then he thought he should like to go over to the
other side, and see what there was up the high bank among the brambles.
He looked at the hatch, and saw that there was a beam across the brook,
brown with weeds, which the water only splashed against and did not
cover deeply. By holding tight to the rail and putting his feet on the
beam he thought he could climb over.

He went down nearer and took hold of the rail, and was just going to put
his foot on the beam, when the brook stopped singing, and said: "Bevis
dear, do not do that; it is very deep here, and the beam is very
slippery, and if you should fall I would hold you up as long as I could,
but I am not very strong, and should you come to harm I should be very
unhappy. Do please go back to the field, and if you will come down some
day when I am not in such a hurry, I will sing to you very slowly, and
tell you everything I know. And if you come very gently, and on tip-toe,
you will see the kingfisher, or perhaps the heron." Bevis, when he heard
this, went back, and followed the hedge a good way, not much thinking
where he was going, but strolling along in the shadow, and humming to
himself the tune he had learnt from the brook. By-and-by he spied a gap
in the hedge under an ash-tree, so he went through in a minute, and
there was a high bank with trees like a copse, and bramble-bushes and
ferns. He went on up the bank, winding in and out the brambles, and at
last it was so steep he had to climb on his hands and knees, and
suddenly as he came round a bramble-bush there was the Long Pond, such a
great piece of water, all gleaming in the sunshine and reaching far away
to the woods and the hills, as if it had no end.

Bevis clapped his hands with delight, and was just going to stand up,
when something caught him by the ankles; he looked round, and it was the
bailiff, who had had an eye on him all the time from the hayfield. Bevis
kicked and struggled, but it was no use; the bailiff carried him home,
and then went back with a bill-hook, and cutting a thorn bush, stopped
up the gap in the hedge.




CHAPTER V.

KAPCHACK.


"Q--q--q," Bevis heard a starling say some weeks afterwards on the
chimney-top one morning when he woke up. The chimney was very old and
big, and the sound came down it to his room. "Q--q--q, my dear, I will
tell you a secret"--he was talking to his lady-love.

"Phe-hu," she said, in a flutter. Bevis could hear her wings go plainly.
"Whatever is it? Do tell me."

"Look all round first," he said, "and see that no one is about."

"No one is near, dear; the sparrows are out in the corn, and the
swallows are very high up; the blackbird is busy in the orchard, and the
robin is down at the red currants; there's no one near. Is it a very
great secret?"

"It is a very great secret indeed, and you must be very careful not to
whistle it out by accident; now if I tell you will you keep your beak
quite shut, darling?"

"Quite."

"Then, listen--Kapchack is in love."

"Phe--hu--u; who is it? Is he going to be married? How old is she? Who
told you? When did you hear it? Whatever will people say? Tell me all
about it, dear!"

"The tomtit told me just now in the fir-tree; the woodpecker told him on
his promising that he would not tell anybody else."

"When is the marriage to come off, dear?" she asked, interrupting him.
"Kapchack--Phe--u!"

Somebody came round the house, and away they flew, just as Bevis was
going to ask all about it. He went to the window as soon as he was
dressed, and as he opened it he saw a fly on the pane; he thought he
would ask the fly, but instantly the fly began to fidget, and finding
that the top of the window was open out he went, buzzing that Kapchack
was in love. At breakfast time a wasp came in--for the fruit was
beginning to ripen, and the wasps to get busy--and he went all round the
room saying that Kapchack was in love, but he would not listen to
anything Bevis asked, he was so full of Kapchack. When Bevis ran out of
doors the robin on the palings immediately said: "Kapchack is in love;
do you know Kapchack is in love?" and a second afterwards the wren flew
up to the top of the wood-pile and cried out just the same thing.

Three finches passed him as he went up the garden, telling each other
that Kapchack was in love. The mare in the meadow whinnied to her colt
that Kapchack was in love, and the cows went "boo" when they heard it,
and "booed" it to some more cows ever so far away. The leaves on the
apple-tree whispered it, and the news went all down the orchard in a
moment; and everything repeated it. Bevis got into his swing, and as he
swung to and fro he heard it all round him.

A humble-bee went along the grass telling all the flowers that were
left, and then up into the elm, and the elm told the ash, and the ash
told the oak, and the oak told the hawthorn, and it ran along the hedge
till it reached the willow, and the willow told the brook, and the brook
told the reeds, and the reeds told the kingfisher, and the kingfisher
went a mile down the stream and told the heron, and the heron went up
into the sky and called it out as loud as he could, and a rabbit heard
it and told another rabbit, and he ran across to the copse and told
another, and he told a mouse, and he told a butterfly, and the butterfly
told a moth, and the moth went into the great wood and told another
moth, and a wood-pigeon heard it and told more wood-pigeons, and so
everybody said: "Kapchack is in love!"

"But I thought it was a great secret," said Bevis to a thrush, "and that
nobody knew it, except the tomtit, and the woodpecker, and the starling;
and, besides, who is Kapchack?" The thrush was in the bushes where they
came to the haha, and when he heard Bevis ask who Kapchack was, he
laughed, and said he should tell everybody that Bevis, who shot his
uncle with the cannon-stick, was so very, very stupid he did not know
who Kapchack was. Ha! Ha! Could anybody be so ignorant? he should not
have believed it if he had not heard it.

Bevis, in a rage at this, jumped out of the swing and threw a stone at
the thrush, and so well did he fling it that if the thrush had not
slipped under a briar he would have had a good thump. Bevis went
wandering round the garden, and into his summer-house, when he heard
some sparrows in the ivy on the roof all chattering about Kapchack, and
out he ran to ask them, but they were off in a second to go and tell the
yellow-hammers. Bevis stamped his foot, he was so cross because nobody
would tell him about Kapchack, and he could not think what to do, till
as he was looking round the garden he saw the rhubarb, and remembered
the old toad. Very likely the toad would know; he was so old, and knew
almost everything. Away he ran to the rhubarb and looked under the piece
of wood, and there was the toad asleep, just as he always was.

He was so firm asleep, he did not know what Bevis said, till Bevis got a
twig and poked him a little. Then he yawned and woke up, and asked Bevis
what time it was, and how long it would be before the moon rose.

"I want to know who Kapchack is, this minute," said Bevis, "this _very_
minute, mind."

"Well I never!" said the toad, "well I never! Don't you know?"

"Tell me directly--this very minute--you horrid old toad!"

"Don't you really know?" said the toad.

"I'll have you shovelled up, and flung over to the pigs, if you don't
tell me," said Bevis. "No, I'll get my cannon-stick, and shoot you! No,
here's a big stone--I'll smash you! I hate you! Who's Kapchack?"

"Kapchack," said the toad, not in the least frightened, "Kapchack is the
magpie; and he is king over everything and everybody--over the fly and
the wasp, and the finches, and the heron, and the horse, and the rabbit,
and the flowers, and the trees. Kapchack, the great and mighty magpie,
is the king," and the toad bumped his chin on the ground, as if he stood
before the throne, so humble was he at the very name of Kapchack. Then
he shut one eye in a very peculiar manner, and put out his tongue.

"Why don't you like Kapchack?" said Bevis, who understood him in a
minute.

"Hush!" said the toad, and he repeated out loud, "Kapchack is the great
and noble magpie--Kapchack is the king!" Then he whispered to Bevis to
sit down on the grass very near him, so that he might speak to him
better, and not much louder than a whisper. When Bevis had sat down and
stooped a little, the toad came close to the mouth of his hole, and said
very quietly: "Bevis dear, Kapchack is a horrid wretch!"

"Why," said Bevis, "why do you hate him? and where does he live? and why
is he king? I suppose he is very beautiful?"

"Oh, dear, no!" said the toad, hastily, "he is the ugliest creature that
ever hopped. The feathers round one eye have all come out and left a
bare place, and he is quite blind on the other. Indeed his left eye is
gone altogether. His beak is chipped and worn; his wings are so beaten
and decayed that he can hardly fly; and there are several feathers out
of his tail. He is the most miserable thing you ever saw."

"Then why is he king?" asked Bevis.

"Because he is," said the toad; "and as he is king, nobody else can be.
It is true he is very wise--at least everybody says so--wiser than the
crow or the rook, or the weasel (though the weasel is so cunning). And
besides, he is so old, so very old, nobody knows when he was born, and
they say that he will always live, and never die. Why, he put my
grandfather in prison."

