The very same morning, after the rain had ceased, the keeper who looked after the great woods at the other end of the Long Pond set out with his gun and his dogs to walk round the preserves. Now the dogs he took with him were the very best dogs he had, for that night a young gentleman, who had just succeeded to the estate, was coming down from London, and on the following morning would be sure to go out shooting. This young gentleman had unexpectedly come into the property through the death of the owner, who was shot in his bedroom by a burglar. The robber had once been his groom, and the squirrel told Bevis how it all happened through a flint falling out of the hole in the bottom of the waggon which belonged to the old farmer in whose orchard Kapchack had his palace.
The heir had been kept at a distance during the old gentleman's lifetime, for the old gentleman always meant to marry and have a son, but did not do so, and also always meant to make a will and leave the best part of his estate to somebody else, but he did not do so, and as the old toad in the rhubarb patch told Bevis afterwards when he heard the story, if you are only going to do a thing, it would be no use if you lived a thousand years, it would always be just the same. So the young fellow, who had been poor all his life, when he thus suddenly jumped into such a property, was not a little elated, and wrote to the keeper that he should come down and have some shooting.
The keeper was rather alarmed at this, for the former owner was not a sporting man, and did not look strictly after such things, so that the game had been neglected and had got scarce; and what was worse, the dogs were out of training. He therefore got up early that morning, intending to go his rounds quickly, and then take the dogs out into the stubble, and try and thrash them into some use. Presently, as he walked along, he came to the glade in the woods, and saw the dead hawk hanging from the trap up in the old oak-tree. Pleased to find that his trap, so cunningly placed, had not been prepared in vain, he went up to the oak, leaned his gun against the trunk, ordered the dogs to lie down (which they did with some reluctance), and then climbed up into the tree to re-set the gin.
He took the hawk from the trap (his feathers were all draggled and wet from the rain), and threw the dead bird down; and, whether it was that the act of throwing it caused an extra strain upon the bough, or whether the storm had cracked it in the night, or whether it had rotted away more than appeared on the surface, or whether it was all of these things together, certain it is the bough broke, and down came the keeper thud on the sward. The bough fell down with him, and as it fell it struck the gun, and the gun exploded, and although the dogs scampered aside when they heard the crack, they did not scamper so quick but one of them was shot dead, and the other two were mortally wounded.
For a while the keeper lay there stunned, with the wet grass against his face. But by-and-by, coming to himself, he sat up with difficulty, and called for assistance, for he could not move, having sprained one ankle, and broken the small bone of the other leg. There he sat and shouted, but no one came for some time, till presently a slouching labourer (it was the very same who put up the wire by the copse in which the hare was caught) chanced to pass by outside the wood. The keeper saw him, but hoarse with shouting, and feeling faint too (for a sprained ankle is extremely painful), he could not make him hear. But he bethought him of his gun, and dragging it to him, hastily put in a cartridge and fired.
The report drew the labourer's attention, and peering into the wood, he saw some one on the ground waving a white handkerchief. After looking a long time, he made up his mind to go and see what it was; but then he recollected that if he put his foot inside the wood he should be trespassing, and as he had got a wire in his pocket that would be a serious matter. So he altered his mind, and went on.
Very likely the keeper was angry, but there was no one to hear what he said except the dead hawk. He would have fired off fifty cartridges if he had had them, but as he did not like a weight to carry he had only two or three, and these did not attract attention. As for the labourer, about midday, when he sat down to lunch in the cart-house at the farm where he worked with the other men, he did just mention that he thought he had seen something white waving in the wood, and they said it was odd, but very likely nothing to speak of.
One of the wounded dogs ran home, bleeding all the way, and there crept into his kennel and died; the other could not get so far, but dropped in a hedge. The keeper's wife wondered why he did not come home to dinner, but supposed, with a sigh, that he had looked in at an alehouse, and went on with her work.
The keeper shouted again when his throat got less hoarse, but all the answer he obtained was the echo from the wood. He tried to crawl, but the pain was so exquisite he got but a very little way, and there he had to lie. The sun rose higher and shone out as the clouds rolled away, and the rain-drops on the grass glistened bright till presently they dried up.
With the gleaming of the sun there was motion in the woods: blackbirds came forth and crossed the glades; thrushes flew past; a jay fluttered round the tops of the firs; after a while a pheasant came along the verge of the underwood, now stepping out into the grass, and now back again into the bushes. There was a pleasant cawing of rooks, and several small parties of wood-pigeons (doubtless from Choo Hoo's camp) went over. Two or three rabbits hopped out and fed; humble-bees went buzzing by; a green woodpecker flashed across the glade and disappeared among the trees as if an arrow had been shot into the woods.
