Wood Magic: A Fable
"At night, accordingly, he cautiously left his hole and went across to
the tub where Pan was sleeping, curled up comfortably within. The end of
Pan's chain, where it was fastened to the staple outside the tub, was
not of iron, but tar-cord. The last link had been broken, and it was
therefore tied in this manner. The rat easily gnawed through the
tar-cord, and then slipped back to his hole to await events. About the
middle of the night, when the weasel had rested and began to stir out,
Pan woke up, and seeing that it was light, stepped out to bay at the
moon. He immediately found that his chain was undone, and rushed about
to try and find some water, being very thirsty. He had not gone very far
before he smelt the weasel, and instantly began to chase him. The
weasel, however, slipped under a faggot, and so across and under the
wood-pile, where he was safe; but he was so alarmed that presently he
crept out the other side, and round by the pig-sty, and so past the
stable to the rick-yard, and then into the hedge, and he never stopped
running, stiff as he was, till he was half-a-mile away in the ash copse
and had crept into a rabbit's hole. He could not have got away from the
wood-pile, only Pan, being so thirsty, gave up looking for him, and went
down to the brook.
"In the morning, as they thought Pan had broken his chain, they kicked
the spaniel howling into his tub again. And now comes the sad part of
it, Bevis, dear. You must know that when the weasel was in the trap we
all thought it was quite safe, and that our enemy was done for at last,
and so we went off to a dancing-party, on the short grass of the downs
by moonlight, leaving our leverets to nibble near the wheat. We stayed
at the dancing-party so late that the dawn came and we were afraid to go
home in the daylight, and next night we all felt so merry we had another
dance, and again danced till it was morning.
"While we were sleeping in the day, the weasel, having now recovered a
good deal, crept out from the rabbit-hole in the copse. We were so far
off, you see, the mice could not send us word that he had escaped from
the gin in time, and, indeed, none of them knew exactly where to find
us; they told the swallows, and the swallows searched, but missed us.
The wind, too, blew as many ways as he could to try and reach us, but he
had to blow east that day, and could not manage it. If we had only been
at home we should have been on the watch; but my poor leveret, and my
two friends' poor leverets, were sleeping so comfortably when the wicked
weasel stole on them one by one, and bit their necks and killed them. He
could not eat them, nor half of them, he only killed them for revenge,
and oh! dear little Sir Bevis, what shall I do? what shall I do?"
"I will kill the weasel," said Bevis. "He is dreadfully wicked. I will
shoot him this minute with my bow and arrow."
But when he looked round he had got neither of them; he had dropped the
bow in the Home Field when he jumped into the ditch to scramble through
the hedge, and he had wandered so far among the cowslips that he could
not see the arrow. Bevis looked all round again, and did not recognise
any of the trees, nor the hedges, nor could he see the house nor the
ricks, nor anything that he knew. His face flushed up, and the tears
came into his eyes; he was lost.
"Don't cry," said the hare, much pleased at the eagerness with which he
took up the quarrel against the weasel; "don't cry, darling, I will show
you the way home and where to find your arrow. It is not very far,
though you cannot see it because of the ground rising between you and
it. But will you really kill the weasel next time?"
"Yes, indeed I will," said Bevis, "I will shoot my arrow and kill him
quite dead in a minute."
"But I am not sure you can hit him with your arrow; don't you remember
that you could not hit the greenfinches nor the rook?"
"Well then," said Bevis, "if you will wait till I am a man, papa will
lend me his gun, and then I can certainly kill him."
"But that will be such a long time, Sir Bevis; did not your papa tell
you you would have to eat another peck of salt before you could have a
gun?"
"Then I know what I will do," said Bevis, "I will shoot the weasel with
my brass cannon. Ah, that is the way! And I know where papa keeps his
gunpowder; it is in a tin canister on the topmost shelf, and I will tell
you how I climb up there. First, I bring the big arm-chair, and then I
put the stool on that, and then I stand on the lowest shelf, and I can
just reach the canister."
"Take care, Sir Bevis," said the hare, "take care, and do not open the
canister where there is a fire in the room, or a candle, because a spark
may blow you up just when you are not thinking."
"Oh! I know all about that; I'll take care," said Bevis, "and I will
shoot the wretch of a weasel in no time. Now please show me the way
home."
"So I will; you stay there till I come to you, I will run round by the
gateway."
"Why not come straight through the hedge?" said Bevis, "you could easily
creep through, I'm sure."
"No, dear. I must not come that way, that road belongs to another hare,
and I must not trespass."
"But you can run where you like--can you not?"
"Oh, dear no; all the hares have different roads, Sir Bevis, and if I
were to run along one of theirs that did not belong to me, to-night they
would bite me and thump me with their paws till I was all bruised."
"I can't see any path," said Bevis, "you can run where you like in the
field, I'm sure."
"No, I can't, dear; I shall have to go a quarter of a mile round to come
to you, because there are three paths between you and me, and I shall
have to turn and twist about not to come on them."
