Wood Magic: A Fable
because he had not noticed this about the flies going to the window in
the summer-house. At first he said to himself that it was not true; but
he could not help looking that way now and then, and every time he
looked, there was the window crowded with flies. They had all the garden
to buzz about in, and all the fields, but instead of wandering under
the trees, and over the flowers, they preferred to go into the
summer-house and crawl over the glass of the little window, though it
was very dirty from so many feet. For a long time, the spider was too
proud to go there too; but one day such a splendid blue-bottle fly got
in the window and made such a tremendous buzzing, that he could not
resist it any more.
So he left his web by the railings, and climbed up the blue-painted
wall, over Bevis's writings and marks, and spun such a web in the window
as had never before been seen. It was the largest and the finest, and
the most beautifully-arranged web that had ever been made, and it caught
such a number of flies that the spider grew fatter every day. In a
week's time he was so big that he could no longer hide in the crack he
had chosen, he was quite a giant; and the toad came across the grass one
night and looked at him, but the spider was now so bloated he would not
recognise the toad.
But one morning a robin came to the iron railings, and perched on the
top, and put his head a little on one side, to show his black eye the
better. Then he flew inside the summer-house, alighted in the window,
and gobbled up the spider in an instant. The old toad shut his eye and
opened it again, and went on thinking, for that was just what he knew
would happen. Ever so many times in his very long life he had seen
spiders go up there, but no sooner had they got fat than a robin or a
wren came in and ate them. Some of the clever spider's web was there
still when Bevis looked out of the window, all dusty and draggled, with
the skins and wings of some gnats and a dead leaf entangled in it.
As he looked, a white butterfly came along the meadow, and instantly he
ran out, flung open the gate, rushed down the steps, and taking no heed
of the squeak the gate made as it shut behind him, raced after the
butterfly.
The tall buttercups brushed his knees, and bent on either side as if a
wind was rushing through them. A bennet slipped up his knickerbockers
and tickled his leg. His toes only touched the ground, neither his heels
nor the hollow of his foot; and from so light a pressure the grass,
bowed but not crushed, rose up, leaving no more mark of his passage than
if a grasshopper had gone by.
Daintily fanning himself with his wings, the butterfly went before
Bevis, not yet knowing that he was chased, but sauntering along just
above the buttercups. He peeped as he flew under the lids of the
flowers' eyes, to see if any of them loved him. There was a glossy green
leaf which he thought he should like to feel, it looked so soft and
satin-like. So he alighted on it, and then saw Bevis coming, his hat on
the very back of his head, and his hand stretched out to catch him. The
butterfly wheeled himself round on the leaf, shut up his wings, and
seemed so innocent, till Bevis fell on his knee, and then under his
fingers there was nothing but the leaf. His cheek flushed, his eye lit
up, and away he darted again after the butterfly, which had got several
yards ahead before he could recover himself. He ran now faster than
ever.
"Race on," said the buttercups; "race on, Bevis; that butterfly disdains
us because we are so many, and all alike."
"Be quick," said a great moon-daisy to him; "catch him, dear. I asked
him to stay and tell me a story, but he would not."
"Never mind me," said the clover; "you may step on me if you like,
love."
"But just look at me for a moment, pet, as you go by," cried the purple
vetch by the hedge.
A colt in the field, seeing Bevis running so fast, thought he too must
join the fun, so he whisked his tail, stretched his long floundering
legs, and galloped away. Then the mare whinnied and galloped too, and
the ground shook under her heavy hoofs. The cows lifted their heads from
gathering the grass close round the slender bennets, and wondered why
any one could be so foolish as to rush about, when there was plenty to
eat and no hurry.
The cunning deceitful butterfly, so soon as Bevis came near, turned
aside and went along a furrow. Bevis, running in the furrow, caught his
foot in the long creepers of the crowfoot, and fell down bump, and
pricked his hand with a thistle. Up he jumped again, red as a peony, and
shouting in his rage, ran on so quickly that he nearly overtook the
butterfly. But they were now nearer the other hedge. The butterfly,
frightened at the shouting and Bevis's resolution, rose over the
brambles, and Bevis stopping short flung his hat at him. The hat did not
hit the butterfly, but the wind it made puffed him round, and so
frightened him, that he flew up half as high as the elms, and went into
the next field.
When Bevis looked down, there was his hat, hung on a branch of ash, far
beyond his reach. He could not touch the lowest leaf, jump as much as he
would. His next thought was a stone to throw, but there were none in the
meadow. Then he put his hand in his jacket pocket for his knife, to cut
a long stick. It was not in that pocket, nor in the one on the other
side, nor in his knickers. Now the knife was Bevis's greatest
treasure--his very greatest. He looked all round bewildered, and the
tears rose in his eyes.
Just then Pan, the spaniel, who had worked his head loose from the
collar and followed him, ran out of the hedge between Bevis's legs with
such joyful force, that Bevis was almost overthrown, and burst into a
fit of laughter. Pan ran back into the hedge to hunt, and Bevis, with
tears rolling down his cheeks into the dimples made by his smiles,
dropped on hands and knees and crept in after the dog under the briars.