The slow hours went on, and as the sun grew hotter the keeper, unable to move, began to suffer from the fierceness of the rays, for anything still finds out the heat more than that which is in movement. First he lifted his hat from time to time above his head, but it was not much relief, as the wind had fallen. Next he tried placing his handkerchief inside his hat. At last he took off his coat, stuck the barrels of his gun into the ground (soft from the rain), and hung the coat upon it. This gave him a little shadow. The dead oak-tree having no leaves cast but a narrow shade, and that fell on the opposite side to where he was.
In the afternoon, when the heat was very great and all the other birds appeared to have gone, a crow came (one of Kauc's retainers) and perched low down on an ash-tree not more than fifty yards away. Perhaps it was the dead dog; perhaps it was the knowledge that the man was helpless, that brought him. There he perched, and the keeper reviled him, wishing that he had but saved one of his cartridges, and forgetting that even then the barrels of his gun were too full of earth. After a while the crow flew idly across to the other side of the glade, and went out of sight; but it was only for a short time, and presently he came back again. This the crow did several times, always returning to the ash.
The keeper ran over in his mind the people who would probably miss him, and cause a search to be made. First there was his wife; but once, when he had been a long time from home, and she in a great alarm had sought for him, she found him drunk at the alehouse, and he beat her for her trouble. It was not likely that she would come. The lad who acted as his assistant (he had but one, for, as previously stated, the former owner did not shoot) was not likely to look for him either, for not long since, bringing a message to his superior, he discovered him selling some game, and was knocked down for his pains. As for his companions at the alehouse, they would be all out in the fields, and would not assemble till night: several of them he knew were poachers, and though glad enough to share his beer would not have looked towards him if in distress.
The slow hours wore on, and the sun declining a little, the shadow of the dead oak moved round, and together with his coat sheltered him fairly well. Weary with the unwonted labour of thinking, the tension of his mind began to yield, and by-and-by he dropped asleep, lying at full length upon his back. The crow returned once more to the ash, and looked at the sleeping man and the dead dog, cleaned his beak against the bough, and uttered a low croak. Once he flew a little way out towards them, but there was the gun: it was true he knew very well there was no powder (for, in the first place, he could not smell any, and, secondly, if there had been any he knew he should have had the shot singing about his ears long before this; you see, he could put two and two together), still there was the gun. The dog does not like the corner where the walking-stick stands. The crow did not like the gun, though it was stuck in the ground: he went back to the ash, cleaned his bill, and waited.
Something came stealthily through the grass, now stopping, now advancing with a creeping, evil motion. It was the weasel. When he stole away from the wood-pile, after escaping from the trap, he made up the field towards the copse, but upon reflection he determined to abandon his lair in the hollow elm, for he had so abused Bevis's good-nature that he doubted whether Bevis might not attack him even there despite the squirrel. He did not know exactly where to go, knowing that every creature was in secret his enemy, and in his wounded state, unable to move quickly or properly defend himself, he dreaded to trust himself near them. After a while he remembered the old dead oak, which was also hollow within, and which was so far from the copse it was not probable Bevis would find it.
Thither he bent his painful steps, for his broken rib hurt him very much, and after many pauses to rest, presently, in the afternoon, he came near. Lifting his head above the grass he saw the dead dog, and the sleeping keeper; he watched them a long time, and seeing that neither of them moved he advanced closer. As he approached he saw the dead hawk, and recognised one of Ki Ki's retainers; then coming to the dog, the blood from the shot wounds excited his terrible thirst. But it had ceased to flow; he sniffed at it and then went towards the man.
The crow, envious, but afraid to join the venture, watched him from the ash. Every few inches the weasel stayed, lifted his head; looked, and listened. Then he advanced again, paused, and again approached. In five minutes he had reached the keeper's feet; two minutes more and he was by his waist. He listened again; he sniffed, he knew it was dangerous, but he could not check the resistless prompting of his appetite.
He crept up on the keeper's chest; the crow fidgeted on the ash. He crept up to the necktie; the crow came down on a lower bough. He moved yet another inch to the collar; the crow flew out ten yards and settled on the ground. The collar was stiff, and partly covered that part of the neck which fascinated the weasel's gaze. He put his foot softly on the collar; the crow hopped thrice towards them. He brought up his other foot, he sniffed—the breath came warm from the man's half-open lips—he adventured the risk, and placed his paw on the keeper's neck.
