Wood Magic: A Fable
with whom he was in love, and then about the beautiful stars that were
shining in the sky, and how nice it was to be a cricket, for the
crickets were by far the most handsome and clever of all creatures, and
everybody would like to be a cricket if they could.
"Next, he went on to praise himself, that his lady might hear what fine
limbs he had, and so noble a form, and such a splendid chink to live in.
Thus he kept on the livelong night, and all about himself; and his
chirp, chirp, chirp filled the weasel's prison with such a noise that
the wretched thing could not sleep. He kept asking the cricket to tell
him if the rat had really done anything to enlarge the chink; but the
cricket was too busy to answer him till the dawn, and then, having
finished his song, he found time to attend to the weasel.
"'You have been very rude,' he said, 'to keep on talking while I was
singing, but I suppose, as you are only an ignorant weasel, you do not
understand good manners, and therefore I will condescend so far as to
inform you of the measures taken by my noble friend the rat to get you
out. If you were not so extremely ignorant and stupid you would guess
what he has done.'
"Now all this was very bitter to the weasel, who had always thought he
knew everything, to be insulted by a cricket; still he begged to be told
what it was. 'The rat,' went on the cricket, 'has brought a little piece
from a fungus, and has scratched a hole beside the stone and put it in
there. Now, when this begins to grow and the fungus pushes up, it will
move the stone and open a chink. In this way I have seen my lord the rat
heave up the heaviest paving stones and make a road for himself. Now are
you not stupid?' Then the cricket went home to bed.
"All day long the miserable weasel lay on the floor of his prison,
driven every now and then to gnaw his tail till he squeaked with the
pain. The only thing that kept him from despair was the hope of the
revenge he would have, if ever he did get out, on those who had laid the
trap for him. For hours he lay insensible, and only woke up when the rat
looked down the chink and asked him, with a jolly chuckle, how his tail
tasted, and then went off without waiting for an answer. Then the
cricket came again, and taking not the least notice of the prisoner,
sang all night.
"In the morning the weasel looked up, and saw that the chink had really
opened. He crawled to it, he was so faint he could not walk, so he had
to crawl over the floor, which was all red with his own blood. The
fungus, a thick, yellowish-green thing, like a very large and
unwholesome mushroom, was growing fast, so fast he could see it move,
and very slowly it shoved and lifted up the stone. The chink was now so
far open that in his thin, emaciated state, the weasel could have got
through; but he was so weak he could not climb up. He called to the rat,
and the rat came and tried to reach him, but it was just a little too
far down.
"'If I only had something to drink,' said the weasel, 'only one drop of
water, I think I could do it, but I am faint from thirst.'
"Off ran the rat to see what he could do, and as he passed the tub where
Pan lived he saw a bowl of water just pumped for the spaniel. The bowl
was of wood with a projecting handle--not a ring to put the fingers
through, but merely a short straight handle. He went round to the other
side of the tub in which Pan was dozing and began to scratch. Directly
Pan heard the scratching:--
"'Ho! ho!' said he, 'that's that abominable rat that steals my food,'
and he darted out, and in his tremendous hurry his chain caught the
handle of the bowl, just as the rat had hoped it would. Over went the
bowl, and all the water was spilt, but the rat, the instant he heard Pan
coming, had slipped away back to the weasel.
"When Pan was tired of looking where he had heard the scratching, he
went back to take a lap, but found the bowl upset, and that all the
water had run down the drain. As he was very thirsty after gnawing a
salt bacon-bone, he set up a barking, and the dairy-maid ran out,
thinking it was a beggar, and began to abuse him for being so clumsy as
to knock over his bowl. Pan barked all the louder, so she hit him with
the handle of her broom, and he went howling into his tub. He vowed
vengeance against the rat, but that did not satisfy his thirst.
"Meantime the water had run along the drain, and though the fungus
greedily sucked up most of it, the weasel had a good drink. After that
he felt better, and he climbed up the chink, squeezing through and
dragging his raw tail behind him, till he nearly reached the top. But
there it was still a little tight, and he could not manage to push
through, not having strength enough left. He felt himself slipping back
again, and called on the rat to save him. The rat without ceremony leant
down the chink, and caught hold of his ear with his teeth, and snipped
it so tight he bit it right through, but he dragged the weasel out.
"There he lay a long time half dead and exhausted, under a dock leaf
which hid him from view. The rat began to think that the weasel would
die after all, so he came and said: 'Wake up, coward, and come with me
into the cart-house; there is a very nice warm hole there, and I will
tell you something; if you stay here very likely the bailiff may see
you, and if Pan should be let loose he will sniff you out in a second'.
So the weasel, with very great difficulty, dragged himself into the
cart-house, and found shelter in the hole.