On the bank there was a dead grey stick, a branch that had fallen from
the elms. It was heavy, but Bevis heaved it up, and pushed it through
the boughs and thrust his hat off.
Creeping out again, he put it on, and remembering his knife, walked out
into the field to search for it. When Pan missed him, he followed, and
presently catching scent of a rabbit, the spaniel rushed down a furrow,
which happened to be the very furrow where Bevis had tumbled. Going
after Pan, Bevis found his knife in the grass, where it had dropped when
shaken from his pocket by the jerk of his fall. He opened the single
blade it contained at once, and went back to the hedge to cut a stick.
As he walked along the hedge, he thought the briar was too prickly to
cut, and the thorn was too hard, and the ash was too big, and the willow
had no knob, and the elder smelt so strong, and the sapling oak was
across the ditch, and out of reach, and the maple had such rough bark.
So he wandered along a great way through that field and the next, and
presently saw a nut-tree stick that promised well, for the sticks grew
straight, and not too big.
He jumped into the ditch, climbed half up the mound, and began to cut
away at one of the rods, leaning his left arm on the moss-grown stole.
The bark was easily cut through, and he soon made a notch, but then the
wood seemed to grow harder, and the chips he got out were very small.
The harder the wood, the more determined Bevis became, and he cut and
worked away with such force that his chest heaved, his brow was set and
frowning, and his jacket all green from rubbing against the hazel.
Suddenly something passed between him and the light. He looked up, and
there was Pan, whom he had forgotten, in the hedge looking down at him.
"Pan! Pan!" cried Bevis. Pan wagged his tail, but ran back, and Bevis,
forsaking his stick, scrambled up into the stole, then into the mound,
and through a gap into the next field. Pan was nowhere to be seen.
There was a large mossy root under a great oak, and, hot with his
cutting, Bevis sat down upon it. Along came a house martin, the kind of
swallow that has a white band across his back, flying very low, and only
just above the grass. The swallow flew to and fro not far from Bevis,
who watched it, and presently asked him to come closer. But the swallow
said: "I shall not come any nearer, Bevis. Don't you remember what you
did last year, sir? Don't you remember Bill, the carter's boy, put a
ladder against the wall, and you climbed up the ladder, and put your
paw, all brown and dirty, into my nest and took my eggs? And you tried
to string them on a bennet, but the bennet was too big, so you went
indoors for some thread. And you made my wife and me dreadfully unhappy,
and we said we would never come back any more to your house, Bevis."
"But you have come back, swallow."
"Yes, we have come back--just once more; but if you do it again we shall
go away for ever."
"But I won't do it again; no, that I won't! Do come near."
So the swallow came a little nearer, only two yards away, and flew
backwards and forwards, and Bevis could hear the snap of his beak as he
caught the flies.
"Just a little bit nearer still," said he. "Let me stroke your lovely
white back."
"Oh, no, I can't do that. I don't think you are quite safe, Bevis. Why
don't you gather the cowslips?"
Bevis looked up and saw that the field was full of cowslips--yellow with
cowslips. "I will pick every one," said he, "and carry them all back to
my mother."
"You cannot do that," said the swallow, laughing, "you will not try long
enough."
"I _hate_ you!" cried Bevis in a passion, and flung his knife, which was
in his hand, at the bird. The swallow rose up, and the knife whizzed by
and struck the ground.
"I told you you were not safe," said the swallow over his head; "and I
am sure you won't pick half the cowslips."
Bevis picked up his knife and put it in his pocket; then he began to
gather the cowslips, and kept on for a quarter of an hour as fast as
ever he could, till both hands were full. There was a rustle in the
hedge, and looking up he saw Pan come out, all brown with sand sticking
to his coat. He shook himself, and sent the sand flying from him in a
cloud, just like he did with the water when he came up out of the pond.
Then he looked at Bevis, wagged his tail, cried "Yowp!" and ran back
into the hedge again.
Bevis rushed to the spot, and saw that there was a large rabbits' hole.
Into this hole Pan had worked his way so far that there was nothing of
him visible but his hind legs and tail. Bevis could hear him panting in
the hole, he was working so hard to get at the rabbit, and tearing with
his teeth at the roots to make the hole bigger. Bevis clapped his hands,
dropping his cowslips, and called "Loo! Loo!" urging the dog on. The
sand came flying out behind Pan, and he worked harder and harder, as if
he would tear the mound to pieces.
Bevis sat down on the grass under the shadow of the oak, by a maple
bush, and taking a cowslip, began to count the spots inside it. It was
always five in all the cowslips--five brown little spots--that he was
sure of, because he knew he had five fingers on each hand. He lay down
at full length on his back, and looked up at the sky through the boughs
of the oak. It was very, very blue, and very near down. With a long
ladder he knew he could have got up there easily, and it looked so
sweet. "Sky," said Bevis, "I love you like I love my mother." He pouted
his lips, and kissed at it. Then turning a little on one side to watch
Pan, in an instant he fell firm asleep.
Pan put his head out of the hole to breathe two or three times, and
looked aside at Bevis, and seeing that he was still, went back to work
again. Two butterflies came fluttering along together. The swallow