Wood Magic: A Fable

by Richard Jefferies

"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 grass, 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.