Wood Magic Part 19

For the owl, as he went his evening rounds, after he had flown over the orchard where Bevis saw him, went on up the hedge by the meadow, and skirting the sh.o.r.e of the Long Pond, presently entered the wood and glided across the glade towards the dead oak-tree, which was one of his favourite haunts. As he came near he was horrified to hear miserable groans and moans, and incoherent talking, and directly afterwards saw the poor hawk hanging head downwards. He had recovered his consciousness only to feel again the pressure of the steel, and the sharp pain of his broken limbs, which presently sent him into a delirium.

The owl circling round the tree was so overcome by the spectacle that he too nearly fainted, and said to himself: "It is clear that my lucky star rose to-night, for without a doubt the trap was intended for me. I have perched on that very bough every evening for weeks, and I should have alighted there to-night had not the hawk been before me. I have escaped from the most terrible fate which ever befell any one, to which indeed crucifixion, with an iron nail through the brain, is mercy itself, for that is over in a minute, but this miserable creature will linger till the morning."

So saying, he felt so faint that (first looking very carefully to see that there were no more traps) he perched on a bough a little way above the hawk. The hawk, in his delirium, was talking of all that he had done and heard that day, reviling Ki Ki and Choo Hoo, imploring destruction upon his master's head, and then flapping his wings and so tearing his sinews and grinding his broken bones together, he shrieked with pain.

Then again he went on talking about the treaty, and the weasel's treason, and the a.s.sa.s.sination of the amba.s.sador. The owl, sitting close by, heard all these things, and after a time came to understand what the hawk meant; at first he could not believe that his master, the king, would conclude a treaty without first consulting him, but looking underneath him he saw the feathers of the thrush scattered on the gra.s.s, and could no longer doubt that what the hawk said was true.

But when he heard the story of Ki Ki's promised treason on the day of battle, when he heard that the weasel had betrayed the secret of the spring, which did not freeze in winter, he lifted up his claw and opened his eyes still wider in amazement and terror. "Wretched creature!" he said, "what is this you have been saying." But the hawk, quite mad with agony, did not know him, but mistook him for Ki Ki, and poured out such terrible denunciations that the owl, shocked beyond measure, flew away.

As he went, after he had gone some distance under the trees, and could no longer hear the ravings of the tortured hawk, he began to ask himself what he had better do. At first he thought that he would say nothing, but take measures to defeat these traitors. But presently it occurred to him that it was dangerous even to know such things, and he wished that he had never heard what the hawk had said. He reflected, too, that the bats had been flying about some time, and might have heard the hawk's confessions, and although they were not admitted at court, as they belonged to the lower orders, still under such circ.u.mstances they might obtain an audience. They had always borne him ill-will, they must have seen him, and it was not unlikely they might say that the owl knew all about it, and kept it from the king. On the other hand, he thought that Kapchack's rage would be terrible to face.

Upon the whole, however, the owl came to the conclusion that his safest, as well as his most honourable course, was to go straight to the king, late as it was, and communicate all that had thus come to his knowledge.

He set out at once, and upon his way again pa.s.sed the glade, taking care not to go too near the dead oak, nor to look towards the suspended hawk.

He saw a night-jar like a ghost wheeling to and fro not far from the scaffold, and anxious to get from the ill-omened spot, flew yet more swiftly. Round the wood he went, and along the hedges, so occupied with his thoughts that he did not notice how the sky was covered with clouds, and once or twice narrowly escaping a branch blown off by the wind which had risen to a gale. Nor did he see the fox with his brush touching the ground, creeping unhappily along the mound, but never looked to the right nor left, hastening as fast as he could glide to King Kapchack.

Now the king had waited up that night as long as ever he could, wondering why the thrush did not return, and growing more and more anxious about the amba.s.sador every moment. Yet he was unable to imagine what could delay him, nor could he see how any ill could befall him, protected as he was by the privileges of his office. As the night came on, and the amba.s.sador did not come, Kapchack, worn out with anxieties, snapped at his attendants, who retired to a little distance, for they feared the monarch in these fits of temper.

Kapchack had just fallen asleep when the owl arrived, and the attendants objected to letting him see the king. But the owl insisted, saying that it was his particular privilege as chief secretary of state to be admitted to audience at any moment. With some difficulty, therefore, he at last got to the king, who woke up in a rage, and stormed at his faithful counsellor with such fury that the attendants again retired in affright. But the owl stood his ground and told his tale.

