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."