Wood Magic Part 20

In this unhappy plight she pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.s, 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 gra.s.s, 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 the stable door so that everybody may see what a wretch you were."

"Thank you," said the weasel, very gratefully, "will you please tell the hare and all of them that if I could only live I would do everything I could to make up to them, for all the wickedness I have committed--oh!--I have not got time to say all I would. Oh! Bevis, Bevis!"

"Yes, poor thing," said Bevis, now quite melted and sorry for the wretched criminal, whose life was ebbing so fast, "what is it you want?

I will be sure to do it."

"Then, dear Sir Bevis--how kind it is of you to forgive me, dear Sir Bevis; when I am dead do not nail me to the door--only think how terrible that would be--bury me, dear."

"So I will," said Bevis; "but perhaps you needn't die. Stay a little while, and let us see if you cannot live."

"Oh, no," said the weasel, "my time is come. But when I am dead, dear, please take me out of this cruel trap in which I am so justly caught, as I set it for another; take me out of this cruel trap which has broken my ribs, and lay me flat on the gra.s.s, and pull my limbs out straight, so that I may not stiffen all in a heap and crooked. Then get your spade, my dear Sir Bevis, and dig a hole and bury me, and put a stone on top of me, so that Pan cannot scratch me up--oh! oh!--will you--oh!"

"Yes, indeed I will. I will dig the hole--I have a capital spade," said Bevis; "stay a minute."

But the weasel gave three gasps and fell back quite dead. Bevis looked at him a little while, and then put his foot on the spring and pressed it down and took the weasel out. He stroked down his fur where the trap had ruffled it, and rubbed the earth from his poor paws with which he had struggled to get free, and then having chosen a spot close by the wood-pile, where the ground was soft, to dig the hole, he put the weasel down there, and pulled his limbs out straight, and so disposed him for the last sad ceremony. He then ran to the summer-house, which was not far, and having found the spade came back with it to the wood-pile. But the weasel was gone.

There was the trap; there was the place he had chosen--all the little twigs and leaves brushed away ready for digging--but no weasel. He was bewildered, when a robin perched on the top of the wood-pile put his head on one side, and said so softly and sadly: "Bevis, Bevis, little Sir Bevis, what have you done?" For the weasel was not dead, and was not even very seriously injured; the trap was old, and the spring not very strong, and the teeth did not quite meet. If the rat, who was fat, had got in, it would have pinched him dreadfully, but the weasel was extremely thin, and so he escaped with a broken rib--the only true thing he had said.

So soon as ever Sir Bevis's back was turned, the weasel crawled under the wood-pile, just as he had done once before, and from there made his way as quickly as he could up the field sheltered by the aftermath, which had now grown long again. When Bevis understood that the weasel had only shammed dying, and had really got away, he burst into tears, for he could not bear to be cheated, and then threw his spade at the robin.

CHAPTER XII.

THE OLD OAK.--THE KING'S DESPAIR.

The very same morning, after the rain had ceased, the keeper who looked after the great woods at the other end of the Long Pond set out with his gun and his dogs to walk round the preserves. Now the dogs he took with him were the very best dogs he had, for that night a young gentleman, who had just succeeded to the estate, was coming down from London, and on the following morning would be sure to go out shooting. This young gentleman had unexpectedly come into the property through the death of the owner, who was shot in his bedroom by a burglar. The robber had once been his groom, and the squirrel told Bevis how it all happened through a flint falling out of the hole in the bottom of the waggon which belonged to the old farmer in whose orchard Kapchack had his palace.

The heir had been kept at a distance during the old gentleman's lifetime, for the old gentleman always meant to marry and have a son, but did not do so, and also always meant to make a will and leave the best part of his estate to somebody else, but he did not do so, and as the old toad in the rhubarb patch told Bevis afterwards when he heard the story, if you are only going to do a thing, it would be no use if you lived a thousand years, it would always be just the same. So the young fellow, who had been poor all his life, when he thus suddenly jumped into such a property, was not a little elated, and wrote to the keeper that he should come down and have some shooting.

The keeper was rather alarmed at this, for the former owner was not a sporting man, and did not look strictly after such things, so that the game had been neglected and had got scarce; and what was worse, the dogs were out of training. He therefore got up early that morning, intending to go his rounds quickly, and then take the dogs out into the stubble, and try and thrash them into some use. Presently, as he walked along, he came to the glade in the woods, and saw the dead hawk hanging from the trap up in the old oak-tree. Pleased to find that his trap, so cunningly placed, had not been prepared in vain, he went up to the oak, leaned his gun against the trunk, ordered the dogs to lie down (which they did with some reluctance), and then climbed up into the tree to re-set the gin.

He took the hawk from the trap (his feathers were all draggled and wet from the rain), and threw the dead bird down; and, whether it was that the act of throwing it caused an extra strain upon the bough, or whether the storm had cracked it in the night, or whether it had rotted away more than appeared on the surface, or whether it was all of these things together, certain it is the bough broke, and down came the keeper thud on the sward. The bough fell down with him, and as it fell it struck the gun, and the gun exploded, and although the dogs scampered aside when they heard the crack, they did not scamper so quick but one of them was shot dead, and the other two were mortally wounded.

For a while the keeper lay there stunned, with the wet gra.s.s against his face. But by-and-by, coming to himself, he sat up with difficulty, and called for a.s.sistance, for he could not move, having sprained one ankle, and broken the small bone of the other leg. There he sat and shouted, but no one came for some time, till presently a slouching labourer (it was the very same who put up the wire by the copse in which the hare was caught) chanced to pa.s.s by outside the wood. The keeper saw him, but hoa.r.s.e with shouting, and feeling faint too (for a sprained ankle is extremely painful), he could not make him hear. But he bethought him of his gun, and dragging it to him, hastily put in a cartridge and fired.