Instantly—as if he had received an electric shock—the keeper started to his knees, shuddering; the weasel dropped from his neck upon the ground, the crow hastened back to the ash. With a blow of his open hand the keeper knocked the weasel yards away; then, in his rage and fear, with whitened face, he wished instead he had beaten the creature down upon the earth, for the weasel, despite the grinding of his broken rib, began to crawl off, and he could not reach him.
He looked round for a stick or stone, there was none; he put his hand in his pocket, but his knife had slipped out when he fell from the tree. He passed his hands over his waistcoat seeking for something, felt his watch—a heavy silver one—and in his fury snatched it from the swivel, and hurled it at the weasel. The watch thrown with such force missed the weasel, struck the sward, and bounded up against the oak: the glass shivered and flew sparkling a second in the sunshine; the watch glanced aside, and dropped in the grass. When he looked again the weasel had gone. It was an hour before the keeper recovered himself—the shuddering terror with which he woke up haunted him in the broad daylight.
An intolerable thirst now tormented him, but the furrow was dry. In the morning, he remembered it had contained a little water from the rain, which during the day had sunk into the earth. He picked a bennet from the grass and bit it, but it was sapless, dried by the summer heat. He looked for a leaf of sorrel, but there was none. The slow hours wore on; the sun sank below the wood, and the long shadows stretched out. By-and-by the grass became cooler to the touch; dew was forming upon it. Overhead the rooks streamed homewards to their roosting trees. They cawed incessantly as they flew; they were talking about Kapchack and Choo Hoo, but he did not understand them.
The shadows reached across the glade, and yonder the rabbits appeared again from among the bushes where their burrows were. He began now to seriously think that he should have to pass the night there. His ankle was swollen, and the pain almost beyond endurance. The slightest attempt at motion caused intense agony. His one hope now was that the same slouching labourer who had passed in the morning would go back that way at night; but as the shadows deepened that hope departed, and he doubted too whether any one could see him through the underwood in the dark. The slouching labourer purposely avoided that route home. He did not want to see anything, if anything there was.
He went round by the high road, and having had his supper, and given his wife a clout in the head, he sauntered down to the alehouse. After he had taken three quarts of beer, he mentioned the curious incident of the white handkerchief in the woods to his mates, who congratulated him on his sense in refraining from going near it, as most likely it was one of that keeper's tricks, just to get somebody into the wood. More talk, and more beer. By-and-by the keeper's wife began to feel alarmed. She had already found the dead dog in the kennel; but that did not surprise her in the least, knowing her husband's temper, and that if a dog disobeyed it was not at all unusual for a cartridge to go whistling after him.
But when the evening came, and the darkness fell; when she had gone down to the alehouse, braving his wrath, and found that he was not there, the woman began to get hysterical. The lad who acted as assistant had gone home, so she went out into the nearest stubble herself, thinking that her husband must have finished his round before lunch, and was somewhere in the newly-reaped fields. But after walking about the rustling stubble till she was weary, she came back to the alehouse, and begged the men to tell her if they had seen anything of him. Then they told her about the white handkerchief which the slouching poacher had seen in the wood that morning. She turned on him like a tiger, and fiercely upbraided him; then rushed from the house. The sloucher took up his quart, and said that he saw "no call" to hurry.
But some of the men went after the wife. The keeper was found, and brought home on a cart, but not before he had seen the owl go by, and the dark speck of the bat passing to and fro overhead.
All that day Bevis did not go to the copse, being much upset with the cheat the weasel had played him, and also because they said the grass and the hedges would be so wet after the storm. Nor did anything take place in the copse, for King Kapchack moped in his fortress, the orchard, the whole day long, so greatly was he depressed by the widespread treason of which the owl had informed him.
Choo Hoo, thinking that the treaty was concluded, relaxed the strictness of discipline, and permitted his army to spread abroad from the camp and forage for themselves. He expected the return of the ambassador with further communications, and ordered search to be made for every dainty for his entertainment; while the thrush, for whom this care was taken, had not only ceased to exist, but it would have been impossible to collect his feathers, blown away to every quarter.
The vast horde of barbarians were the more pleased with the liberty accorded to them, because they had spent so ill a night while the gale raged through their camp. So soon as the sun began to gleam through the retreating clouds, they went forth in small parties, many of which the keeper saw go over him while lying helpless by the dead oak-tree.