"In prison?" said Bevis. "Where is the prison?"

"In the elm-tree, at the top of the Home Field," said the toad. "My
grandfather has been shut up there in a little dungeon so tight, he
cannot turn round, or sit, or stand, or lie down, for so long a time
that, really, Bevis dear, I cannot tell you; but it was before you were
born. And all that time he has had nothing to eat or drink, and he has
never seen the sun or felt the air, and I do not suppose he has ever
heard anything unless when the thunderbolt fell on the oak close by.
Perhaps he heard the thunder then."

"Well, then, what has he been doing?" asked Bevis, "and why doesn't he
get out?"

"He cannot get out, because the tree has grown all round him quite hard,
as Kapchack knew it would when he ordered him to be put there in the
hole. He has not been doing anything but thinking."

"I should get tired of thinking all that time," said Bevis; "but why was
he put there?"

"For reasons of state," said the toad. "He knows too much. Once upon a
time he saw Kapchack do something, I do not know what it was, and
Kapchack was very angry, and had him put in there in case he should tell
other people. I went and asked him what it was before the tree quite
shut him in, while there was just a little chink you could talk through;
but he always told me to stop in my hole and mind my own business, else
perhaps I should get punished, as he had been. But he did tell me that
he could not help it, that he did not mean to see it, only just at the
moment it happened he turned round in his bed, and he opened his eyes
for a second, and you know the consequences, Bevis dear. So I advise you
always to look the other way, unless you're wanted."

"It was very cruel of Kapchack," said Bevis.

"Kapchack is very cruel," said the toad, "and very greedy, more greedy
even than the ants; and he has such a treasure in his palace as never
was heard of. No one can tell how rich he is. And as for cruelty, why,
he killed his uncle only a week since, just for not answering him the
very instant he spoke; he pecked him in the forehead and killed him.
Then he killed the poor little wren, whom he chanced to hear say that
the king was not so beautiful as her husband. Next he pecked a thrush to
death, because the thrush dared to come into his orchard without
special permission.

"But it is no use my trying to tell you all the shameful things he has
done in all these years. There is never a year goes by without his doing
something dreadful; and he has made everybody miserable at one time or
other by killing their friends or relations, from the snail to the
partridge. He is quite merciless, and spares no one; why, his own
children are afraid of him, and it is believed that he has pecked
several of them to death, though it is hushed up; but people talk about
it all the same, sometimes. As for the way he has behaved to the ladies,
if I were to tell you you would never believe it."

"I hate him," said Bevis. "Why ever do they let him be king? How they
must hate him."

"Oh, no, they don't, dear," said the toad. "If you were to hear how they
go on, you would think he was the nicest and kindest person that ever
existed. They sing his praises all day long; that is, in the spring and
summer, while the birds have their voices. You must have heard them,
only you did not understand them. The finches and the thrushes, and the
yellow-hammers and the wrens, and all the birds, every one of them,
except Choo Hoo, the great rebel, sing Kapchack's praises all day long,
and tell him that they love him more than they love their eggs, or their
wives, or their nests, and that he is the very best and nicest of all,
and that he never did anything wrong, but is always right and always
just.

"And they say his eye is brighter than the sun, and that he can see more
with his one eye than all the other birds put together; and that his
feathers are blacker and whiter and more beautiful than anything else in
the world, and his voice sweeter than the nightingale's. Now, if you
will stoop a little lower I will whisper to you the reason they do this
(Bevis stooped down close); the truth is they are afraid lest he should
come himself and peck their eggs, or their children, or their wives, or
if not himself that he should send the hawk, or the weasel, or the
stoat, or the rat, or the crow. Don't you ever listen to the crow,
Bevis; he is a black scoundrel.

"For Kapchack has got all the crows, and hawks, and weasels (especially
that very cunning one, that old wretch that cheated you), and rats, to
do just as he tells them. They are his soldiers, and they carry out his
bidding quicker than you can wink your eye, or than I can shoot out my
tongue, which I can do so quickly that you cannot see it. When the
spring is over and the birds lose their voices (many of them have
already), they each send one or two of their number every day to visit
the orchard where Kapchack lives, and to say (as they can no longer
sing) that they still think just the same, and they are all his very
humble servants. Kapchack takes no notice of them whatever unless they
happen to do what he does not like, and then they find out very soon
that he has got plenty of spies about.

"My opinion is that the snail is no better than a spy and a common
informer. Do you just look round and turn over any leaves that are
near, lest any should be here, and tell tales about me. I can tell you,
it is a very dangerous thing to talk about Kapchack, somebody or other
is sure to hear, and to go and tell him, so as to get into favour. Now,
that is what I hate. All the rabbits and hares (and your friend the hare
that lives at the top of the Home Field), and the squirrel and the
mouse, all of them have to do just the same as the birds, and send
messages to Kapchack, praising him and promising to do exactly as he
tells them, all except Choo Hoo."

"Who is Choo Hoo?" said Bevis.

"Choo Hoo is the great wood-pigeon," said the toad. "He is a rebel; but
I cannot tell you much about him, for it is only of late years that we
have heard anything of him, and I do not know much about the present
state of things. Most of the things I can tell you happened, or began, a
long time ago. If you want to know what is going on now, the best person
you can go to is the squirrel. He is a very good fellow; he can tell
you. I will give you a recommendation to him, or perhaps he will be
afraid to open his mouth too freely; for, as I said before, it is a very
dangerous thing to talk about Kapchack, and everybody is most terribly
afraid of him--he is so full of malice."

"Why ever do they let him be king?" said Bevis; "I would not, if I were
them. Why ever do they put up with him, and his cruelty and greediness?
I will tell the thrush and the starling not to endure him any longer."

"Pooh! pooh!" said the toad. "It is all very well for you to say so, but
you must excuse me for saying, my dear Sir Bevis, that you really know
very little about it. The thrush and the starling would not understand
what you meant. The thrush's father always did as Kapchack told him, and
sang his praises, as I told you, and so did his grandfather, and his
great-grandfather, and all his friends and relations, these years and
years past. So that now the thrushes have no idea of there being no
Kapchack. They could not understand you, if you tried to explain to them
how nice it would be without him. If you sat in your swing and talked to
them all day long, for all the summer through, they would only think you
very stupid even to suppose such a state of things as no Kapchack. Quite
impossible, Bevis dear!--excuse me correcting you. Why, instead of
liking it, they would say it would be very dreadful to have no
Kapchack."

"Well, they are silly!" said Bevis. "But _you_ do not like Kapchack!"

"No, I do not," said the toad; "and if you will stoop down
again----(Bevis stooped still nearer.) No; perhaps you had better lie
down on the grass! There--now I can talk to you quite freely. The fact
is, do you know, there are other people besides me who do not like
Kapchack. The crow--I can't have anything to do with such an old
rogue!--the crow, I am certain, hates Kapchack, but he dares not say so.
Now I am so old, and they think me so stupid and deaf that people say a
good deal before me, never imagining that I take any notice. And when I
have been out of a dewy evening, I have distinctly heard the crow
grumbling about Kapchack. The crow thinks he is quite as clever as
Kapchack, and would make quite as good a king.

"Nor is the rat satisfied, nor the weasel, nor the hawk. I am sure they
are not, but they cannot do anything alone, and they are so suspicious
of each other they cannot agree. So that, though they are dissatisfied,
they can do nothing. I daresay Kapchack knows it very well indeed. He is
so wise--so very, very wise--that he can see right into what they think,
and he knows that they hate him, and he laughs in his sleeve. I will
tell you what he does. He sets the hawk on against the rat, and the rat
on against the crow, and the crow against the weasel. He tells them all
sorts of things; so that the weasel thinks the crow tells tales about
him, and the hawk thinks the rat has turned tail and betrayed his
confidence. The result is, they hate one another as much as they hate
him.

"And he told the rook--it was very clever of him to do so, yes, it was
very clever of him, I must admit that Kapchack is extremely clever--that
if he was not king somebody else would be, perhaps the hawk, or the rat.
Now the rook told his friends at the rookery, and they told everybody
else, and when people came to talk about it, they said it was very true.
If Kapchack was not king, perhaps the hawk would be, and he would be as
bad, or worse; or the rat, and he would be very much worse; or perhaps
the weasel, the very worst of all.

