Wood Magic: A Fable
picked up the snails, one at a time, and smashed them on the stones, and
gobbled them up."
"Well," said the thrush, much relieved, "is that all? snails are very
nice to eat."
"Was it not brutally cruel?" asked the weasel.
"Yes, it was," said Bevis.
"Then," said the weasel, "when you shoot me, shoot the thrush too."
"So I will," said Bevis, "but how can I hit you both?"
"I will show you," said the weasel. "I will walk along the bank till I
am just in a line with the thrush's nest, and then you can take aim at
both together."
So he went along the bank and stopped behind the nest, and Bevis moved
his cannon-stick and took another aim.
"Dear me!" cried the thrush, dreadfully alarmed, "you surely are not
going to shoot me? I never did any harm. Bevis, stop--listen to me!"
Now if the thrush had flown away she might have escaped, but she was
very fond of talking, and while she was talking Bevis was busy getting
his gun ready.
"It is straight now," said the weasel; "it is pointed quite straight.
Hold it still there, and I will sit so that I shall die quick;--here is
my bosom. Tell the hare to forgive me."
"Oh," said the thrush, "don't shoot!"
"Shoot!" cried the weasel.
Bevis dropped his match on the touch-hole, puff went the priming, and
bang went the cannon. Directly the smoke had cleared away, Bevis looked
in the ditch, to see the dead weasel and the thrush. There was the
thrush right enough, quite dead, and fallen out of the nest; the nest,
too, was knocked to pieces, and the eggs had fallen out (two were
broken), but there was one not a bit smashed, lying on the dead leaves
at the bottom of the ditch. But the weasel was nowhere to be seen.
"Weasel," cried Bevis, "where are you?" But the weasel did not answer.
Bevis looked everywhere, over the bank and round about, but could not
find him. At last he saw that under some grass on the bank there was a
small rabbit's-hole. Now the weasel had sat up for Bevis to shoot him
right over this hole, and when he saw him move the match, just as the
priming went puff, the weasel dropped down into the hole, and the shot
went over his head.
Bevis was very angry when he saw how the weasel had deceived him, and
felt so sorry for the poor thrush, whose speckled breast was all
pierced by the shot, and who would never sing any more. He did not know
what to do, he was so cross; but presently he ran home to fetch Pan, to
see if Pan could hunt out the weasel.
When he had gone a little way the weasel came out of the hole, and went
down into the ditch and feasted on the thrush's egg, which he could not
have got had not the shot knocked the nest to pieces, just as he had
contrived. He never tasted so sweet an egg as that one, and as he sucked
it up he laughed as he thought how cleverly he had deceived them all.
When he heard Pan bark he went back into the hole, and so along the
hedge till he reached the copse; and then creeping into another hole, a
very small one, where no dog could get at him, he curled himself up very
comfortably and went to sleep.
CHAPTER IV.
BROOK-FOLK.
Some time afterwards it happened one morning that Bevis was sitting on a
haycock in the Home Field, eating a very large piece of cake, and
thinking how extremely greedy the young rook was yonder across the
meadow. For he was as big and as black as his father and mother, who
were with him; and yet he kept on cawing to them to stuff his beak with
sweets. Bevis, who had another large slice in his pocket, having stolen
both of them from the cupboard just after breakfast, felt angry to see
such greediness, and was going to get up to holloa at this ill-mannered
rook, when he heard a grasshopper making some remarks close by the
haycock.
"S----s," said the grasshopper to a friend, "are you going down to the
brook? I am, in a minute, so soon as I have hopped round this haycock,
for there will be a grand show there presently. All the birds are going
to bathe, as is their custom on Midsummer Day, and will be sure to
appear in their best feathers. It is true some of them have bathed
already, as they have to leave early in the morning, having business
elsewhere. I spoke to the cricket just now on the subject, but he could
not see that it was at all interesting. He is very narrow-minded, as
you know, and cannot see anything beyond the mound where he lives.
S----s."
"S----s," replied the other grasshopper; "I will certainly jump that way
so soon as I have had a chat with my lady-love, who is waiting for me on
the other side of the furrow. S----s."
"S----s, we shall meet by the drinking-place," said the first
grasshopper; and was just hopping off when Bevis asked him what the
birds went down to bathe for.
"I'm sure I do not know," said the grasshopper, speaking fast, for he
was rather in a hurry to be gone, he never could stand still long
together. "All I can tell you is that on Midsummer Day every one of the
birds has to go down to the brook and walk in and bathe; and it has been
the law for so many, many years that no one can remember when it began.
They like it very much, because they can show off their fine feathers,
which are just now in full colour; and if you like to go with me you
will be sure to enjoy it."
"So I will," said Bevis, and he followed the grasshopper, who hopped so
far at every step that he had to walk fast to keep up with him. "But why
do the birds do it?"
"Oh, I don't know why," said the grasshopper; "what is why?"
"I want to know," said Bevis, "why do they do it?"
"Why?" repeated the grasshopper; "I never heard anybody say anything
about that before. There is always a great deal of talking going on,
for the trees have nothing else to do but to gossip with each other; but
they never ask why."