King Kapchack, after the owl had informed him of the bewildering maze of treason with which he was surrounded, moped, as has been said before, upon his perch. In the morning, wet and draggled from the storm, his feathers out of place, and without the spirit to arrange them, he seemed to have grown twenty years older in one night, so pitiable did he appear. Nor did the glowing sun, which filled all other hearts with joy, reach his gloomy soul. He saw no resource; no enterprise suggested itself to him; all was dark at noonday.
An ominous accident which had befallen the aged apple-tree in which his palace stood contributed to this depression of mind. The gale had cracked a very largebough, which, having shown signs of weakness, had for many years been supported by a prop carefully put up by the farmer. But whether the prop in course of time had decayed at the line where the air and earth exercise their corroding influence upon wood; or whether the bough had stiffened with age, and could not swing easily to the wind; or whether, as seems most likely, the event occurred at that juncture in order to indicate the course of fate, it is certain that the huge bough was torn partly away from the trunk, leaving a gaping cavity.
Kapchack viewed the injury to the tree, which had so long sustained his family and fortune, with the utmost concern; it seemed an omen of approaching destruction so plain and unmistakable that he could not look at it; he turned his mournful gaze in the opposite direction. The day passed slowly, as slowly as it did to the keeper lying beneath the oak, and the king, though he would have resented intrusion with the sharpest language, noticed with an increasing sense of wrong that the court was deserted, and with one exception none called to pay their respects.
The exception was Eric, the favourite missel-thrush, who alone of all the birds was allowed to frequent the same orchard. The missel-thrush, loyal to the last, came, but seeing Kapchack's condition, did not endeavour to enter into conversation. As for the rest, they did not venture from fear of the king's violent temper, and because their unquiet consciences made them suspect that this unusual depression was caused by the discovery of their treachery. They remained away from dread of his anger. Kapchack, on the other hand, put their absence down to the mean and contemptible desire to avoid a falling house. He observed that even the little Te-te, the tomtit, and chief of the secret police, who invariably came twice or thrice a day with an account of some gossip he had overheard, did not arrive. How low he must have fallen, since the common informers disdained to associate with him!
Towards the evening he sent for his son, Prince Tchack-tchack, with the intention of abdicating in his favour, but what were his feelings when the messenger returned without him! Tchack-tchack refused to come. He, too, had turned away. Thus, deserted by the lovely La Schach, for whom he had risked his throne; deserted by the whole court and even by his own son; the monarch welcomed the darkness of the night, the second of his misery, which hid his disgrace from the world.
The owl came, faithful by night as the missel-thrush by day, but Kapchack, in the deepest despondency, could not reply to his remarks. Twice the owl came back, hoping to find his master somewhat more open to consolation, and twice had to depart unsuccessful. At last, about midnight, the king, worn out with grief, fell asleep.
Now the same evening the hare, who was upon the hills as usual, as she came by a barn overheard some bats who lived there conversing about the news which they had learnt from their relations who resided in the woods of the vale. This was nothing less than the revelations the dying hawk had made of the treacherous designs of Ki Ki and the weasel, which, as the owl had suspected, had been partly overheard by the bats. The hare, in other circumstances, would have rejoiced at the overthrow of King Kapchack, who was no favourite with her race, for he had, once or twice, out of wanton cruelty, pecked weakly leverets to death, just to try the temper of his bill. But she dreaded lest if he were thrust down the weasel should seize the sovereignty, the weasel, who had already done her so much injury, and was capable of ruining not only herself but her whole nation if once he got the supreme power.
Not knowing what to do herself for the best, away she went down the valley and over the steep ridges in search of a very old hare, quite hoar with age—an astrologer of great reputation in those parts. For the hares have always been good star-gazers, and the whole race of them, one and all, are not without skill in the mystic sciences, while some are highly charged with knowledge of futurity, and have decided the fate of mighty battles by the mere direction in which they scampered. The old hare no sooner heard her information than he proceeded to consult the stars, which shone with exceeding brilliance that night, as they often do when the air has been cleared by a storm, and finding, upon taking accurate observations, that the house of Jupiter was threatened by the approach of Saturn to the meridian, he had no difficulty in pronouncing the present time as full of danger and big with fate.
The planets were clearly in combination against King Kapchack, who must, if he desired to avoid extinction, avoid all risks, and hide his head, as it were, in a corner till the aspect of the heavens changed. Above all things let him not make war or go forth himself into the combat; let him conclude peace, or at least enter into a truce, no matter at what loss of dignity, or how much territory he had to concede to conciliate Choo Hoo. His person was threatened, the knife was pointed at his heart; could he but wait a while, and tide as it were over the shallows, he might yet resume the full sway of power; but if he exposed his life at this crisis the whole fabric of his kingdom might crumble beneath his feet.