The report drew the labourer's attention, and peering into the wood, he saw some one on the ground waving a white handkerchief. After looking a long time, he made up his mind to go and see what it was; but then he recollected that if he put his foot inside the wood he should be trespa.s.sing, and as he had got a wire in his pocket that would be a serious matter. So he altered his mind, and went on.

Very likely the keeper was angry, but there was no one to hear what he said except the dead hawk. He would have fired off fifty cartridges if he had had them, but as he did not like a weight to carry he had only two or three, and these did not attract attention. As for the labourer, about midday, when he sat down to lunch in the cart-house at the farm where he worked with the other men, he did just mention that he thought he had seen something white waving in the wood, and they said it was odd, but very likely nothing to speak of.

One of the wounded dogs ran home, bleeding all the way, and there crept into his kennel and died; the other could not get so far, but dropped in a hedge. The keeper's wife wondered why he did not come home to dinner, but supposed, with a sigh, that he had looked in at an alehouse, and went on with her work.

The keeper shouted again when his throat got less hoa.r.s.e, but all the answer he obtained was the echo from the wood. He tried to crawl, but the pain was so exquisite he got but a very little way, and there he had to lie. The sun rose higher and shone out as the clouds rolled away, and the rain-drops on the gra.s.s glistened bright till presently they dried up.

With the gleaming of the sun there was motion in the woods: blackbirds came forth and crossed the glades; thrushes flew past; a jay fluttered round the tops of the firs; after a while a pheasant came along the verge of the underwood, now stepping out into the gra.s.s, and now back again into the bushes. There was a pleasant cawing of rooks, and several small parties of wood-pigeons (doubtless from Choo Hoo's camp) went over. Two or three rabbits hopped out and fed; humble-bees went buzzing by; a green woodp.e.c.k.e.r flashed across the glade and disappeared among the trees as if an arrow had been shot into the woods.

The slow hours went on, and as the sun grew hotter the keeper, unable to move, began to suffer from the fierceness of the rays, for anything still finds out the heat more than that which is in movement. First he lifted his hat from time to time above his head, but it was not much relief, as the wind had fallen. Next he tried placing his handkerchief inside his hat. At last he took off his coat, stuck the barrels of his gun into the ground (soft from the rain), and hung the coat upon it.

This gave him a little shadow. The dead oak-tree having no leaves cast but a narrow shade, and that fell on the opposite side to where he was.

In the afternoon, when the heat was very great and all the other birds appeared to have gone, a crow came (one of Kauc's retainers) and perched low down on an ash-tree not more than fifty yards away. Perhaps it was the dead dog; perhaps it was the knowledge that the man was helpless, that brought him. There he perched, and the keeper reviled him, wishing that he had but saved one of his cartridges, and forgetting that even then the barrels of his gun were too full of earth. After a while the crow flew idly across to the other side of the glade, and went out of sight; but it was only for a short time, and presently he came back again. This the crow did several times, always returning to the ash.

The keeper ran over in his mind the people who would probably miss him, and cause a search to be made. First there was his wife; but once, when he had been a long time from home, and she in a great alarm had sought for him, she found him drunk at the alehouse, and he beat her for her trouble. It was not likely that she would come. The lad who acted as his a.s.sistant (he had but one, for, as previously stated, the former owner did not shoot) was not likely to look for him either, for not long since, bringing a message to his superior, he discovered him selling some game, and was knocked down for his pains. As for his companions at the alehouse, they would be all out in the fields, and would not a.s.semble till night: several of them he knew were poachers, and though glad enough to share his beer would not have looked towards him if in distress.

The slow hours wore on, and the sun declining a little, the shadow of the dead oak moved round, and together with his coat sheltered him fairly well. Weary with the unwonted labour of thinking, the tension of his mind began to yield, and by-and-by he dropped asleep, lying at full length upon his back. The crow returned once more to the ash, and looked at the sleeping man and the dead dog, cleaned his beak against the bough, and uttered a low croak. Once he flew a little way out towards them, but there was the gun: it was true he knew very well there was no powder (for, in the first place, he could not smell any, and, secondly, if there had been any he knew he should have had the shot singing about his ears long before this; you see, he could put two and two together), still there was the gun. The dog does not like the corner where the walking-stick stands. The crow did not like the gun, though it was stuck in the ground: he went back to the ash, cleaned his bill, and waited.

Something came stealthily through the gra.s.s, now stopping, now advancing with a creeping, evil motion. It was the weasel. When he stole away from the wood-pile, after escaping from the trap, he made up the field towards the copse, but upon reflection he determined to abandon his lair in the hollow elm, for he had so abused Bevis's good-nature that he doubted whether Bevis might not attack him even there despite the squirrel. He did not know exactly where to go, knowing that every creature was in secret his enemy, and in his wounded state, unable to move quickly or properly defend himself, he dreaded to trust himself near them. After a while he remembered the old dead oak, which was also hollow within, and which was so far from the copse it was not probable Bevis would find it.

Thither he bent his painful steps, for his broken rib hurt him very much, and after many pauses to rest, presently, in the afternoon, he came near. Lifting his head above the gra.s.s he saw the dead dog, and the sleeping keeper; he watched them a long time, and seeing that neither of them moved he advanced closer. As he approached he saw the dead hawk, and recognised one of Ki Ki's retainers; then coming to the dog, the blood from the shot wounds excited his terrible thirst. But it had ceased to flow; he sniffed at it and then went towards the man.