After that they went on in silence a good way except that the
grasshopper cried "S----s" to his friends in the grass as he passed, and
said good-morning also to a mole who peeped out for a moment.
"Why don't you hop straight?" said Bevis, presently. "It seems to me
that you hop first one side and then the other, and go in such a zig-zag
fashion it will take us hours to reach the brook."
"How very stupid you are," said the grasshopper. "If you go straight of
course you can only see just what is under your feet, but if you go
first this way and then that, then you see everything. You are nearly as
silly as the ants, who never see anything beautiful all their lives. Be
sure you have nothing to do with the ants, Bevis; they are a mean,
wretched, miserly set, quite contemptible and beneath notice. Now I go
everywhere all round the field, and spend my time searching for lovely
things; sometimes I find flowers, and sometimes the butterflies come
down into the grass and tell me the news, and I am so fond of the
sunshine, I sing to it all day long. Tell me, now, is there anything so
beautiful as the sunshine and the blue sky, and the green grass, and the
velvet and blue and spotted butterflies, and the trees which cast such a
pleasant shadow and talk so sweetly, and the brook which is always
running? I should like to listen to it for a thousand years."
"I like you," said Bevis; "jump into my hand, and I will carry you." He
held his hand out flat, and in a second up sprang the grasshopper, and
alighted on his palm, and told him the way to go, and thus they went
together merrily.
"Are you sure the ants are so very stupid and wicked?" asked Bevis, when
the grasshopper had guided him through a gateway into the meadow by the
brook.
"Indeed I am. It is true they declare that it is I who am wrong, and
never lose a chance of chattering at me, because they are always laying
up a store, and I wander about, laughing and singing. But then you see,
Bevis dear, they are quite demented, and so led away by their greedy,
selfish wishes that they do not even know that there is a sun. They say
they cannot see it, and do not believe there is any sunshine, nor do
they believe there are any stars. Now I do not sing at night, but I
always go where I can see a star. I slept under a mushroom last night,
and he told me he was pushing up as fast as he could before some one
came and picked him to put on a gridiron. I do not lay up any store,
because I know I shall die when the summer ends, and what is the use of
wealth then? My store and my wealth is the sunshine, dear, and the blue
sky, and the green grass, and the delicious brook who never ceases sing,
sing, singing all day and night. And all the things are fond of me, the
grass and the flowers, and the birds, and the animals, all of them love
me. So you see I am richer than all the ants put together." "I would
rather be you than an ant," said Bevis. "I think I shall take you home
and put you under a glass-case on the mantelpiece."
Off jumped the grasshopper in a moment, and fell so lightly on the grass
it did not hurt him in the least, though it was as far as if Bevis had
tumbled down out of the clouds. Bevis tried to catch him, but he jumped
so nimbly this way and that, and hopped to and fro, and lay down in the
grass, so that his green coat could not be seen. Bevis got quite hot
trying to catch him, and seeing this, the grasshopper, much delighted,
cried out: "Are you not the stupid boy everybody is laughing at for
letting the weasel go? You will never catch the weasel."
"I'll stamp on you," said Bevis, in a great rage.
"S----s," called the grasshopper--who was frightened at this--to his
friends, and in a minute there were twenty of them jumping all round in
every direction, and as they were all just alike Bevis did not know
which to run after. When he looked up there was the brook close by, and
the drinking-place where the birds were to meet and bathe. It was a spot
where the ground shelved gently down from the grass to the brook; the
stream was very shallow and flowed over the sandy bottom with a gentle
murmur.
He went down to the brook and stood on the bank, where it was high near
a bush at the side of the drinking-place. "Ah, dear little Sir Bevis!"
whispered a reed, bending towards him as the wind blew, "please do not
come any nearer, the bank is steep and treacherous, and hollow
underneath where the water-rats run. So do not lean over after the
forget-me-nots--they are too far for you. Sit down where you are, behind
that little bush, and I will tell you all about the bathing." Bevis sat
down and picked a June rose from a briar that trailed over the bush, and
asked why the birds bathed.
"I do not know why," said the reed. "There is no why at all. We have
been listening to the brook, me and my family, for ever so many
thousands of years, and though the brook has been talking and singing
all that time, I never heard him ask why about anything. And the great
oak, where you went to sleep, has been there, goodness me, nobody can
tell how long, and every one of his leaves (he has had millions of them)
have all been talking, but not one of them ever asked why; nor does the
sun, nor the stars which I see every night shining in the clear water
down there, so that I am quite sure there is no why at all.
"But the birds come down to bathe every Midsummer Day, the goldfinches,
and the sparrows, and the blackbirds, and the thrushes, and the
swallows, and the wrens, and the robins, and almost every one of them,
except two or three, whose great-grandfathers got into disgrace a long
while ago. The rooks do not come because they are thieves, and steal the
mussels, nor the crows, who are a very bad lot; the swan does not come
either, unless the brook is muddy after a storm. The swan is so tired of
seeing himself in the water that he quite hates it, and that is the
reason he holds his neck so high, that he may not see more of himself
than he can help.