Wood Magic: A Fable
midnight, the king, worn out with grief, fell asleep.
Now the same evening the hare, who was upon the hills as usual, as she
came by a barn overheard some bats who lived there conversing about the
news which they had learnt from their relations who resided in the woods
of the vale. This was nothing less than the revelations the dying hawk
had made of the treacherous designs of Ki Ki and the weasel, which, as
the owl had suspected, had been partly overheard by the bats. The hare,
in other circumstances, would have rejoiced at the overthrow of King
Kapchack, who was no favourite with her race, for he had, once or twice,
out of wanton cruelty, pecked weakly leverets to death, just to try the
temper of his bill. But she dreaded lest if he were thrust down the
weasel should seize the sovereignty, the weasel, who had already done
her so much injury, and was capable of ruining not only herself but her
whole nation if once he got the supreme power.
Not knowing what to do herself for the best, away she went down the
valley and over the steep ridges in search of a very old hare, quite
hoar with age--an astrologer of great reputation in those parts. For the
hares have always been good star-gazers, and the whole race of them, one
and all, are not without skill in the mystic sciences, while some are
highly charged with knowledge of futurity, and have decided the fate of
mighty battles by the mere direction in which they scampered. The old
hare no sooner heard her information than he proceeded to consult the
stars, which shone with exceeding brilliance that night, as they often
do when the air has been cleared by a storm, and finding, upon taking
accurate observations, that the house of Jupiter was threatened by the
approach of Saturn to the meridian, he had no difficulty in pronouncing
the present time as full of danger and big with fate.
The planets were clearly in combination against King Kapchack, who must,
if he desired to avoid extinction, avoid all risks, and hide his head,
as it were, in a corner till the aspect of the heavens changed. Above
all things let him not make war or go forth himself into the combat; let
him conclude peace, or at least enter into a truce, no matter at what
loss of dignity, or how much territory he had to concede to conciliate
Choo Hoo. His person was threatened, the knife was pointed at his heart;
could he but wait a while, and tide as it were over the shallows, he
might yet resume the full sway of power; but if he exposed his life at
this crisis the whole fabric of his kingdom might crumble beneath his
feet.
Having thus spoken, the hoary astrologer went off in the direction of
Stonehenge, whose stones formed his astrolabe, and the hare, much
excited with the communication she had received (confirmed as it was too
by the facts of the case), resolved to at once warn the monarch of his
danger. Calling a beetle, she charged him with a message to the king:
That he should listen to the voice of the stars, and conclude peace at
no matter what cost, or at least a truce, submitting to be deprived of
territory or treasure to any amount or extent, and that above all things
he should not venture forth personally to the combat. If he hearkened he
would yet reign; if he closed his ears the evil influence which then
threatened him must have its way. Strictly enjoining the beetle to make
haste, and turn neither to the right nor the left, but to speed straight
away for the palace, she dismissed him.
The beetle, much pleased to be employed upon so important a business,
opened his wing-cases, began to hum, and increasing his pace as he went,
flew off at his utmost velocity. He passed safely over the hills,
descended into the valley, sped across the fields and woods, and in an
incredibly short space of time approached the goal of his journey. The
wall of the orchard was in sight, he began to repeat his message to
himself, so as to be sure and not miss a word of it, when going at this
tremendous pace, and as usual, without looking in front, but blundering
onwards, he flew with his whole force against a post. His body, crushed
by the impetus of its own weight, rebounded with a snap, and he fell
disabled and insensible to the earth.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE COURTSHIP IN THE ORCHARD.
The next morning Bevis's papa looking at the almanac found there was
going to be an eclipse of the sun, so Bevis took a piece of glass (part
of one of the many window panes he had broken) and smoked it over a
candle, so as to be able to watch the phenomenon without injury to his
eyes. When the obscuration began too, the dairy-maid brought him a
bucket of clear water in which the sun was reflected and could be
distinctly seen. But before the eclipse had proceeded beyond the mere
edge of the sun, Bevis heard the champing of a bit, and the impatient
pawing of hoofs, and running up to the stable to see who it was, found
that his papa was just on the point of driving over in the dog-cart to
see another farmer (the very old gentleman in whose orchard Kapchack's
palace was situated) about a load of straw.
Bevis of course insisted upon going too, the smoked glass was thrown
aside, he clambered up and held the reins, and away they went, the
eclipse now counting for nothing. After a while, however, as they went
swiftly along the road, they came to a hill, and from the summit saw a
long way off a vast shadow like that cast by some immense cloud which
came towards them over the earth, and in a second or two arrived, and
as it were put out the light. They looked up and the sun was almost
gone. In its place was a dark body, with a rim of light round it, and
flames shooting forth.
