Wood Magic: A Fable
the most pleasant. Go there and stay in ambush till you hear him coming,
then swoop down and kill him, and tear his heart from his breast. Do not
fail, or never return to my presence.
"And stay--you may be sure of the place I mean, because there is an old
oak in the midst of the glade, it is old and dead, and the route of the
thrush will be under it. Strike him there."
Without waiting a moment, the hawk, knowing that his master liked
instant obedience, flew off swift as the wind, determined this time to
succeed. He found the glade without trouble, and noted the old oak with
its dead gaunt boughs, and then took up his station on an ash, where he
watched eagerly for the shadows to lengthen. Ki Ki, after sitting a
little longer, soared up into the sky to reflect upon further measures.
By destroying the thrush he knew that the war must continue, for Choo
Hoo would never believe but that it had been done by Kapchack's order,
and could not forgive so brutal an affront to an ambassador charged with
a solemn treaty. Choo Hoo must then accept his (Ki Ki's) offer; the
weasel, it was true, had been before him, but he should be able to
destroy the weasel's influence by revealing his treachery to Kapchack,
and how he had told Choo Hoo the secret of the spring which was never
frozen. He felt certain that he should be able to make his own terms,
both with Kapchack and Choo Hoo.
Thus soaring up he saw his messenger, the young hawk, swiftly speeding
to the ambush, and smiled grimly as he noted the eager haste with which
the youthful warrior went to fulfil his orders. Still soaring, with
outstretched wings, he sought the upper sky.
Meantime Bevis had grown tired of waiting for the squirrel, who had gone
off to see about the stores, and flung himself at full length on the
moss under the oak. He hardly stopped there a minute before he got up
again and called and shouted for the squirrel, but no one answered him;
nor did the dragon-fly appear. Bevis, weary of waiting, determined to
try and find his way home by himself, but when he came to look round he
could not discover the passage through the thicket. As he was searching
for it he passed the elm, which was hollow inside, where the weasel lay
curled up on his divan, and the weasel, hearing Bevis go by, was so
puffed up with pride that he actually called to him, having conceived a
design of using Bevis for his own purposes.
"Sir Bevis! Sir Bevis!" he said, coming to the mouth of his hole, "Sir
Bevis, I want to speak to you!"
"You are the weasel," said Bevis, "I know your hateful voice--I hate
you, and if ever I find you outside the copse I will smash you into
twenty pieces. If it was not for the squirrel, whom I love (and I have
promised not to hurt anything in his copse), I would bring my papa's
hatchet, and chop your tree down and cut your head off; so there."
"If you did that," said the weasel, "then you would not know what the
rat is going to do in your house to-night."
"Why should I not know?" said Bevis.
"Because if you cut my head off I could not tell you."
"Well, tell me what it is," said Bevis, who was always very curious,
"and make haste about it, for I want to go home."
"I will," said the weasel, "and first of all, you know the fine large
cake that your mamma is making for you?"
"No," said Bevis, excitedly. "Is she making me a cake? I did not know
it."
"Yes, that she is, but she did not tell you, because she wished it to be
a surprise to you to-morrow morning at lunch, and it is no use for you
to ask her about it, for she would not tell you. But if you are not very
sharp it is certain that you will never touch a mouthful of it."
"Why not?" said Bevis.
"Because," said the weasel, "the mouse has found out where your mamma
has put it in the cupboard, and there is a little chink through which
he can smell it, but he cannot quite get through, nor is he strong
enough to gnaw such very hard wood, else you may depend he would have
kept the secret to himself. But as he could not creep through he has
gone and told Raoul, the rat, who has such strong teeth he can bite a
way through anything, and to-night, when you are all in bed and firm
asleep, and everything is quiet, Yish, the mouse, is going to show the
rat where the chink is, the rat is going to gnaw a hole, and in the
morning there will be very little left of your cake."
"I will tell the bailiff," said Bevis, in a rage, "and the bailiff shall
set a trap for the rat."
"Well, that was what I was going to suggest," said the weasel; "but upon
consideration I am not so sure that it is much use telling the bailiff,
because, as I daresay you recollect, the bailiff has often tried his
hand setting up a trap for the rat, but has never yet caught him, from
which I conclude that the rat knows all the places where the bailiff
sets the trap, and takes good care not to go that way without previous
examination."
"I'll set up the trap," said Bevis, "I'll set it up myself in a new
place. Let me see, where can I put it?"
"I think it would be a very good plan if you did put it up yourself,"
said the weasel, "because there is no doubt you understand more about
these things than the bailiff, who is getting old."
"Yes," said Bevis, "I know all about it--I can do it very well indeed."
"Just what I thought," said the weasel; "I thought to myself, Bevis
knows all about it--Bevis can do it. Now, as the bailiff has set up the
trap by the drain or grating beside the cart-house, and under the
wood-pile, and by the pump, and has never caught the rat, it is clear
that the rat knows these places as well as the bailiff, and if you
remember there is a good deal of grass grows there, so that the rat no
doubt says to himself: 'Aha! They are sure to put the trap here, because
they think I shall not see it in the grass--as if I was so silly.' So
that, depend upon it, he is always very careful how he goes through the
grass there.