"So they agreed that, rather than have these, they would have Kapchack
as the least evil. When the hawk and the rat heard what the king had
said, they hated each other ten times more than before, lest
Kapchack--if ever he should give up the crown--should choose one or
other of them as his successor, for that was how they understood the
hint. Not that there is the least chance of his giving up the crown; not
he, my dear, and he will never die, as everybody knows (here the toad
winked slightly), and he will never grow any older; all he does is to
grow wiser, and wiser, and wiser, and wiser. All the other birds die,
but Kapchack lives for ever. Long live the mighty Kapchack!" said the
toad very loud, that all might hear how loyal he was, and then went on
speaking lower. "Yet the hawk, and the crow, and the rook, and the jay,
and all of them, though they hate Kapchack in their hearts, all come
round him bowing down, and they peck the ground where he has just
walked, and kiss the earth he has stood on, in token of their humility
and obedience to him. Each tries to outdo the rest in servility. They
bring all the news to the palace, and if they find anything very nice in
the fields, they send a message to say where it is, and leave it for
him, so that he eats the very fat of the land."

"And where is his palace?" asked Bevis. "I should like to go and see
him."

"His palace is up in an immense old apple-tree, dear. It is a long way
from here, and it is in an orchard, where nobody is allowed to go. And
this is the strangest part of it all, and I have often wondered and
thought about it months together; once I thought about it for a whole
year, but I cannot make out why it is that the owner of the orchard, who
lives in the house close by it, is so fond of Kapchack. He will not let
anybody go into the orchard unless with him. He keeps it locked (there
is a high wall around), and carries the key in his pocket.

"As the orchard is very big, and Kapchack's nest is in the middle, no
one can see even it from the outside, nor can any boys fling a stone and
hit it; nor, indeed, could any one shoot at it, because the boughs are
all round it. Thus Kapchack's palace is protected with a high wall, by
the boughs, by its distance from the outside, by lock and key, and by
the owner of the orchard, who thinks more of him than of all the world
besides. He will not let any other big birds go into the orchard at all,
unless Kapchack seems to like it; he will bring out his gun and shoot
them. He watches over Kapchack as carefully as if Kapchack were his son.
As for the cats he has shot for getting into the orchard, there must
have been a hundred of them.

"So that Kapchack every year puts a few more sticks on his nest, and
brings up his family in perfect safety, which is what no other bird can
do, neither the rook, nor the hawk, nor the crow, nor could even the
raven, when he lived in this country. This is a very great advantage to
Kapchack, for he has thus a fortress to retreat to, into which no one
can enter, and he can defy everybody; and this is a great help to him as
king. It is also one reason why he lives so long, though perhaps there
is another reason, which I cannot, really I dare not, even hint at; it
is such a dreadful secret, I should have my head split open with a peck
if I even so much as dared to think it. Besides which, perhaps it is not
true.

"If it were not so far, and if there was not a wall round the orchard, I
would tell you which way to go to find the place. His palace is now so
big he can hardly make it any bigger lest it should fall; yet it is so
full of treasures that it can barely hold them all. There are many who
would like to rob him, I know. The crow is one; but they dare not
attempt it, not only for fear of Kapchack, but because they would
certainly be shot.

"Everybody talks about the enormous treasure he has up there, and
everybody envies him. But there are very dark corners in his palace,
dark and blood-stained, for, as I told you, his family history is full
of direful deeds. Besides killing his uncle, and, as is whispered,
several of his children, because he suspected them of designs upon his
throne, he has made away with a great many of his wives, I should think
at least twenty. So soon as they begin to get old and ugly they
die--people pretend the palace is not healthy to live in, being so
ancient, and that that is the reason. Though doubtless they are very
aggravating, and very jealous. Did you hear who it was Kapchack was in
love with?"

"No," said Bevis. "The starling flew away before I could ask him, and as
for the rest they are so busy telling one another they will not answer
me."

"One thing is very certain," said the toad, "if Kapchack is in love you
may be sure there will be some terrible tragedy in the palace, for his
wife will be jealous, and besides that his eldest son and heir will not
like it. Prince Tchack-tchack is not a very good temper--Tchack-tchack
is his son, I should tell you--and he is already very tired of waiting
for the throne. But it is no use his being tired, for Kapchack does not
mean to die. Now, Bevis dear, I have told you everything I can think of,
and I am tired of sitting at the mouth of this hole, where the sunshine
comes, and must go back to sleep.

"But if you want to know anything about the present state of things (as
I can only tell you what happened a long time since) you had better go
and call on the squirrel, and say I sent you, and he will inform you. He
is about the best fellow I know; it is true he will sometimes bite when
he is very frisky, it is only his play, but you can look sharp and put
your hands in your pockets. He is the best of them all, dear; better
than the fox, or the weasel, or the rat, or the stoat, or the mouse, or
any of them. He knows all that is going on, because the starlings, who
are extremely talkative, come every night to sleep in the copse where he
lives, and have a long gossip before they go to sleep; indeed, all the
birds go to the copse to chat, the rooks, the wood-pigeons, the
pheasant, and the thrush, besides the rabbits and the hares, so that
the squirrel, to whom the copse belongs, hears everything."

"But I do not know my way to the copse," said Bevis; "please tell me the
way."

"You must go up to the great oak-tree, dear," said the toad, "where you
once went to sleep, and then go across to the wheat-field, and a little
farther you will see a footpath, which will take you to another field,
and you will see the copse on your right. Now the way into the copse is
over a narrow bridge, it is only a tree put across the ditch, and you
must be careful how you cross it, and hold tight to the hand-rail, and
look where you put your feet. It is apt to be slippery, and the ditch
beneath is very deep; there is not much water, but a great deal of mud.
I recollect it very well, though I have not been there for some time: I
slipped off the bridge one rainy night in the dark, and had rather a
heavy fall. The bridge is now dry, and therefore you can pass it easily
if you do not leave go of the hand-rail. Good-morning, dear, I feel so
sleepy--come and tell me with whom Kapchack has fallen in love; and
remember me to the squirrel." So saying the toad went back into his hole
and went to sleep.




CHAPTER VI.

THE SQUIRREL.


All this talking had passed away the morning, but in the afternoon, when
the sun got a little lower, and the heat was not quite so great, Bevis,
who had not been allowed to go out at noon, came forth again, and at
once started up the Home Field. He easily reached the great oak-tree,
and from there he knew his way to the corner of the wheat-field, where
he stopped and looked for the hare, but she was not there, nor did she
answer when he called to her. At the sound of his voice a number of
sparrows rose from the wheat, which was now ripening, and flew up to the
hedge, where they began to chatter about Kapchack's love affair.

Bevis walked on across the field, and presently found a footpath; he
followed this, as the toad had instructed him, and after getting over
two stiles there was the copse on the right, though he had to climb over
a high gate to get into the meadow next to it. There was nothing in the
meadow except a rabbit, who turned up his white tail and went into his
hole, for having seen Bevis with the hare, whom he did not like, the
rabbit did not care to speak to Bevis. When Bevis had crossed the meadow
he found, just as the toad had said, that there was a very deep ditch
round the copse, but scarcely any water in it, and that was almost
hidden with weeds.

After walking a little way along the ditch he saw the tree which had
been cut down and thrown across for a bridge. It was covered with moss,
and in the shadow underneath it the hart's-tongue fern was growing.
Remembering what the toad had told him, Bevis put his hand on the
rail--it was a willow pole--but found that it was not very safe, for at
the end the wasps (a long time ago) had eaten it hollow, carrying away
the wood for their nests, and what they had left had become rotten.
Still it was enough to steady his footsteps, and taking care that he did
not put his foot on a knot, Bevis got across safely. There was a rail to
climb over on the other side, and then he was in the copse, and began to
walk down a broad green path, a road which wound in among the ash-wood.

Nobody said anything to him, it was quite silent, so silent, that he
could hear the snap of the dragon-fly's wing as he stopped in his swift
flight and returned again. Bevis pulled a handful of long green rushes,
and then he picked some of the burrs from the tall burdocks; they stuck
to his fingers when he tried to fling them away, and would not go. The
great thistles were ever so far above his head, and the humble-bees on
them glanced down at him as he passed. Bevis very carefully looked at
the bramble-bushes to see how the blackberries were coming on; but the
berries were red and green, and the flowers had not yet all gone. There
was such a beautiful piece of woodbine hanging from one of the ash-poles
that he was not satisfied till he had gathered some of it; the long
brome-grass tickled his face while he was pulling at the honeysuckle.