When King Kapchack heard that his amba.s.sador had been foully a.s.sa.s.sinated, and that, therefore, the treaty was at an end--for Choo Hoo would never brook such an affront; when he heard that Ki Ki, his trusted Ki Ki, who had the command, had offered to retreat in the hour of battle, and expose him to be taken prisoner; when he heard that the weasel, the weasel whom that very afternoon he had restored to his highest favour, had revealed to the enemy the existence of the spring, he lost all his spirit, and he knew not what to do. He waved the owl from his presence, and sat alone hanging his head, utterly overcome.

The clouds grew darker, the wind howled, the trees creaked, and the branches cracked (the snail had foreseen the storm and had ventured forth on the wall), a few spots of rain came driving along. Kapchack heard nothing. He was deserted by all: all had turned traitors against him, every one. He who had himself deceived all was now deceived by all, and suffered the keenest pangs. Thus, in dolour and despair the darkness increased, and the tempest howled about him.

CHAPTER XI.

THE STORM IN THE NIGHT.

When the fox, after humbling himself in the dust, was rudely dismissed by King Kapchack, he was so mortified, that as he slunk away his brush touched the ground, and the tip of his nostrils turned almost white.

That he, whose ancestors had once held regal dignity, should thus be contemned by one who in comparison was a mere upstart, and that, too, after doing him a service by means of the gnat, and after bowing himself, as it were, to the ground, hurt him to his soul. He went away through the fern and the bushes to his lair in the long gra.s.s which grew in a corner of the copse, and having curled himself up, tried to forget the insult in slumber.

But he could not shut his eyes, and after a while he went off again down the hedgerow to another place where he sometimes stayed, under thick brambles on a broad mound. But he could not rest there, nor in the osier bed, nor in the furze, but he kept moving from place to place all day, contrary to his custom, and not without running great danger. The sting lingered in him, and the more so because he felt that it was true--he knew himself that he had not shown any ability lately. Slowly the long day pa.s.sed, the shadows lengthened and it became night. Still restlessly and aimlessly wandering he went about the fields noticing nothing, but miserable to the last degree. The owl flew by on his errand to King Kapchack; the bats fluttered overhead; the wind blew and the trees creaked; but the fox neither saw, nor heard, nor thought of anything except his own degradation. He had been cast forth as unworthy--even the very mouse had received some instructions, but he, the descendant of ill.u.s.trious ancestors, was pointedly told that the wit for which they had been famous did not exist in him.

As the night drew on, the wind rose higher, the clouds became thicker and darker, the branches crashed to the earth, the tempest rushed along bearing everything before it. The owls, alarmed for their safety, hid in the hollow trees, or retired to their barns; the bats retreated into the crevices of the tiles; nothing was abroad but the wildfowl, whose cries occasionally resounded overhead. Now and then, the fall of some branch into a hawthorn bush frightened the sleeping thrushes and blackbirds, who flew forth into the darkness, not knowing whither they were going.

The rabbits crouched on the sheltered side of the hedges, and then went back into their holes. The larks cowered closer to the earth.

Ruin and destruction raged around: in Choo Hoo's camp the ash poles beat against each other, oaks were rent, and his vast army knew no sleep that night. Whirled about by the fearful gusts, the dying hawk, suspended from the trap, no longer fluttered, but swung unconscious to and fro.

The feathers of the murdered thrush were scattered afar, and the leaves torn from the boughs went sweeping after them. Alone in the scene the fox raced along, something of the wildness of the night entered into him; he tried, by putting forth his utmost speed, to throw off the sense of ignominy.

In the darkness, and in his distress of mind, he neither knew or cared whither he was going. He pa.s.sed the sh.o.r.e of the Long Pond, and heard the waves das.h.i.+ng on the stones, and felt the spray driven far up on the sward. He pa.s.sed the miserable hawk. He ran like the wind by the camp of Choo Hoo, and heard the hum of the army, unable to sleep. Weary at last, he sought for some spot into which to drag his limbs, and crept along a mound which, although he did not recognise it in his stupefied state of mind, was really not far from where he had started. As he was creeping along, he fancied he heard a voice which came from the ground beneath his feet; it sounded so strange in the darkness that he started and stayed to listen.

He heard it again, but though he thought he knew the voices of all the residents in the field, he could not tell who it was, nor whence it came. But after a time he found that it proceeded from the lower part or b.u.t.t of an elm-tree. This tree was very large, and seemed perfectly sound, but it seems there was a crack in it, whether caused by lightning or not he did not know, which did not show at ordinary times. But when the wind blew extremely strong as it did to-night, the tree leant over before the blast, and thus opened the crack. The fox, listening at the crack, heard the voice lamenting the long years that had pa.s.sed, the darkness and the dreary time, and imploring every species of vengeance upon the head of the cruel King Kapchack.

