Wood Magic: A Fable
'When the hare hunts the hunter in the dead day, the hours of King
Kapchack are numbered'. It is a curious and a difficult saying, for I
cannot myself understand how the day could be dead, nor how the hare
could chase the sportsman; but you, who have so high a reputation for
sagacity, can no doubt in time interpret it. Now put in some more wedges
and help me out."
But the fox, having learnt all that the toad could tell him, went away,
and finding the osiers, curled himself up to sleep.
The same night, the weasel, having had a very pleasant nap upon his
divan in the elm in the squirrel's copse, woke up soon after midnight,
and started for the farm, in order to enjoy the pleasure of seeing the
rat in the gin, which he had instructed Bevis how to set up. Had it not
been for this he would not have faced so terrible a tempest, but to see
the rat in torture he would have gone through anything. As he crept
along a furrow, not far outside the copse, choosing that route that he
might be somewhat sheltered in the hollow from the wind, he saw a wire
which a poacher had set up, and stayed to consider how he could turn it
to his advantage.
"There is Ulu, the hare," he said to himself, "who lives in the
wheat-field; I had her son, he was very sweet and tender, and also her
nephew, who was not so juicy, and I have noticed that she has got very
plump of late. She is up on the hill to-night I have no doubt,
notwithstanding the tempest, dancing and flirting with her disreputable
companions, for vice has such an attraction for some minds that they
cannot forego its pleasures, even at the utmost personal inconvenience.
Such revels, at such a time of tempest, while the wrath of heaven is
wreaked upon the trees, are nothing short of sacrilege, and I for one
have always set my mind against irreverence. I shall do the world a
service if I rid it of such an abandoned creature." So he called to a
moor-hen, who was flying over from the Long Pond at a tremendous pace,
being carried before the wind, and the moor-hen, not without a great
deal of trouble, managed to wheel round (she was never very clever with
her wings) to receive his commands, for she did not dare to pass over or
slight so high a personage.
"Moor-hen," said the weasel, "do you go direct to the hills and find
Ulu, the hare, and tell her that little Sir Bevis, of whom she is so
fond, is lost in the copse, and that he is crying bitterly because of
the darkness and the wind, and what will become of him I do not know. I
have done my very best to show him the way home, but he cherishes an
unfortunate prejudice against me, and will not listen to what I say.
Therefore if the hare does not come immediately and show him the way I
greatly fear that he will be knocked down by the branches, or cry his
dear pretty darling heart out; and tell her that he is at this minute
close to the birches. Go quickly, Moor-hen."
"I will, my lord," said the moor-hen, and away she flew.
Then the weasel proceeded on his way, and shortly afterwards arrived at
the farm. As he came quietly down from the rick-yard, he said to
himself: "I will keep a good way from the wall, as it is so dark, and I
do not know the exact place where Bevis has put the trap. Besides, it is
just possible that the rat may not yet have passed that way, for he does
most of his business in the early morning, and it is not yet dawn."
So he crossed over to the wood-pile and listened carefully, but could
hear no groans, as he had expected; but, on consideration, he put this
down to the wind, which he observed blew the sound away from him. He
then slipped over to the grass by the cart-house wall, intending to
listen at the mouth of the drain to hear if the rat was within, and then
if that was not the case, to go on along towards the wall of the
pig-sty, for he began to think the rat must have been stunned by the
trap, and so could not squeak.
If that was the case, he thought he would just bite off the end of the
rat's tail, in revenge for the terrible meal he had once been obliged to
make upon his own, and also to wake up the rat to the misery of his
position. But just as he approached the mouth of the drain, sniffing and
listening with the utmost caution, it happened that a drop of rain fell
through a chink in the top of Pan's tub, and woke him from his slumber.
Pan shook himself and turned round, and the weasel, hearing the
disturbance, dreaded lest Pan was loose, and had caught scent of him. He
darted forwards to get into the drain, when the trap, which the bailiff
had so carefully removed from where Bevis had set it, snapped him up in
a second. The shock and the pain made him faint; he turned over and lay
still.
About the same time the moor-hen, borne swiftly along by the wind on her
way to the river, reached the hills, and seeing the hare, flew low down
and delivered the weasel's message as well as she could. The hare was
dreadfully alarmed about Sir Bevis, and anxious to relieve him from his
fright in the dark copse, raced down the hill, and over the fields as
fast as she could go, making towards that part of the copse where the
birches stood, as the weasel had directed, knowing that in running there
she would find her neck in a noose.
It happened just as he had foreseen. She came along as fast as the wind,
and could already see the copse like a thicker darkness before her, when
the loop of the wire drew up around her neck, and over she rolled in the
furrow.
Now the weasel had hoped that the wire would not hang her at once. He
intended to have come back from the farm, and from taunting the rat in
the trap, in time to put his teeth into her veins, before, in her
convulsive efforts to get free, she tightened the noose and died.