He clapped his hands when he found some young nuts; he knew they were
not ripe, but he picked one and bit it with his teeth, just to feel how
soft it was. There were several very nice sticks, some of which he had
half a mind to stay and cut, and put his hand in his pocket for his
knife, but there were so many things to look at, he thought he would go
on a little farther, and come back and cut them presently. The ferns
were so tall and thick in many places that he could not see in among the
trees. When he looked back he had left the place where he came in so far
behind that he could not see it, nor when he looked round could he see
any daylight through the wood; there was only the sky overhead and the
trees and ash-stoles, and bushes, and thistles, and long grass, and fern
all about him.

Bevis liked it very much, and he ran on and kicked over a bunch of tawny
fungus as he went, till by-and-by he came to a piece of timber lying on
the ground, and sat down upon it. Some finches went over just then; they
were talking about Kapchack as they flew; they went so fast he could not
hear much. But the squirrel was nowhere about; he called to him, but no
one answered, and he began to think he should never find him, when
presently, while he sat on the timber whistling very happily, something
came round the corner, and Bevis saw it was the hare.

She ran up to him quickly, and sat down at his feet, and he stroked her
very softly. "I called for you at the wheat-field," he said, "but you
were not there."

"No, dear," said the hare, "the truth is, I have been waiting for ever
so long to come into the copse on a visit to an old friend, but you must
know that the weasel lives here."

"Does the weasel live here?" said Bevis, starting up. "Tell me where,
and I will kill him; I will cut off his head with my knife."

"I cannot tell you exactly where he lives," said the hare, "but it is
somewhere in the copse. It is of no use your looking about; it is in
some hole or other, quite hidden, and you would never find it. I am
afraid to come into the copse while he is here; but this afternoon the
dragon-fly brought me word that the weasel had gone out. So I made haste
to come while he was away, as I had not seen my old friend the squirrel
for ever so long, and I wanted to know if the news was true."

"Do you mean about Kapchack?" said Bevis. "I came to see the squirrel
too, but I cannot find him."

"Yes, I mean about Kapchack," said the hare. "Is it not silly of him to
fall in love at his age? Why, he must be ten times as old as me! Really,
I some times think that the older people get the sillier they are. But
it is not much use your looking for the squirrel, dear. He may be up in
the fir-tree, or he may be in the beech, or he may have gone along the
hedge. If you were by yourself, the best thing you could do would be to
sit still where you are, and he would be nearly sure to come by, sooner
or later. He is so restless, he goes all over the copse, and is never
very long in one place. Since, however, you and I have met, I will find
him for you, and send him to you."

"How long shall you be?" said Bevis. "I am tired of sitting here now,
and I shall go on along the path."

"Oh, then," said the hare, "I shall not know where to find you, and that
will not do. Now, I know what I will do. I will take you to the
raspberries, and there you can eat the fruit till I send the squirrel."

The hare leapt into the fern, and Bevis went after her. She led him in
and out, and round the ash-stoles and bushes, till he had not the least
idea which way he was going. After a time, they came to an immense
thicket of bramble and thorn, and fern growing up in it, and honeysuckle
climbing over it.

"It is inside this thicket," said the hare. "Let us go all round, and
see if we can find a way in."

There was a place under an ash-stole, where Bevis could just creep
beneath the boughs (the boughs held up the brambles), and after going on
his hands and knees after the hare a good way, he found himself inside
the thicket, where there was an open space grown over with raspberry
canes. Bevis shouted with delight as he saw the raspberries were ripe,
and began to eat them at once.

"How ever did they get here?" he asked.

"I think it was the thrush," said the hare. "It was one of the birds, no
doubt. They take the fruit out of the orchards and gardens, and that was
how it came here, I daresay. Now, don't you go outside the thicket till
the squirrel comes. And when you have quite done talking to the
squirrel, ask him to show you the way back to the timber, and there I
will meet you, and lead you to the wheat-field, where you can see the
oak-tree, and know your way home. Mind you do not go outside the thicket
without the squirrel, or you will lose your way, and wander about among
the trees till it is night."

Off went the hare to find the squirrel, and Bevis set to work to eat as
many of the raspberries as he could.

Among the raspberry canes he found three or four rabbit-holes, and
hearing the rabbits talking to each other, he stooped down to listen.
They were talking scandal about the hare, and saying that she was very
naughty, and rambled about too much. At this Bevis was very angry, and
stamped his foot above the hole, and told them they ought to be ashamed
of themselves for saying such things. The rabbits, very much frightened,
went down farther into their holes. After which Bevis ate a great many
more raspberries, and presently, feeling very lazy, he lay down on some
moss at the foot of an oak-tree, and kicked his heels on the ground, and
looked up at the blue sky, as he always did when he wanted some one to
speak to. He did not know how long he had been gazing at the sky, when
he heard some one say: "Bevis dear!" and turning that way he saw the
squirrel, who had come up very quietly, and was sitting on one of the
lower branches of the oak close to him.

"Well, squirrel," said Bevis, sitting up; "the toad said I was to
remember him to you. And now be very quick, and tell me all you know
about Kapchack, and who it is he is in love with, and all about the
rebel, Choo Hoo, and everything else, in a minute."

"Well, you are in a hurry," said the squirrel, laughing; "and so am I,
generally; but this afternoon I have nothing to do, and I am very glad
you have come, dear. Now, first----"

"First," said Bevis, interrupting, "why did the starling say it was a
great secret, when everybody knew it?"

"It was a great secret," said the squirrel, "till Prince Tchack-tchack
came down here (he is the heir, you know) in a dreadful fit of temper,
and told the tomtit whom he met in the fir-tree, and the tomtit told the
woodpecker, and the woodpecker told the starling, who told his lady-love
on the chimney, and the fly heard him, and when you opened the window
the fly went out and buzzed it to everybody while you were at breakfast.
By this time it is all over the world; and I daresay even the sea-gulls,
though they live such a long way off, have heard it. Kapchack is beside
himself with rage that it should be known, and Tchack-tchack is afraid
to go near him. He made a great peck at Tchack-tchack just now."

"But why should there be so much trouble about it?" said Bevis.

"Oh," said the squirrel, "it is a very serious business, let me tell
you. It is not an ordinary falling in love, it is nothing less than a
complete revolution of everything, and it will upset all the rules and
laws that have been handed down ever since the world began."

"Dear me!" said Bevis. "And who is it Kapchack is in love with? I have
asked twenty people, but no one will tell me."

"Why, I am telling you," said the squirrel. "Don't you see, if it had
been an ordinary affair--only a young magpie--it would not have mattered
much, though I daresay the queen would have been jealous, but this----"

"Who is it?" said Bevis, in a rage. "Why don't you tell me who it is?"

"I am telling you," said the squirrel, sharply.

"No, you're not. You're telling me a lot of things, but not what I want
to know."

"Oh, well," said the squirrel, tossing his head and swishing his tail,
"of course, if you know more about it than I do it is no use my
staying." So off he went in a pet.

Up jumped Bevis. "You're a stupid donkey," he shouted, and ran across to
the other side, and threw a piece of stick up into an elm-tree after the
squirrel. But the squirrel was so quick he could not see which way he
had gone, and in half-a-minute he heard the squirrel say very softly:
"Bevis dear," behind him, and looked back, and there he was sitting on
the oak bough again.

The squirrel, as the toad had said, was really a very good fellow; he
was very quick to take offence, but his temper only lasted a minute.
"Bevis dear," he said, "come back and sit down again on the moss, and I
will tell you."

"I sha'n't come back," said Bevis, rather sulkily. "I shall sit here."

"No, no; don't stop there," said the squirrel, very anxiously. "Don't
stop there, dear; can't you see that great bough above you; that
elm-tree is very wicked, and full of malice, do not stop there, he may
hurt you."

"Pooh! what rubbish!" said Bevis; "I don't believe you. It is a very
nice elm, I am sure. Besides, how can he hurt me? He has got no legs and
he can't run after me, and he has no hands and he can't catch me. I'm
not a bit afraid of him;" and he kicked the elm with all his might.
Without waiting a second, the squirrel jumped down out of the oak and
ran across and caught hold of Bevis by his stocking--he could not catch
hold of his jacket--and tried to drag him away. Seeing the squirrel in
such an excited state, Bevis went with him to please him, and sat down
on the moss under the oak. The squirrel went up on the bough, and Bevis
laughed at him for being so silly.

