Wood Magic: A Fable

by Richard Jefferies

"All right, horrid wretch," said Bevis, and away he went. Now all this that the weasel had said really was true, except about the cake; it was true that the rat was very careful going through the grass, and that he knew where the bailiff set the gin, and that he used to run very quickly across the exposed place under the wall of the pig-sty. But the story about the cake he had made up out of his cunning head just to set Bevis at work to put up the trap; and he hoped too, that while Bevis was setting up the gin, the spring would slip and pinch his fingers.

By thus catching the rat, the weasel meant in the first place to gratify his own personal malice, and next to get rid of a very formidable competitor. For the rat was very large and very strong, and brave and bold beyond all the others; so much so that the weasel would even have preferred to have a struggle with the fox (though he was so much bigger), whose nostril he could bite, than to meet the rat in fair and equal combat. Besides, he hated the rat beyond measure, because the rat had helped him out of the drain, which was when his ear was bitten through. He intended to go down to the farmyard very early next morning when the rat was caught, and to go as near as he dared and taunt the rat, and tell him how Pan would presently come and crunch up his ribs. To see the rat twist, and hear him groan, would be rare sport; it made his eyes glisten to think of it. He was very desirous that Bevis should find his way home all right, so he at once sent a wasp for the dragon-fly, and the dragon-fly at once started after Bevis.

Just after the weasel had sent the wasp, the humble-bee returned from Choo Hoo, and delivered the emperor's message, which the weasel saw at once was intended to encourage him in his proposed treachery. He thanked the humble-bee for the care and speed with which his errand had been accomplished, and then curled himself up on his divan to go to sleep, so as to be ready to go down early in the morning and torment the rat. As he was very happy since his schemes were prospering, he went to sleep in a minute as comfortable as could be.

Bevis crept through the thicket, and turned to the left, and went down the hill, and found the timber, and then went along the green track till he came to the stile. He got over the bridge and followed the footpath, when the dragon-fly overtook him and apologised most sincerely for his neglect. "For," said he, "we are so busy making ready for the army, and I have had so much to do going to and fro with messages, that, my dear Sir Bevis, you must forgive me for forgetting you. Next time I will send a moth to stay close by you, so that the moment you want me the moth can go and fetch me."

"I will forgive you just this once," said Bevis; and the dragon-fly took him all the way home. After tea Bevis went and found the gin, and tried to set it up under the pig-sty wall, just as the weasel had told him; but at first he could not quite manage it, being as usual in such a hurry.

Now there was a snail on the wall, and the snail looked out of his shell and said: "Sir Bevis, do not be too quick. Believe me, if you are too quick to-day you are sure to be sorry to-morrow."

"You are a stupid snail," said Bevis. Just then, as the weasel had hoped, he pinched his fingers with the spring so hard that tears almost came into his eyes.

"That was your fault," he said to the snail; and snatching the poor thing off the wall, he flung him ever so far; fortunately the snail fell on the grass, and was not hurt, but he said to himself that in future, no matter what he saw going on, he would never interfere, but let people hurt themselves as much as they liked. But Bevis, though he was so hasty, was also very persevering, and presently he succeeded in setting up the trap, and then taking his spade he spread the dust over it and so hid it as the weasel had told him to. He then went and put his spade back in the summer-house, and having told Pan that in the morning there would be a fine big rat for him to worry, went indoors.

Now it is most probable that what the weasel had arranged so well would all have happened just as he foresaw, and that the trap so cleverly set up would have caught the rat, had not the bailiff, when he came home from the fields, chanced to see Bevis doing it. He had to attend to something else then, but by-and-by, when he had finished, he went and looked at the place where Bevis had set the gin, and said to himself: "Well, it is a very good plan to set up the gin, for the rat is always taking the pigs' food, and even had a gnaw at my luncheon, which was tied up in my handkerchief, and which I—like a stupid—left on the ground in my hurry instead of hanging up. But it is a pity Sir Bevis should have set it here, for there is no grass or cover, and the rat is certain to see it, and Bevis will be disappointed in the morning, and will not find the rat. Now I will just move the gin to a place where the rat always comes, and where it will be hidden by the grass, that is, just at the mouth of the drain by the cart-house; it will catch the rat there, and Sir Bevis will be pleased."

So the bailiff, having thought this to himself, as he leant against the wall, and listened to the pigs snoring, carefully took up the gin and moved it down to the mouth of the drain by the cart-house, and there set it up in the grass.