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.
"It is no use your asking the brook why they come, because even if he ever knew, he has forgotten. For the brook, though he sparkles so bright in the sun, and is so clear and sweet, and looks so young, is really so very, very old that he has quite lost his memory, and cannot remember what was done yesterday. He did not even know which way the moor-hen went just now, when I inquired, having a message to send to my relations by the osier-bed yonder.
"But I have heard the heron say—he is talkative sometimes at night when you are asleep, dear; he was down here this morning paddling about—that the birds in the beginning learnt to sing by listening to the brook, and perhaps that is the reason they pay him such deep respect. Besides, everybody knows that according to an ancient prophecy which was delivered by the raven before he left this country, if only the birds can all bathe in the brook on Midsummer Day and hold their tongues, and not abuse one another or quarrel, they will be able to compose their differences, and ever afterwards live happily together.
"Then they could drive away the hawk, for there is only one hawk to ten thousand finches, and if they only marched shoulder to shoulder all together they could kill him with ease. They could smother the cat even, by all coming down at once upon her, or they could carry up a stone and drop on her head; and as for the crow, that old coward, if he saw them coming he would take wing at once. But as they cannot agree, the hawk, and the cat, and the crow do as they like. For the chaffinches all fight one another, you heard them challenging, and saw them go to battle, and then when at last they leave off and are good fellows again, they all flock together and will have nothing to do with the goldfinches, or the blackbirds. It is true the wood-pigeons, and the rooks, and the starlings, and the fieldfares and redwings are often about in the same field, but that is only because they eat the same things; if a hawk comes they all fly away from each other, and do not unite and fight him as they might do.
"But if once they could come down to the brook on Midsummer Day, and never quarrel, then, according to the prophecy I told you of, all this diversity would cease, and they would be able to do just as they pleased, and build three or four nests in the summer instead of one, and drive away and kill all the hawks, and crows, and cats. They tried to do it, I can't tell you how many years, but they could never succeed, for there was always a dispute about something, so at last they gave it up, and it was almost forgotten (for they came to the conclusion that it was no use to try), till last year, when the mole, the one that spoke to the grasshopper just now, reminded them of it.