After a while the fox came to the conclusion that this must be the toad who, very many years ago, for some offence committed against the state, was imprisoned by Kapchack's orders in the b.u.t.t of an elm, there to remain till the end of the world. Curious to know why the toad had been punished in this terrible manner, the fox resolved to speak to the prisoner, from whom perhaps he might learn something to Kapchack's disadvantage. Waiting, therefore, till the crack opened as the gust came, the fox spoke into it, and the toad, only too delighted to get some one to talk to at last, replied directly.

But the c.h.i.n.k was so small that his voice was scarcely audible; the c.h.i.n.k, too, only opened for a second or two during the savage puffs of the gale, and then closed again, so that connected conversation was not possible, and all the fox heard was that the toad had some very important things to say. Anxious to learn these things, the fox tried his hardest to discover some way of communicating with the toad, and at last he hit upon a plan. He looked round till he found a little bit of flint, which he picked up, and when the elm bent over before the gale, and the c.h.i.n.k opened, he pushed the splinter of flint into the crevice.

Then he found another piece of flint just a trifle larger, and, watching his opportunity, thrust it in. This he did three or four times, each time putting in a larger wedge, till there was a crack sufficiently open to allow him to talk to the toad easily. The toad said that this was the first time he had spoken to anybody since his grandson, who lived in the rhubarb patch, came to exchange a word with him before the b.u.t.t of the tree grew quite round him.

But though the fox plied him with questions, and persuaded him in every way, he would not reveal the reason why he was imprisoned, except that he had unluckily seen Kapchack do something. He dared not say what it was, because if he did he had no doubt he would be immediately put to death, and although life in the tree was no more than a living death, still it was life, and he had this consolation, that through being debarred from all exercise and work, and compelled to exist without eating or drinking, notwithstanding the time pa.s.sed and the years went by, still he did not grow any older. He was as young now as when he was first put into the dungeon, and if he could once get out, he felt that he should soon recover the use of his limbs, and should crawl about and enjoy himself when his grandson who lived in the rhubarb patch, and who was already very old and warty, was dead.

Indeed by being thus shut up he should survive every other toad, and he hoped some day to get out, because although he had been condemned to imprisonment till the end of the world, that was only Kapchack's vainglorious way of p.r.o.nouncing sentence, as if his (Kapchack's) authority was going to endure for ever, which was quite contrary to history and the teachings of philosophy. So far from that he did not believe himself that Kapchack's dynasty was fated to endure very long, for since he had been a prisoner immured in the earth, he had heard many strange things whispered along underground, and among them a saying about Kapchack. Besides which he knew that the elm-tree could not exist for ever; already there was a crack in it, which in time would split farther up; the elm had reached its prime, and was beginning to decay within. By-and-by it would be blown over, and then the farmer would have the b.u.t.t grubbed up, and split for firewood, and he should escape. It was true it might be many years hence, perhaps a century, but that did not matter in the least--time was nothing to him now--and he knew he should emerge as young as when he went in.

This was the reason why he so carefully kept the secret of what he had seen, so as to preserve his life; nor could the fox by any persuasion prevail upon him to disclose the matter.

"But at least," said the fox, "at least tell me the saying you have heard underground about King Kapchack."

"I am afraid to do so," said the toad; "for having already suffered so much I dread the infliction of further misery."

"If you will tell me," said the fox, "I will do my very best to get you out. I will keep putting in wedges till the tree splits wide open, so that you may crawl up the c.h.i.n.k."

"Will you," said the toad, excited at the hope of liberty, "will you really do that?"

"Yes, that I will," said the fox; "wait an instant, and I will fetch another flint."

So he brought another flint which split the tree so much that the toad felt the fresh air come down to him. "And you really will do it?" he said.

"Yes," repeated the fox, "I will certainly let you out."

"Then," said the toad, "the saying I have heard underground is this: 'When the hare hunts the hunter in the dead day, the hours of King Kapchack are numbered'. It is a curious and a difficult saying, for I cannot myself understand how the day could be dead, nor how the hare could chase the sportsman; but you, who have so high a reputation for sagacity, can no doubt in time interpret it. Now put in some more wedges and help me out."

But the fox, having learnt all that the toad could tell him, went away, and finding the osiers, curled himself up to sleep.

The same night, the weasel, having had a very pleasant nap upon his divan in the elm in the squirrel's copse, woke up soon after midnight, and started for the farm, in order to enjoy the pleasure of seeing the rat in the gin, which he had instructed Bevis how to set up. Had it not been for this he would not have faced so terrible a tempest, but to see the rat in torture he would have gone through anything. As he crept along a furrow, not far outside the copse, choosing that route that he might be somewhat sheltered in the hollow from the wind, he saw a wire which a poacher had set up, and stayed to consider how he could turn it to his advantage.

