"But you tried to kill him once before, did you not?" said the thrush.
"You hold your tongue, this minute, you impudent thrush," said Bevis, in a great rage; and he took his cannon-stick off his shoulder, and looked so black that the thrush, alarmed for his safety, took advantage of a hedge being near, and slipped through it in a second.
"I'm very glad you're gone," said Bevis, calling after him, "but I'll shoot you next time I see you for leaving me without permission."
"And that will just serve him right," said a blackbird, as he hastened by, "for the thrush is the greediest bird in the world, and is always poaching about the places that belong to me."
Bevis was now very near the copse, and had not the least difficulty in finding the little bridge over the ditch, but he stopped before he crossed it, to listen to the noise there was inside among the trees. Whenever he had come before in the afternoon it was always so quiet, but now there was a perfect uproar of talking. Hundreds of starlings were chattering in the fir-trees, and flying round the branches with incessant motion. In the thick hedge which enclosed it there were crowds of greenfinches, goldfinches, chaffinches, yellow-hammers, and sparrows, who never ceased talking. Up in the elms there were a number of rooks, who were deliberating in a solemn manner; it was indeed the rook council who had met there to consider as the safest place, the very council that Ah Kurroo so much disliked. Two or three dozen wood-pigeons cowered on the lower branches of some ashes; they were the aliens who dwelt in Kapchack's kingdom. Rabbits were rushing about in all directions; dragon-flies darting up and down with messages; humble-bees droning at every corner; the woodpecker yelled out his views in the midst of the wood; everything was in confusion.
As Bevis walked into the copse along the green track, with the tall thistles and the fern on each side of him, he caught little bits here and there of what they were saying; it was always the same, who was going to be king, and what would Choo Hoo do? How long would it be before the emperor's army could be got together again to come sweeping back and exact a dire vengeance for its defeat? Where was the weasel? What was the last atrocity Ki Ki had committed? Had anybody heard anything more of Kauc, the crow? Had Prince Tchack-tchack arrived? Had the rooks made up their mind?—and so on, till Bevis shook his head and held his hands to his ears, so tremendous was the din.
Just then he saw his own dragon-fly and beckoned to him; the dragon-fly came at once. "What is all this?" began Bevis.
"My dear, how are you?" interrupted the dragon-fly. "I am so busy," and off he went again.
"Well I never!" said Bevis, getting excited like the rest, when the hare came across the path and stopped to speak to him. "What is going on?" said Bevis.
"That is just what I want to know," said the hare. "Everybody says that somebody is going to do something, but what it is they do not themselves know. There never was such a confusion, and, for aught we know, Choo Hoo may be here any minute, and there's not a single regiment in position."