"Ah, but my dear Sir Bevis," said the squirrel, "you do not know all, or
you would not say what you did. You think because the elm has no legs
and cannot run after you, and because he has no hands and cannot catch
you, that therefore he cannot do you any harm. You are very much
mistaken; that is a very malicious elm, and of a very wicked
disposition. Elms, indeed, are very treacherous, and I recommend you to
have nothing to do with them, dear."

"But how could he hurt me?" said Bevis.

"He can wait till you go under him," said the squirrel, "and then drop
that big bough on you. He has had that bough waiting to drop on somebody
for quite ten years. Just look up and see how thick it is, and heavy;
why, it would smash a man out flat. Now, the reason the elms are so
dangerous is because they will wait so long till somebody passes. Trees
can do a great deal, I can tell you; why, I have known a tree, when it
could not drop a bough, fall down altogether when there was not a breath
of wind, nor any lightning, just to kill a cow or a sheep, out of sheer
bad temper."

"But oaks do not fall, do they?" asked Bevis, looking up in some alarm
at the oak above him.

"Oh, no," said the squirrel; "the oak is a very good tree, and so is the
beech and the ash, and many more (though I am not quite certain of the
horse-chestnut, I have heard of his playing tricks), but the elm is not;
if he can he will do something spiteful. I never go up an elm if I can
help it, not unless I am frightened by a dog or somebody coming along.
The only fall I ever had was out of an elm.

"I ran up one in a hurry, away from that wretch, the weasel (you know
him), and put my foot on a dried branch, and the elm, like a treacherous
thing as he is, let it go, and down I went crash, and should have hurt
myself very much if my old friend the ivy had not put out a piece for me
to catch hold of, and so just saved me. As for you, dear, don't you ever
sit under an elm, for you are very likely to take cold there, there is
always a draught under an elm on the warmest day.

"If it should come on to rain while you are out for a walk, be sure and
not go under an elm for shelter if the wind is blowing, for the elm, if
he possibly can, will take advantage of the storm to smash you.

"And elms are so patient, they will wait sixty or seventy years to do
somebody an injury; if they cannot get a branch ready to fall they will
let the rain in at a knot-hole, and so make it rotten inside, though it
looks green without, or ask some fungus to come up and grow there, and
so get the bough ready for them. That elm across there is quite rotten
inside--there is a hole inside so big you could stand up, and yet if
anybody went by they would say what a splendid tree.

"But if you asked Kauhaha, the rook, he would shake his head, and
decline to have anything to do with that tree. So, my dear Sir Bevis, do
not you think any more that because a thing has no legs, nor arms, nor
eyes, nor ears, that therefore it cannot hurt you. There is the earth,
for instance; you may stamp on the earth with your feet and she will not
say anything, she will put up with anything, but she is always lying in
wait all the same, and if you could only find all the money she has
buried you would be the richest man in the world; I could tell you
something about that. The flints even----"

"Now I do not believe what you are going to say," said Bevis, "I am sure
the flints cannot do anything, for I have picked up hundreds of them and
flung them splash into the brook."

"But I assure you they can," said the squirrel. "I will tell you a story
about a flint that happened only a short time since, and then you will
believe. Once upon a time a waggon was sent up on the hills to fetch a
load of flints; it was a very old waggon, and it wanted mending, for it
belonged to a man who never would mend anything."

"Who was that?" said Bevis. "What a curious man."

"It was the same old gentleman (he is a farmer, only he is like your
papa, Sir Bevis, and his land is his own), the same old gentleman who is
so fond of Kapchack, whose palace is in his orchard. Well, the waggon
went up on the hills, where the men had dug up some flints which had
been lying quite motionless in the ground for so many thousand years
that nobody could count them. There were at least five thousand flints,
and the waggon went jolting down the hill and on to the road, and as it
went the flints tried to get out, but they could not manage it, none but
one flint, which was smaller than the rest.

"This one flint, of all the five thousand, squeezed out of a hole in the
bottom of the waggon, and fell on the dust in the road, and was left
there. There was not much traffic on the road (it is the same, dear,
that goes to Southampton, where the ships are), so that it remained
where it fell. Only one waggon came by with a load of hay, and had the
wheel gone over the flint of course it would have been crushed to
pieces. But the waggoner, instead of walking by his horses, was on the
grass at the side of the road talking to a labourer in the field, and
his team did not pass on their right side of the road, but more in the
middle, and so the flint was not crushed.

"In the evening, when it was dark, a very old and very wealthy gentleman
came along in his dog-cart, and his horse, which was a valuable one,
chanced to slip on the flint, which, being sharp and jagged, hurt its
hoof, and down the horse fell. The elderly gentleman and his groom, who
was driving, were thrown out; the groom was not hurt, but his master
broke his arm, and the horse broke his knees. The gentleman was so angry
that no sooner did he get home than he dismissed the groom, though it
was no fault of his, for how could he see the flint in the night? Nor
would he give the man a character, and the consequence was he could not
find another place. He soon began to starve, and then he was obliged to
steal, and after a while he became a burglar.

"One night he entered a house in London, and was getting on well, and
stealing gold watches and such things, when somebody opened the door
and tried to seize him. Pulling out his pistol, he shot his assailant
dead on the spot, and at once escaped, and has not since been heard of,
though you may be sure if he is caught he will be hung, and they are
looking very sharp after him, because he stole a box with some papers in
it which are said to be of great value. And the person he shot was the
same gentleman who had discharged him because the horse fell down. Now
all this happened through the flint, and as I told you, Bevis dear,
about the elm, the danger with such things is that they will wait so
long to do mischief.

"This flint, you see, waited so many years that nobody could count them,
till the waggon came to fetch it. They are never tired of waiting. Be
very careful, Bevis dear, how you climb up a tree, or how you put your
head out of window, for there is a thing that is always lying in wait,
and will pull you down in a minute, if you do not take care. It has been
waiting there to make something fall ever since the beginning of the
world, long before your house was built, dear, or before any of the
trees grew. You cannot see it, but it is there, as you may prove by
putting your cap out of window, which in a second will begin to fall
down, as you would if you were tilted out.

"And I daresay you have seen people swimming, which is a very pleasant
thing, I hear from the wild ducks; but all the time the water is lying
in wait, and if they stop swimming a minute they will be drowned, and
although a man very soon gets tired of swimming, the water never gets
tired of waiting, but is always ready to drown him.

"Also, it is the same with your candle, Bevis dear, and this the bat
told me, for he once saw it happen, looking in at a window as he flew
by, and he shrieked as loud as he could, but his voice is so very shrill
that it is not everybody can hear him, and all his efforts were in vain.
For a lady had gone to sleep in bed and left her candle burning on the
dressing-table, just where she had left it fifty times before, and found
it burnt down to the socket in the morning, and no harm done. But that
night she had had a new pair of gloves, which were wrapped up in a piece
of paper, and she undid these gloves and left the piece of paper
underneath the candlestick, and yet it would not have hurt had the
candle been put up properly, but instead of that a match had been stuck
in at the side, like a wedge, to keep it up. When the flame came down to
the match the match caught fire, and when it had burnt a little way
down, that piece fell off, and dropped on the paper in which the gloves
had been wrapped. The paper being very thin was alight in an instant,
and from the paper the flame travelled to some gauze things hung on the
looking-glass, and from that to the window curtains, and from the window
curtains to the bed curtains, till the room was in a blaze, and though
the bat shrieked his loudest the lady did not wake till she was very
much burnt.

"Also with the sea; for the cod-fish told the seagull, who told the
heron, who related the fact to the kingfisher, who informed me. The
cod-fish was swimming about in the sea and saw a ship at anchor, and
coming by the chain-cable the fish saw that one of the links of the
chain was nearly eaten through with rust; but as the wind was calm it
did not matter. Next time the ship came there to anchor the cod-fish
looked again; and the rust had gone still further into the link. A third
time the ship came back to anchor there, and the sailors went to sleep
thinking it was all right, but the cod-fish swam by and saw that the
link only just held. In the night there came a storm, and the sailors
woke up to find the vessel drifting on the rocks, where she was broken
to pieces, and hardly any of them escaped.