"Now the rat, though he had helped the weasel, did not half like him,
for he was afraid to go to sleep while the weasel was about, lest his
guest should fasten on his throat, for he knew he was treacherous to the
last degree. He cast about in his mind how to get rid of him, and at the
same time to serve his own purpose. By-and-by he said that there was a
mouse in the cart-house who had a very plump wife, and two fat little
mouses. At this the weasel pricked up his ears, for he was so terribly
hungry, and sat up and asked where they were. The rat said the wife and
the children were up in the beam; the wood had rotted, and they had a
hole there, but he was afraid the mouse himself was away from home just
then, most likely in the corn-bin, where the barley-meal for the pigs
was kept.
"'Never mind,' said the weasel, eagerly, 'the wife and the baby mice
will do very well,' and up he started and climbed up through the rat's
hole in the wall to the roof, and then into the hole in the beam, where
he had a good meal on the mice. Now the rat hated this mouse because he
lived so near, and helped himself to so much food, and being so much
smaller, he could get about inside the house where you live, Bevis,
without being seen, and so got very fat, and made the rat jealous. He
thought, too, that when the weasel had eaten the wife and the babies,
that he would be strong enough to go away. Presently the weasel came
down from his meal, and looked so fierce and savage that the rat, strong
as he was, was still more anxious to get rid of him as quickly as
possible.
"He told the weasel that there was a way by which he could get to the
corn-bin without the least danger, though it was close to the house, and
there he would be certain to find the mouse himself, and very likely
another Miss Mouse whom he used to meet there. At this the weasel was so
excited he could hardly wait to be shown the way, and asked the rat to
put him in the road directly; he was so hungry he did not care what he
did. Without delay the rat took him to the mouth of the hole, and told
him to stay there and listen a minute to be sure that no one was coming.
If he could not hear any footsteps, all he had to do was to rush across
the road there, only two or three yards, to the rough grass, the
dandelions, and the docks opposite. Just there there was an iron grating
made in the wall of the house to let in the air and keep the rats out;
but one of the bars had rusted off and was broken, and that was the
mouse's track to the corn-bin.
"The weasel put out his head, glanced round, saw no one, and without
waiting to listen rushed out into the roadway. In an instant the rat
pushed against a small piece of loose stone, which he kept for the
purpose, and it fell down and shut up the mouth of his hole. As the
weasel was running across the roadway suddenly one of the labourers came
round the corner with a bucket of food for the pigs. Frightened beyond
measure, the weasel hastened back to the rat's hole, but could not get
in because of the stone. Not knowing what to do, he ran round the
cart-house, where there was some grass under the wall, with the man
coming close behind him. Now it was just there that the bailiff had set
the gin for the rat, near the mouth of the drain, but the rat knew all
about it, and used the other hole.
"The grass, knowing that we wished to drive the weasel that way into the
gin, had tried to grow faster and hide the trap, but could not get on
very well because the weather was so dry. But that morning, when the rat
upset Pan's bowl of water, and it ran down the drain, some part of it
reached the roots of the grass and moistened them, then the grass shot
up quick and quite hid the trap, except one little piece. Now, seeing
the weasel rushing along in his fright, the grass was greatly excited,
but did not know what to do to hide this part, so the grass whispered to
his friend the wind to come to his help.
"This the wind was very ready to do, for this reason--he hated to smell
the decaying carcases of the poor creatures the weasel killed, and left
to rot and to taint the air, so that it quite spoilt his morning ramble
over the fields. With a puff the wind came along and blew a dead leaf,
one of last year's leaves, over the trap, and so hid it completely.
"The weasel saw the mouth of the drain, and thinking to be safe in a
minute darted at it, and was snapped up by the gin. The sudden shock
deprived him of sense or motion, and well for him it did, for had he
squeaked or moved ever so little the man with the bucket must have seen
or heard him. After a time he came to himself, and again began to beg
the rat to help him; but the rat, having had his revenge on the mouse,
did not much care to trouble about it, and, besides, he remembered how
very wolfish and fierce the weasel had looked at him when in his hole.
At least he thought he would have a night's sleep in comfort first, for
he had been afraid to sleep a wink with the weasel so near. Now the
weasel was in the gin he could have a nap.
"All night long the weasel was in the gin, and to a certainty he would
have been seen--for the bailiff would have been sure to come and look at
his trap--but if you remember, Bevis, dear, that was the very day you
were lost (while asleep under the oak), and everything was confusion,
and the gin was forgotten. Well, in the morning the weasel begged so
piteously of the rat to help him again, that the rat began to think he
would, now he had had a good sleep, when just as he was peeping out
along you came, Bevis, dear, and found the weasel in the gin.
"Now, I daresay you remember the talk you had with the weasel, and what
the mouse said; well, the rat was listening all the while, and he heard
the weasel say to you that he always killed the rats. 'Aha!' thought
the rat, 'catch me helping you again, sir;' and the weasel heard him say
it. So when you stepped on the spring and loosed the weasel, he did not
dare go into the drain, knowing that the rat (while awake) was stronger
than he, but hobbled as well as he could across to the wood-pile. There
he stopped, exhausted, and stiff from his wounds. Meantime the rat
deliberated how best he could drive the treacherous weasel away from the
place.