"Therefore I think the best place you could select to set up the trap
would be somewhere where there is no kind of cover, no grass, nor
anything, where it is quite bare and open, and where the rat would run
along quickly and never think of any danger. And he would be sure to run
much faster and not stay to look under his feet in crossing such places,
lest Pan should see him and give chase, or your papa should come round
the corner with a gun. Now I know there is one such place the rat passes
every evening; it is a favourite path of his, because it is a short cut
to the stable--it is under the wall of the pig-sty. I know this, because
I once lived with the rat a little while, and saw all his habits.
"Well, under this wall it is quite open, and he always runs by extremely
fast, and that is the best place to put the trap. Now when you have set
the trap, in order to hide it from view do you get your little spade
with which you dig in your garden, and take a spadeful of the dust that
lies about there (as it is so dry there is plenty of dust) and throw it
over the trap. The dust will hide the trap, and will also prevent the
rat (for he has a wonderful sharp nose of his own) from scenting where
your fingers touched it. In the morning you are sure to find him caught.
"By-the-by, you had better not say anything to your mamma that you know
of the cake, else perhaps she will move it from the cupboard, and then
the rat may go on some other moonlit ramble instead. As I said, in the
morning you are sure to find him in the trap, and then do not listen to
anything he has to say, for he has a lying tongue, but let Pan loose,
who will instantly worry him to death."
"I will do as you say," said Bevis, "for I see that it is a very clever
way to catch the rat, but, Sir Weasel, you have told me so many false
stories that I can scarce believe you now it is plain you are telling me
the truth; nor shall I feel certain that you are this time (for once in
your wicked life) saying the truth, unless I know why you are so anxious
for the rat to be caught."
"Why," said the weasel, "I will tell you the reason; this afternoon the
rat played me a very mean and scurvy trick; he disgraced me before the
king, and made me a common laughing-stock to all the council, for which
I swore to have his life. Besides, upon one occasion he bit his teeth
right through my ear--the marks of it are there still. See for
yourself." So the weasel thrust his head out of his hole, and Bevis saw
the marks left by the rat's teeth, and was convinced that the weasel,
out of malice, had at last been able for once to tell the truth.
"You are a horrid wretch," said Bevis, "still you know how to catch the
rat, and I will go home and do it; but I cannot find my way out of this
thicket--the squirrel ought to come."
"The way is under the ash bough there," said the weasel, "and when you
are outside the thicket turn to your left and go downhill, and you will
come to the timber--and meantime I will send for the dragon-fly, who
will overtake you."
"All right, horrid wretch," said Bevis, and away he went. Now all this
that the weasel had said really was true, except about the cake; it was
true that the rat was very careful going through the grass, and that he
knew where the bailiff set the gin, and that he used to run very quickly
across the exposed place under the wall of the pig-sty. But the story
about the cake he had made up out of his cunning head just to set Bevis
at work to put up the trap; and he hoped too, that while Bevis was
setting up the gin, the spring would slip and pinch his fingers.
By thus catching the rat, the weasel meant in the first place to gratify
his own personal malice, and next to get rid of a very formidable
competitor. For the rat was very large and very strong, and brave and
bold beyond all the others; so much so that the weasel would even have
preferred to have a struggle with the fox (though he was so much
bigger), whose nostril he could bite, than to meet the rat in fair and
equal combat. Besides, he hated the rat beyond measure, because the rat
had helped him out of the drain, which was when his ear was bitten
through. He intended to go down to the farmyard very early next morning
when the rat was caught, and to go as near as he dared and taunt the
rat, and tell him how Pan would presently come and crunch up his ribs.
To see the rat twist, and hear him groan, would be rare sport; it made
his eyes glisten to think of it. He was very desirous that Bevis should
find his way home all right, so he at once sent a wasp for the
dragon-fly, and the dragon-fly at once started after Bevis.
Just after the weasel had sent the wasp, the humble-bee returned from
Choo Hoo, and delivered the emperor's message, which the weasel saw at
once was intended to encourage him in his proposed treachery. He thanked
the humble-bee for the care and speed with which his errand had been
accomplished, and then curled himself up on his divan to go to sleep, so
as to be ready to go down early in the morning and torment the rat. As
he was very happy since his schemes were prospering, he went to sleep in
a minute as comfortable as could be.
Bevis crept through the thicket, and turned to the left, and went down
the hill, and found the timber, and then went along the green track till
he came to the stile. He got over the bridge and followed the footpath,
when the dragon-fly overtook him and apologised most sincerely for his
neglect. "For," said he, "we are so busy making ready for the army, and
I have had so much to do going to and fro with messages, that, my dear
Sir Bevis, you must forgive me for forgetting you. Next time I will send
a moth to stay close by you, so that the moment you want me the moth can
go and fetch me."
"I will forgive you just this once," said Bevis; and the dragon-fly took