"There is Ulu, the hare," he said to himself, "who lives in the wheat-field; I had her son, he was very sweet and tender, and also her nephew, who was not so juicy, and I have noticed that she has got very plump of late. She is up on the hill to-night I have no doubt, notwithstanding the tempest, dancing and flirting with her disreputable companions, for vice has such an attraction for some minds that they cannot forego its pleasures, even at the utmost personal inconvenience.

Such revels, at such a time of tempest, while the wrath of heaven is wreaked upon the trees, are nothing short of sacrilege, and I for one have always set my mind against irreverence. I shall do the world a service if I rid it of such an abandoned creature." So he called to a moor-hen, who was flying over from the Long Pond at a tremendous pace, being carried before the wind, and the moor-hen, not without a great deal of trouble, managed to wheel round (she was never very clever with her wings) to receive his commands, for she did not dare to pa.s.s over or slight so high a personage.

"Moor-hen," said the weasel, "do you go direct to the hills and find Ulu, the hare, and tell her that little Sir Bevis, of whom she is so fond, is lost in the copse, and that he is crying bitterly because of the darkness and the wind, and what will become of him I do not know. I have done my very best to show him the way home, but he cherishes an unfortunate prejudice against me, and will not listen to what I say.

Therefore if the hare does not come immediately and show him the way I greatly fear that he will be knocked down by the branches, or cry his dear pretty darling heart out; and tell her that he is at this minute close to the birches. Go quickly, Moor-hen."

"I will, my lord," said the moor-hen, and away she flew.

Then the weasel proceeded on his way, and shortly afterwards arrived at the farm. As he came quietly down from the rick-yard, he said to himself: "I will keep a good way from the wall, as it is so dark, and I do not know the exact place where Bevis has put the trap. Besides, it is just possible that the rat may not yet have pa.s.sed that way, for he does most of his business in the early morning, and it is not yet dawn."

So he crossed over to the wood-pile and listened carefully, but could hear no groans, as he had expected; but, on consideration, he put this down to the wind, which he observed blew the sound away from him. He then slipped over to the gra.s.s by the cart-house wall, intending to listen at the mouth of the drain to hear if the rat was within, and then if that was not the case, to go on along towards the wall of the pig-sty, for he began to think the rat must have been stunned by the trap, and so could not squeak.

If that was the case, he thought he would just bite off the end of the rat's tail, in revenge for the terrible meal he had once been obliged to make upon his own, and also to wake up the rat to the misery of his position. But just as he approached the mouth of the drain, sniffing and listening with the utmost caution, it happened that a drop of rain fell through a c.h.i.n.k in the top of Pan's tub, and woke him from his slumber.

Pan shook himself and turned round, and the weasel, hearing the disturbance, dreaded lest Pan was loose, and had caught scent of him. He darted forwards to get into the drain, when the trap, which the bailiff had so carefully removed from where Bevis had set it, snapped him up in a second. The shock and the pain made him faint; he turned over and lay still.

About the same time the moor-hen, borne swiftly along by the wind on her way to the river, reached the hills, and seeing the hare, flew low down and delivered the weasel's message as well as she could. The hare was dreadfully alarmed about Sir Bevis, and anxious to relieve him from his fright in the dark copse, raced down the hill, and over the fields as fast as she could go, making towards that part of the copse where the birches stood, as the weasel had directed, knowing that in running there she would find her neck in a noose.

It happened just as he had foreseen. She came along as fast as the wind, and could already see the copse like a thicker darkness before her, when the loop of the wire drew up around her neck, and over she rolled in the furrow.

Now the weasel had hoped that the wire would not hang her at once. He intended to have come back from the farm, and from taunting the rat in the trap, in time to put his teeth into her veins, before, in her convulsive efforts to get free, she tightened the noose and died.

And this, too, happened exactly as the weasel had intended, but in a different manner, and with a different result; for it had chanced that the wind, in the course of its ravages among the trees, snapped off a twig of ash, which rolling over and over before the blast along the sward, came against the stick which upheld the wire, and the end of the twig where it had broken from the tree lodged in the loop. Thus, when Ulu kicked, and struggled, and screamed, in her fear, the noose indeed drew up tight and half-strangled her, but not quite, because the little piece of wood prevented it. But, exhausted with pain and terror, and partially choked, the poor hare at last could do nothing else but crouch down in the furrow, where the rain fell on and soaked her warm coat of fur. For as the dawn came on the wind sank, and the rain fell.