Wood Magic: A Fable
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."