"Also, with living things, Bevis dear; for there was once a little
creeping thing (the sun-beetle told me he heard it from his grandfather)
which bored a hole into a beam under the floor of a room--the hole was
so tiny you could scarcely see it, and the beam was so big twenty men
could not lift it. After the creeping thing had bored this little hole
it died, but it left ten children, and they bored ten more little holes,
and when they died they left ten each, and they bored a hundred holes,
and left a thousand, and they bored a thousand holes, and they left a
thousand tens, who bored ten thousand holes, and left ten thousand tens,
and they bored one hundred thousand holes, and left one hundred thousand
tens, and they bored a million holes; and when a great number of people
met in the room to hear a man speak, down the beam fell crash, and they
were all dreadfully injured.

"Now, therefore, Bevis, my dear little Sir Bevis, do you take great care
and never think any more that a thing cannot hurt you, because it has
not got any legs, and cannot run after you, or because it has no hands,
and cannot catch you, or because it is very tiny, and you cannot see it,
but could kill a thousand with the heel of your boot. For as I told you
about the malice-minded elm, all these things are so terribly dangerous,
because they can wait so long, and because they never forget.

"Therefore, if you climb up a tree, be sure and remember to hold tight,
and not forget, for the earth will not forget, but will pull you down to
it thump, and hurt you very much. And remember if you walk by the water
that it is water, and do not forget, for the water will not forget, and
if you should fall in, will let you sink and drown you. And if you take
a candle be careful what you are doing, and do not forget that fire will
burn, for the fire will not forget, but will always be on the look-out
and ready, and will burn you without mercy. And be sure to see that no
little unseen creeping thing is at work, for they are everywhere boring
holes into the beam of life till it cracks unexpectedly; but you must
stay till you are older, and have eaten the peck of salt your papa tells
you about, before you can understand all that. Now----"

"But," said Bevis, who had been listening to the story very carefully,
"you have not told me about the wind. You have told me about the earth,
and the water, and the fire, but you have not said anything about the
wind."

"No more I have," said the squirrel. "You see I forget, though the earth
does not, neither does the water, nor the fire. Well, the wind is the
nicest of all of them, and you need never be afraid of the wind, for he
blows so sweetly, and brings the odour of flowers, and fills you with
life, and joy, and happiness. And oh, Bevis dear, you should listen to
the delicious songs he sings, and the stories he tells as he goes
through the fir-tree and the oak. Of course if you are on the ground, so
far below, you can only hear a sound of whispering, unless your ears are
very sharp; but if you were up in the boughs with me, you would be
enchanted with the beauty of his voice.

"No, dear, never be afraid of the wind, but put your doors open and let
him come in, and throw your window open and let him wander round the
room, and take your cap off sometimes, and let him stroke your hair. The
wind is a darling--I love the wind, and so do you, dear, for I have seen
you racing about when the wind was rough, chasing the leaves and
shouting with delight. Now with the wind it is just the reverse to what
it is with all the others. If you fall on the earth it thumps you; into
the water, it drowns you; into the fire, it burns you; but you cannot do
without wind.

"Always remember that you must have wind, dear, and do not get into a
drawer, as I have heard of boys doing, from the mouse, who goes about a
good deal indoors, and being suffocated for want of wind; or into a
box, or a hole, or anywhere where there is no wind. It is true he
sometimes comes along with a most tremendous push, and the trees go
cracking over. That is only because they are malice-minded, and are
rotten at the heart; and the boughs break off, that is only because they
have invited the fungus to grow on them; and the thatch on your papa's
ricks is lifted up at the corner just as if the wind had chucked them
under the chin.

"But that is nothing. Everybody loses his temper now and then, and why
not the wind? You should see the nuts he knocks down for me where I
could not very well reach them, and the showers of acorns, and the
apples! I take an apple out of your orchard, dear, sometimes, but I do
not mean any harm--it is only one or two. I love the wind! But do not go
near an elm, dear, when the wind blows, for the elm, as I told you, is a
malicious tree, and will seize any pretence, or a mere puff, to do
mischief."

"I love the wind too!" said Bevis. "He sings to me down the chimney, and
hums to me through the door, and whistles up in the attic, and shouts at
me from the trees. Oh, yes, I will do as you say; I will always have
plenty of the wind. You are a very nice squirrel. I like you very much;
and you have a lovely silky tail. But you have not told me yet who it is
Kapchack is in love with."

"I have been telling you all the time," said the squirrel; "but you are
in such a hurry; and, as I was saying, if it was only a young magpie,
now--only an ordinary affair--very likely the queen would be jealous,
indeed, and there would be a fight in the palace, which would be nothing
at all new, but this is much more serious, a very serious matter, and
none can tell how it will end. As Kauc, the crow, was saying to Cloctaw,
the jackdaw, this morning----"

"But who is it?" asked Bevis, jumping up again in a rage.

"Why, everybody knows who it is," said the squirrel; "from the ladybird
to the heron; from the horse to the mouse; and everybody is talking of
it, and as since the raven went away, there is no judge to settle any
dispute----"

"I hate you!" said Bevis, "you do talk so much; but you do not tell me
what I want to know. You are a regular donkey, and I will pull your
tail."

He snatched at the squirrel's tail, but the squirrel was too quick; he
jumped up the boughs and showed his white teeth, and ran away in a
temper.

Bevis looked all round, but could not see him, and as he was looking a
dragon-fly came and said that the squirrel had sent him to say that he
was very much hurt, and thought Bevis was extremely rude to him, but he
had told the dragon-fly to show him the way to the piece of timber, and
if he would come back to-morrow, and not be so rude, he should hear all
about it. So the dragon-fly led Bevis to the piece of timber, where the
hare was waiting, and the hare led him to the wheat-field, and showed
him the top of the great oak-tree, and from there he easily found his
way home to tea.




CHAPTER VII.

THE COURTIERS.


The next morning passed quickly, Bevis having so much to do. Hur-hur,
the pig, asked him to dig up some earth-nuts for him with his knife, for
the ground was hard from the heat of the sun, and he could not thrust
his snout in. Then Pan, the spaniel, had to be whipped very severely
because he would not climb a tree; and so the morning was taken up.
After the noontide heat had decreased, Bevis again started, and found
his way by the aid of the oak to the corner of the wheat-field. The
dragon-fly was waiting for him with a message from the hare, saying that
she had been invited to a party on the hills, so the dragon-fly would
guide him into the copse.

Flying before him, the dragon-fly led the way, often going a long
distance ahead, and coming back in a minute, for he moved so rapidly it
was not possible for Bevis to keep pace with him, and he was too
restless to stand still. Bevis walked carefully over the bridge, holding
to the rail, as the toad had told him; and passing the thistles, and the
grass, and the ferns, came to the piece of timber. There he sat down to
rest, while the dragon-fly played to and fro, now rising to the top of
the trees, and now darting down again, to show off his dexterity. While
he was sitting there a crow came along and looked at him hard, but said
nothing; and immediately afterwards a jackdaw went over, remarking what
a lovely day it was.

"Now take me to the raspberries," said Bevis; and the dragon-fly,
winding in and out the trees, brought him to the thicket, showed him the
place to creep in, and left, promising to return by-and-by and fetch him
when it was time to go home. Bevis, warm with walking in the sunshine,
after he had crept in to the raspberries, went across and sat down on
the moss under the oak; and he had hardly leant his back against the
tree than the squirrel came along the ground and sat beside him.

"You are just in time, my dear," he said, speaking low and rapidly, and
glancing round to see that no one was near; "for there is going to be a
secret council of the courtiers this afternoon, while Kapchack takes his
nap; and in order that none of the little birds may play the spy and
carry information to the police, Kauc, the crow, has been flying round
and driving them away, so that there is not so much as a robin left in
the copse. This is an employment that suits him very well, for he loves
to play the tyrant. Perhaps you saw him coming in. And this council is
about Kapchack's love affair, and to decide what is to be done, and
whether it can be put up with, or whether they must refuse to receive
her."

"And who is she?" said Bevis; "you keep on talking, but you do not tell
me." The squirrel pricked up his ears and looked cross, but he heard
the people coming to the council, and knew there was no time to be lost
in quarrelling, so he did not go off in a pet this time. "The lady is
the youngest jay, dear, in the wood; La Schach is her name; she is
sweetly pretty, and dresses charmingly in blue and brown. She is sweetly
pretty, though they say rather a flirt, and flighty in her ways. She has
captivated a great many with her bright colour, and now this toothless
old Kapchack--but hush! It is a terrible scandal. I hear them coming;
slip this way, Bevis dear."