And this, too, happened exactly as the weasel had intended, but in a
different manner, and with a different result; for it had chanced that
the wind, in the course of its ravages among the trees, snapped off a
twig of ash, which rolling over and over before the blast along the
sward, came against the stick which upheld the wire, and the end of the
twig where it had broken from the tree lodged in the loop. Thus, when
Ulu kicked, and struggled, and screamed, in her fear, the noose indeed
drew up tight and half-strangled her, but not quite, because the little
piece of wood prevented it. But, exhausted with pain and terror, and
partially choked, the poor hare at last could do nothing else but crouch
down in the furrow, where the rain fell on and soaked her warm coat of
fur. For as the dawn came on the wind sank, and the rain fell.
In this unhappy plight she passed the rest of the night, dreading every
moment lest the fox should come along (as she could not run away), and
not less afraid of the daybreak, when some one would certainly find her.
After many weary hours, the bailiff coming to his work in the morning
with a sack over his shoulders to keep out the rain, saw something on
the grass, and pounced upon the wretched hare. Already his great thumb
was against the back of her neck--already she was thrown across his
knee--already she felt her sinews stretch, as he proceeded to break her
neck, regardless of her shrieks--when suddenly it occurred to him how
delighted Bevis would be with a living hare. For the bailiff was very
fond of Bevis, and would have done anything to please him. So he took
the hare in his arms, and carried her down to the farm.
When Bevis got up and came to breakfast, the bailiff came in and brought
him the hare, expecting that he would be highly pleased. But Bevis in an
instant recognised his friend who had shown him his way in the cowslips,
and flew into a rage, and beat the bailiff with his fist for his
cruelty. Nothing would satisfy him but he must let the hare go free
before he touched his breakfast. He would not sit down, he stamped and
made such a to-do that at last they let him have his own way.
He would not even allow the bailiff to carry the hare for him; he took
her in his arms and went with her up the footpath into the field. He
would not even permit them to follow him. Now, the hare knew him very
well but could not speak when any one else was near, for it is very well
known to be a law among hares and birds, and such creatures, that they
can only talk to one human being, and are dumb when more than one are
present. But when Bevis had taken her out into the footpath, and set her
down, and stroked her back, and her long ears, black at the tip, and had
told her to go straight up the footpath, and not through the long
grass, because it was wet with the rain, the hare told him how she came
in the wire through the wicked weasel telling her that he was lost in
the copse.
"I was not lost," said Bevis; "I went to bed, and saw the owl go by. The
weasel told another of his stories--now, I remember, he told me to set
the trap for the rat."
"Did he?" said the hare; "then you may depend it is some more of his
dreadful wickedness; there will be no peace in the world while he is
allowed to go roaming about."
"No," said Bevis, "that there will not: but as sure as my papa's gun,
which is the best gun in the country, as sure as my papa's gun I will
kill him the next time I see him. I will not listen to the squirrel, I
will cut the weasel's tree down, and chop off his head."
"I hope you will, dear," said the hare. "But now I must be gone, for I
can hear Pan barking, and no doubt he can smell me; besides which, it is
broad daylight, and I must go and hide; good-bye, my dear Sir Bevis."
And away went the hare up the footpath till Bevis lost sight of her
through the gateway.
Then he went to his breakfast, and directly afterwards, putting on his
greatcoat, for it still rained a little, he went up to the wall by the
pig-sty expecting to find the rat in the trap. But the trap was gone.
"There now," said he, falling into another rage, twice already that
morning; "I do believe that stupid bailiff has moved it," and so the
bailiff trying to please him fell twice into disgrace in an hour.
Looking about to see where the bailiff had put the trap, he remembered
what the weasel had told him, and going to the cart-house wall by the
drain, found the trap and the weasel in it: "Oh! you false and
treacherous creature!" said Bevis, picking up a stone, "now I will smash
you into seventy thousand little pieces," and he flung the stone with
all his might, but being in too much of a hurry (as the snail had warned
him) it missed the mark, and only knocked a bit of mortar out of the
wall. He looked round for a bigger one, so that he might crush the
wretch this time, when the weasel feebly lifted his head, and said:
"Bevis! Bevis! It is not generous of you to bear such malice towards me
now I am dying; you should rather----"
"Hold your tongue, horrid thing," said Bevis; "I will not listen to
anything you have to say. Here is a brick, this will do, first-rate, to
pound you with, and now I think of it, I will come a little nearer so as
to make quite sure."
"Oh, Bevis!" said the weasel with a gasp, "I shall be dead in a minute,"
and Bevis saw his head fall back.
"Tell the hare I repented," said the weasel. "I have been very wicked,
Bevis--oh!--but I shall never, never do it any more--oh!----"
"Are you dead?" said Bevis. "Are you quite dead?" putting down the
brick, for he could not bear to see anything in such distress, and his
rage was over in a minute.
"I am," said the weasel, "at least I shall be in half-a-minute, for I
must be particular to tell the exact truth in this extremity. Oh! there
is one thing I should like to say----"
"What is it?" said Bevis.
"But if you smash me I can't," said the weasel; "and what is the use of
smashing me, for all my bones are broken?"
"I will not smash you," said Bevis, "I will only have you nailed up to