As they came slowly down the hill a pheasant crowed as he flew up to
roost, the little birds retired to the thickets, and at the farmyards
they passed the fowls went up to their perches. Presently they left the
highway and drove along a lane across the fields, which had once been
divided from each other by gates. Of these there was nothing now
standing but the posts, some of which could hardly be said to stand, but
declining from the perpendicular, were only kept from falling by the
bushes. The lane was so rough and so bad from want of mending that they
could only walk the impatient horse, and at times the jolting was
extremely unpleasant.
Sometimes they had to stoop down in the trap to pass under the drooping
boughs of elms and other trees, which not having been cut for years,
hung over and almost blocked the track. From the hedges the brambles and
briars extended out into the road, so that the wheels of the dog-cart
brushed them, and they would evidently have entirely shut up the way had
not waggons occasionally gone through and crushed their runners. The
meadows on either hand were brown with grass that had not been mown,
though the time for mowing had long since gone by, while the pastures
were thick with rushes and thistles. Though so extensive there were
only two or three cows in them, and these old and poor, and as it were
broken-down. No horses were visible, nor any men at work.
There were other fields which had once grown wheat, but were now so
choked with weeds as to be nothing but a wilderness. As they approached
the farmhouse where the old gentleman dwelt, the signs of desolation
became more numerous. There were walls that had fallen, and never been
repaired, around whose ruins the nettles flourished. There were holes in
the roofs of the sheds exposing the rafters.
Trees had fallen and lay as they fell, rotting away, and not even cut up
for firewood. Railings had decayed till there was nothing left but a few
stumps; gates had dropped from their hinges, and nothing of them
remained but small bits of rotten board attached to rusty irons. In the
garden all was confusion, the thistles rose higher than the gooseberry
bushes, and burdocks looked in at the windows. From the wall of the
house a pear that had been trained there had fallen away, and hung
suspended, swinging with every puff; the boughs, driven against the
windows, had broken the panes in the adjacent casement; other panes
which had been broken were stuffed up with wisps of hay.
Tiles had slipped from the roof, and the birds went in and out as they
listed. The remnants of the tiles lay cracked upon the ground beneath
the eaves just as they had fallen. No hand had touched them; the hand of
man indeed had touched nothing. Bevis, whose eyes were everywhere, saw
all these things in a minute. "Why," said he, "there's the knocker; it
has tumbled down." It had dropped from the door as the screws rusted;
the door itself was propped up with a log of wood. But one thing only
appeared to have been attended to, and that was the wall about the
orchard, which showed traces of recent mortar, and the road leading
towards it, which had not long since been mended with flints.
Now Bevis, as I say, noting all these things as they came near with his
eyes, which, like gimlets, went through everything, was continually
asking his papa questions about them, and why everything was in such a
state, till at last his papa, overwhelmed with his inquiries, promised
to tell him the whole story when they got home. This he did, but while
they are now fastening up the horse (for there was no one to help them
or mind it), and while Bevis is picking up the rusty knocker, the story
may come in here very well:--
Once upon a time, many, many years ago, when the old gentleman was
young, and lived with his mother at the farmhouse, it happened that he
fell in love. The lady he loved was very young, very beautiful, very
proud, very capricious, and very poor. She lived in a house in the
village little better than a cottage, with an old woman who was said to
be her aunt. As the young farmer was well off, for the land was his own,
and he had no one to keep but his old mother, and as the young lady
dearly loved him, there seemed no possible obstacle in their way. But it
is well known that a brook can never run straight, and thus, though all
looked so smooth, there were, in reality, two difficulties.
The first of these was the farmer's old mother, who having been mistress
in the farmhouse for very nearly fifty years, did not like, after
half-a-century, to give place to a mere girl. She could not refrain from
uttering disparaging remarks about her, to which her son, being fond of
his mother, could not reply, though it angered him to the heart, and at
such times he used to take down his long single-barrelled gun with brass
fittings, and go out shooting. More than once the jealous mother had
insulted the young lady openly in the village street, which conduct, of
course, as things fly from roof to roof with the sparrows, was known all
over the place, and caused the lady to toss her head like a filly in
spring to show that she did not care for such an old harridan, though in
secret it hurt her pride beyond expression.
So great was the difficulty this caused, that the young lady,
notwithstanding she was so fond of the handsome young farmer, who rode
so well and shot so straight, and could carry her in his arms as if she
were no more than a lamb, would never put her dainty foot, which looked
so little and pretty even in the rude shoes made for her by the village
cobbler, over the threshold of his house. She would never come in, she
said, except as a wife, while he on his part, anxious as he was to marry
her, could not, from affection for his mother, summon up courage to
bring her in, as it were, rough-shod over his mother's feelings.
Their meetings, therefore, as she would not come indoors, were always
held in the farmer's orchard, where was a seat in an arbour, a few yards
in front of which stood the ancient apple-tree in which Kapchack, who