Bevis went after him under the brambles and the ferns till he found a
place in a hollow ash-stole, where it was hung all round with
honeysuckle, and then, doing as the squirrel told him, he sat down, and
was quite concealed from sight; while the squirrel stopped on a bough
just over his head, where he could whisper and explain things. Though
Bevis was himself hidden, he could see very well; and he had not been
there a minute before he heard a rustling, and saw the fox come
stealthily out from the fern, and sit under an ancient hollow pollard
close by.

The stoat came close behind him; he was something like the weasel, and
they say a near relation; he is much bolder than the weasel, but not one
quarter so cunning. He is very jealous, too, of the power the weasel has
got on account of his cunning, and if he could he would strangle his
kinsman. The rat could not attend, having very important business at the
brook that day, but he had sent the mouse to listen and tell him all
that was said. The fox looked at the mouse askance from the corner of
his eye; and the stoat could not refrain from licking his lips, though
it was well understood that at these assemblies all private feelings
were to be rigidly suppressed. So that the mouse was quite safe; still,
seeing the fox's glance, and the stoat's teeth glistening, he kept very
near a little hole under a stole, where he could rush in if alarmed.

"I understood Prince Tchack-tchack was coming," said the fox, "but I
don't see him."

"I heard the same thing," said the stoat. "He's very much upset about
this business."

"Ah," said the fox, "perhaps he had an eye himself to this beautiful
young creature. Depend upon it there's more under the surface than we
have heard of yet." Just then a message came from the weasel regretting
very much that he could not be present, owing to indisposition, but
saying that he quite agreed with all that was going to be said, and that
he would act as the others decided, and follow them in all things. This
message was delivered by a humble-bee, who having repeated all the
weasel had told him to, went buzzing on among the thistles.

"I do not quite like this," said a deep hollow voice; and looking up,
Bevis saw the face of the owl at the mouth of a hole in the
pollard-tree. He was winking in the light, and could not persuade
himself to come out, which was the reason the council was held at the
foot of his house, as it was necessary he should take part in it. "I do
not quite like this," said the owl, very solemnly, "Is the weasel
sincere in all he says? Is he really unwell, or does he keep away in
order that if Kapchack hears of this meeting he may say: 'I was not
there. I did not take any part in it'?"

"That is very likely," said the stoat. "He is capable of anything--I say
it with sorrow, as he is so near a relation, but the fact is, gentlemen,
the weasel is not what he ought to be, and has, I am afraid, much
disgraced our family."

"Let us send for the weasel," said the hawk, who just then came and
alighted on the tree above the owl. "Perhaps the squirrel, who knows the
copse so well, will go and fetch him."

"I really do not know where he lives," said the squirrel. "I have not
seen him lately, and I am afraid he is keeping his bed." Then the
squirrel whispered down to Bevis: "That is not all true, but you see I
am obliged not to know too much, else I should offend somebody and do
myself no good".

"Well, then," said the rook, who had just arrived, "send the mouse; he
looks as if he wanted something to do."

"I cannot agree to that," said the owl; "the mouse is very clever, and
his opinion worthy of attention; we cannot spare him." The truth was,
the owl, squinting down, had seen what a plump mouse it was, and he
reflected that if the weasel saw him he would never rest till he had
tasted him, whereas he thought he should like to meet the mouse by
moonlight shortly. "Upon the whole, I really don't know that we need
send for the weasel," he went on, thinking that if the weasel came he
would fasten his affections upon the mouse.

"But I do," said the stoat.

"And so do I," said the fox.

"And I," said Kauc, the crow, settling down on a branch of the pollard.

"For my part," said Cloctaw, the old jackdaw, taking his seat on a
branch of horse-chestnut, "I think it is very disrespectful of the
weasel."

"True," said the wood-pigeon. "True-whoo," as he settled on the ash.

"Quite true-oo," repeated the dove, perching in the hawthorn.

"Send for the weasel, then," said a missel-thrush, also perching in the
hawthorn. "Why all this delay? I am for action. Send for the weasel
immediately."

"Really, gentlemen," said the mouse, not at all liking the prospect of a
private interview with the weasel, "you must remember that I have had a
long journey here, and I am not quite sure where the weasel lives at
present."

"The council is not complete without the weasel," screamed a jay, coming
up; he was in a terrible temper, for the lady jay whom Kapchack was in
love with had promised him her hand, till the opportunity of so much
grandeur turned her head, and she jilted him like a true daughter of the
family, as she was. For the jays are famous for jilting their lovers.
"If the mouse is afraid," said the jay, "I'll fetch the humble-bee
back, and if he won't come I'll speak a word to my friend the shrike,
and have him spitted on a thorn in a minute." Off he flew, and the
humble-bee, dreadfully frightened, came buzzing back directly.

"It falls upon you, as the oldest of the party, to give him his
commands," said Tchink, the chaffinch, addressing the owl. The owl
looked at the crow, and the crow scowled at the chaffinch, who turned
his back on him, being very saucy. He had watched his opportunity while
the crow went round the copse to drive away the small birds, and slipped
in to appear at the council. He was determined to assert his presence,
and take as much part as the others in these important events. If the
goldfinches, and the thrushes, and blackbirds, and robins, and
greenfinches, and sparrows, and so on, were so meek as to submit to be
excluded, and were content to have no voice in the matter till they were
called upon to obey orders, that was their affair. They were a bevy of
poor-spirited, mean things. He was not going to be put down like that.
Tchink was, indeed, a very impudent fellow: Bevis liked him directly,
and determined to have a chat with him by-and-by.

"If I am the oldest of the party, it is scarcely competent for you to
say so," said the owl with great dignity, opening his eyes to their full
extent, and glaring at Tchink.

"All right, old Spectacles," said Tchink; "you're not a bad sort of
fellow by daylight, though I have heard tales of your not behaving quite
so properly at night." Then catching sight of Bevis (for Tchink was
very quick) he flew over and settled near the squirrel, intending, if
any violence was offered to him, to ask Bevis for protection.

The owl, seeing the fox tittering, and the crow secretly pleased at this
remark, thought it best to take no notice, but ordered the humble-bee,
in the name of the council, to at once proceed to the weasel, and inform
him that the council was unable to accept his excuses, but was waiting
his arrival.

"Is Tchack-tchack coming?" asked the mouse, recovering his spirits now.

"I too-whoo should like to know if Tchack-tchack is coming," said the
wood-pigeon.

"And I so, too-oo," added the dove. "It seems to me a most important
matter."

"In my opinion," said Cloctaw, speaking rather huskily, for he was very
old, "Tchack-tchack will not come. I know him well--I can see through
him--he is a double-faced rascal like--like (he was going to say the
fox, but recollected himself in time) his--well, never matter; like all
his race then. My opinion is, he started the rumour that he was coming
just to get us together, and encourage us to conspire against his
father, in the belief that the heir was with us and approved of our
proceedings. But he never really meant to come."

"The jackdaw is very old," said the crow, with a sneer. "He is not what
he used to be, gentlemen, you must make allowance for his
infirmities."

"It seems to me," said the missel-thrush, interrupting, "that we are
wasting a great deal of time. I propose that we at once begin the
discussion, and then if the weasel and Tchack-tchack come they can join
in. I regret to say that my kinsman, the missel-thrush who frequents the
orchard (by special permission of Kapchack, as you know), is not here.
The pampered fawning wretch!--I hate such favourites--they disgrace a
court. Why, all the rest of our family are driven forth like rogues, and
are not permitted to come near! If the tyrant kills his children in his
wanton freaks even then this minion remains loyal: despicable being! But
now without further delay let us ask the owl to state the case plainly,
so that we can all understand what we are talking about."

"Hear, hear," said Tchink.

"I agree too," said the wood-pigeon.

"I too," said the dove.

"It is no use waiting for Tchack-tchack," said the hawk.

"Hum! haw! caw!" said the rook, "I do not know about that."

"Let us go on to business," said the stoat, "the weasel knows no more
than we do. His reputation is much greater than he deserves."

"I have heard the same thing," said the fox. "Indeed I think so myself."