While Bevis was thinking about this, and how stupid it was of the hares
to have roads, the hare ran off, and in two or three minutes came to him
through the cowslips. "Oh, you pretty creature!" said Sir Bevis,
stooping down and stroking her back, and playing with the tips of her
long ears. "Oh, I do love you so!" At this the hare was still more
pleased, and rubbed her head against Bevis's hand.
"Now," she said, "you must come along quickly, because I dare not stay
on this short grass, lest some dog should see me. Follow me, dear." She
went on before him, and Bevis ran behind, and in a minute or two they
went over the rising ground, past the tall stone (put there for the cows
to rub their sides against), and then the hare stopped and showed Bevis
the great oak tree, where he once went to sleep. She told him to look at
it well, and recollect the shape of it, so that another time he could
find his way home by the tree. Then she told him to walk straight to the
tree, and on his way there he would find the arrow, and close by the
tree was the gap in the hedge, and when he got through the gap, he would
see the house and the ricks, and if he followed the ditch then he would
presently come to the place where he dropped his bow. "Thank you," said
Bevis, "I will run as fast as I can, for I am sure it must be nearly
dinner time. Good-bye, you pretty creature;" and having stroked her ears
just once more, off he started. In a few minutes he found his arrow, and
looked back to show it to the hare, but she was gone; so he went on to
the oak, got through the gap, and there was the house at the other side
of the field. He could hear Pan barking, so he felt quite at home, and
walked along the ditch till he picked up his bow. He was very hungry
when he got home, and yet he was glad when the dinner was over, that he
might go to the cupboard and get his brass cannon.
When he came to examine the cannon, and to think about shooting the
weasel with it, he soon found that it would not do very well, because he
could not hold it in his hand and point it straight, and when it went
off it would most likely burn his fingers. But looking at his papa's gun
he saw that the barrel, where the powder is put in, was fixed in a
wooden handle called the stock, so he set to work with his pocket-knife
to make a handle for his cannon. He cut a long thick willow stick,
choosing the willow because it was soft and easiest to cut, and chipped
away till he had made a groove in it at one end in which he put the
cannon, fastening it in with a piece of thin copper wire twisted round.
Next he cut a ramrod, and then he loaded his gun, and fired it off with
a match to see how it went.
This he did at the bottom of the orchard, a long way from the house,
for he was afraid that if they saw what he was doing they might take it
from him, so he kept it hidden in the summer-house under an old sack.
The cannon went off with a good bang, and the shot he had put in it
stuck in the bark of an apple tree. Bevis jumped about with delight, and
thought he could now kill the weasel. It was too late to start that day,
but the next morning off he marched with his gun into the Home Field,
and having charged it behind the shelter of a tree out of sight, began
his chase for the weasel.
All round the field he went, looking carefully into the ditch and the
hedge, and asking at all the rabbits'-holes if they knew where the
scoundrel was. The rabbits knew very well, but they were afraid to
answer, lest the weasel should hear about it, and come and kill the one
that had betrayed him. Twice he searched up and down without success,
and was just going to call to the hare to come and show him, when
suddenly he discovered a thrush sitting on her nest in a bush. He put
down his gun, and was going to see how many eggs she had got, when the
weasel (who had no idea he was there) peeped over the bank, having a
fancy for the eggs, but afraid that the nest was too high for him to
reach.
"Ho! Ho!" cried Bevis, "there you are. Now I have you. Just stand still
a minute, while I get my gun and strike a match."
"Whatever for?" asked the weasel, very innocently.
"I am going to shoot you," said Bevis, busy getting his gun ready.
"Shoot _me_!" said the weasel, in a tone of the utmost astonishment;
"why ever do you want to shoot me, Sir Bevis? Did I not tell you that I
spent all my life doing good?"
"Yes, you rascal!" said Bevis, putting a pinch of powder on the
touch-hole, "you know you are a wicked story-teller; you killed the poor
leveret after I let you loose. Now!" and he went down on one knee, and
put his cannon-stick on the other as a rest to keep it straight.
"Wait a minute," said the weasel, "just listen to me a minute. I assure
you----"
"No; I sha'n't listen to you," said Bevis, striking his match.
"Oh," said the weasel, kneeling down, "if you will only wait one second,
I will tell you all the wickedness I have committed. Don't, please, kill
me before I have got this load of guilt off my mind."
"Well, make haste," said Bevis, aiming along his cannon.
"I will," said the weasel; "and first of all, if you are going to kill
me, why don't you shoot the thrush as well, for she is ever so much more
wicked and cruel than I have been?"
"Oh, what a dreadful story!" said the thrush. "How can you say so?"
"Yes, you are," said the weasel. "Sir Bevis, you remember the two snails
you found in the garden path--those you put on a leaf, and watched to
see which could crawl the fastest?"
"I remember," said Sir Bevis. "But you must make haste, or my match will
burn out."
"And you recollect that the snails had no legs and could not walk, and
that they had no wings and could not fly, and were very helpless
creatures?"
"Yes, I remember; I left them on the path."
"Well, directly you left them, out came this great ugly speckled thrush
from the shrubbery--you see how big the thrush is, quite a monster
beside the poor snails; and you see what long legs she has, and great
wings, and such a strong, sharp beak. This cruel monster of a thrush