Wood Magic: A Fable
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.