"I am sure the owl will put the case quite fairly," said the mouse, much
pleased that the owl had saved him from carrying the message to the
weasel.

"_We_ are all waiting, Owl," said Tchink.

"_We_, indeed," said the hawk, very sharply.

"Hush! hush!" said the squirrel. "This is a privileged place, gentlemen;
no personal remarks, if you please."

"I think, think, the owl is very stupid not to begin," said the
chaffinch.

"If you please," said the fox, bowing most politely to the owl, "we are
listening."

"Well then, gentlemen, since you all wish it," said the owl, ruffling
out his frills and swelling up his feathers, "since you all wish it, I
will endeavour to put the case as plainly as possible, and in as few
words as I can. You must understand, gentlemen, indeed you all
understand already, that from time immemorial, ever since the oak bore
acorns, and the bramble blackberries, it has been the established custom
for each particular bird and each particular animal to fall in love
with, and to marry some other bird or animal of the same kind.

"To explain more fully, so that there cannot by any possibility be the
least chance of any one mistaking my meaning, I should illustrate the
position in this way, that it has always been the invariable custom for
owls to marry owls; for crows to marry crows; for rooks to fall in love
with rooks; for wood-pigeons to woo wood-pigeons; doves to love doves;
missel-thrushes to court lady missel-thrushes; jackdaws, jackdaws;
hawks, hawks; rats, rats; foxes, foxes; stoats, stoats; weasels,
weasels; squirrels, squirrels; for jays to marry jays ('Just so,'
screamed the jay); and magpies to marry magpies."

"And chaffinches to kiss chaffinches," added Tchink, determined not to
be left out.

"This custom," continued the owl, "has now existed so long, that upon
looking into the archives of my house, and turning over the dusty
records, not without inconvenience to myself, I can't discover one
single instance of a departure from it since history began. There is no
record, gentlemen, of any such event having taken place. I may say,
without fear of contradiction, that no precedent exists. We may,
therefore, regard it as a fixed principle of common law, from which no
departure can be legal, without the special and express sanction of all
the nation, or of its representatives assembled. We may even go further,
and hazard the opinion, not without some authority, that even with such
sanction, such departure from constitutional usage could not be
sustained were an appeal to be lodged.

"Even the high court of representatives of all the nation, assembled in
the fulness of their power, could not legalise what is in itself and of
its own nature illegal. Customs of this kind, which are founded upon the
innate sense and feeling of every individual, cannot, in short, be
abolished by Act of Parliament. Upon this all the authorities I have
consulted are perfectly agreed. What has grown up during the process of
so many generations, cannot be now put on one side. This, gentlemen, is
rather an abstruse part of the question, being one which recommends
itself for consideration to the purely legal intellect. It is a matter,
too, of high state policy which rises above the knowledge of the common
herd. We may take it for granted, and pass on from the general to the
special aspect of this most remarkable case.

"What do we see? We see a proposed alliance between an august magpie and
a beautiful jay. Now we know by experience that what the palace does one
day, the world at large will do to-morrow. It is the instinct of nature
to follow the example of those set so high above us. We may therefore
conclude, without fear of contradiction, that this alliance will be
followed by others equally opposed to tradition. We shall have hundreds
of other equally ill-assorted unions. If it could be confined to this
one instance, a dispensation might doubtless be arranged. I, for one,
should not oppose it. ('I hate you!' shouted the jay.) But no one can
for a moment shut his eye to what must happen. We shall have, as I
before remarked, hundreds of these ill-assorted unions.

"Now I need not enlarge upon the unhappy state of affairs which would
thus be caused: the family jars, the shock to your feelings, the pain
that must be inflicted upon loving hearts. With that I have nothing to
do. It may safely be left to your imagination. But what I, as a
statesman and a lawyer, have to deal with, is the legal, that is the
common-sense view of the situation, and my first question is this: I ask
myself, and I beg you, each of you, to ask yourselves--I ask myself,
What effect would these ill-assorted unions produce upon the inheritance
of property?"

"True-whoo!" said the wood-pigeon.

"Hum! Haw!" said the rook.

"Law-daw!" said Cloctaw.

"Very important, very!" said the fox. "The sacred laws of property
cannot with safety be interfered with."

"No intrusion can be thought of for a moment," said the stoat.

"Most absurd!" said the jay.

"The very point!" said the missel-thrush.

"Very clear, indeed!" said the mouse; "I am sure the rat will echo the
sentiment."

"Every one will agree with you," said Ki Ki, the hawk.

"I think the same," said the chaffinch.

"The question is undoubtedly very important," continued the owl, when
the buzz had subsided, and much pleased at the sensation he had caused.
"You all agree that the question is not one to be lightly decided or
passed over. In order to fully estimate the threatened alteration in our
present system, let us for a moment survey the existing condition of
affairs. I, myself, to begin with, I and my ancestors, for many
generations, have held undisputed possession of this pollard. Not the
slightest flaw has ever been discovered in our title-deeds; and no
claimant has ever arisen. The rook has had, I believe, once or twice
some little difficulty respecting his own particular tenancy, which is
not a freehold; but his townsmen, as a body, possess their trees in
peace. The crow holds an oak; the wood-pigeon has an ash; the
missel-thrush a birch; our respected friend the fox here, has a burrow
which he inherited from a deceased rabbit, and he has also contingent
claims on the witheybed, and other property in the country; the stoat
has a charter of free warren."

"And I have an elm," said Tchink; "let anybody come near it, that's
all."

"The squirrel," continued the owl, "has an acknowledged authority over
this copse; and the jay has three or four firs of his own."

"And St. Paul belongs to me," said Cloctaw, the jackdaw.

"Well, now," said the owl, raising his voice and overpowering the husky
Cloctaw, "about these various properties little or no dispute can take
place; the son succeeds to the father, and the nephew to the uncle.
Occasional litigation, of course, occurs, which I have often had the
pleasure of conducting to an amicable and satisfactory termination. But,
upon the whole, there is very little difficulty; and the principle of
inheritance is accepted by all. Your approval, indeed, has just been
signified in the most unanimous manner. But what shall we see if the
example set by the palace spreads among society? The ash at the present
moment is owned by the wood-pigeon; were the wood-pigeon's heir to marry
the missel-thrush's heiress, just imagine the conflicting claims which
would arise.

"The family would be divided amongst itself; all the relations upon the
paternal side, and the relations upon the maternal side would join the
contest, and peace would be utterly at an end. And so in all other
instances. The crow would no longer have a fee-simple of the oak, the
jackdaw of the steeple, the rook of the elm, the fox of the burrow, or I
of my pollard. We might even see the rook claiming the----But I will not
follow the illustration further, lest I be charged with descending to
personalities. I will only add, in conclusion, that if this ill-fated
union takes place, we must look forward to seeing every home broken up,
our private settlements, our laws of hereditary succession set upon one
side, our property divided among a miscellaneous horde of people, who
will not know their own grandfathers, and our most cherished sentiments
cast to the winds of heaven." With which words the owl concluded, and
was greeted with marks of approval from all parts of the circle.

"We are all very much indebted to the owl," said the fox, "for putting
the true aspect of the case so clearly before us. His learned
discourse--not more learned than lucid--has convinced us all of the
extreme inexpediency of this alliance."

"If this course is persisted in," said the crow, "it can only end, in my
opinion, in a way disastrous to the state. The king cannot decline to
listen to our representations, if we are united."

"Haw!" said the rook; "I'm not so sure of that. Kapchack likes his own
way."

"Kapchack is very self-willed," said the hawk. "It is almost our turn to
have our way once now."

"So I should say," screamed the jay, who could never open his beak
without getting into a temper. "So I should say; Kapchack is a wicked
old----"

"Hush, hush," said the squirrel; "you can't tell who may be listening."

"I don't care," said the jay, ruffling up his feathers; "Kapchack is a
wicked old fellow, and Tchack-tchack is as bad."

"Capital!" said Tchink, the chaffinch; "I like outspoken people. But I
have heard that you (to the jay) are very fond of flirting." At this
there would have been a disturbance, had not the fox interfered.

"We shall never do anything, unless we agree amongst ourselves," he
said. "Now, the question is, are we going to do anything?"

"Yes, that is it," said the missel-thrush, who hated talking, and liked
to be doing; "what is it we are going to do?"

"Something must be done," said the owl, very solemnly.

"Yes; something mu

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