Having thus spoken, the hoary astrologer went off in the direction of Stonehenge, whose stones formed his astrolabe, and the hare, much excited with the communication she had received (confirmed as it was too by the facts of the case), resolved to at once warn the monarch of his danger. Calling a beetle, she charged him with a message to the king: That he should listen to the voice of the stars, and conclude peace at no matter what cost, or at least a truce, submitting to be deprived of territory or treasure to any amount or extent, and that above all things he should not venture forth personally to the combat. If he hearkened he would yet reign; if he closed his ears the evil influence which then threatened him must have its way. Strictly enjoining the beetle to make haste, and turn neither to the right nor the left, but to speed straight away for the palace, she dismissed him.
The beetle, much pleased to be employed upon so important a business, opened his wing-cases, began to hum, and increasing his pace as he went, flew off at his utmost velocity. He passed safely over the hills, descended into the valley, sped across the fields and woods, and in an incredibly short space of time approached the goal of his journey. The wall of the orchard was in sight, he began to repeat his message to himself, so as to be sure and not miss a word of it, when going at this tremendous pace, and as usual, without looking in front, but blundering onwards, he flew with his whole force against a post. His body, crushed by the impetus of its own weight, rebounded with a snap, and he fell disabled and insensible to the earth.
The next morning Bevis's papa looking at the almanac found there was going to be an eclipse of the sun, so Bevis took a piece of glass (part of one of the many window panes he had broken) and smoked it over a candle, so as to be able to watch the phenomenon without injury to his eyes. When the obscuration began too, the dairy-maid brought him a bucket of clear water in which the sun was reflected and could be distinctly seen. But before the eclipse had proceeded beyond the mere edge of the sun, Bevis heard the champing of a bit, and the impatient pawing of hoofs, and running up to the stable to see who it was, found that his papa was just on the point of driving over in the dog-cart to see another farmer (the very old gentleman in whose orchard Kapchack's palace was situated) about a load of straw.
Bevis of course insisted upon going too, the smoked glass was thrown aside, he clambered up and held the reins, and away they went, the eclipse now counting for nothing. After a while, however, as they went swiftly along the road, they came to a hill, and from the summit saw a long way off a vast shadow like that cast by some immense cloud which came towards them over the earth, and in a second or two arrived, and as it were put out the light. They looked up and the sun was almost gone. In its place was a dark body, with a rim of light round it, and flames shooting forth.
As they came slowly down the hill a pheasant crowed as he flew up to roost, the little birds retired to the thickets, and at the farmyards they passed the fowls went up to their perches. Presently they left the highway and drove along a lane across the fields, which had once been divided from each other by gates. Of these there was nothing now standing but the posts, some of which could hardly be said to stand, but declining from the perpendicular, were only kept from falling by the bushes. The lane was so rough and so bad from want of mending that they could only walk the impatient horse, and at times the jolting was extremely unpleasant.
Sometimes they had to stoop down in the trap to pass under the drooping boughs of elms and other trees, which not having been cut for years, hung over and almost blocked the track. From the hedges the brambles and briars extended out into the road, so that the wheels of the dog-cart brushed them, and they would evidently have entirely shut up the way had not waggons occasionally gone through and crushed their runners. The meadows on either hand were brown with grass that had not been mown, though the time for mowing had long since gone by, while the pastures were thick with rushes and thistles. Though so extensive there were only two or three cows in them, and these old and poor, and as it were broken-down. No horses were visible, nor any men at work.
There were other fields which had once grown wheat, but were now so choked with weeds as to be nothing but a wilderness. As they approached the farmhouse where the old gentleman dwelt, the signs of desolation became more numerous. There were walls that had fallen, and never been repaired, around whose ruins the nettles flourished. There were holes in the roofs of the sheds exposing the rafters.
Trees had fallen and lay as they fell, rotting away, and not even cut up for firewood. Railings had decayed till there was nothing left but a few stumps; gates had dropped from their hinges, and nothing of them remained but small bits of rotten board attached to rusty irons. In the garden all was confusion, the thistles rose higher than the gooseberry bushes, and burdocks looked in at the windows. From the wall of the house a pear that had been trained there had fallen away, and hung suspended, swinging with every puff; the boughs, driven against the windows, had broken the panes in the adjacent casement; other panes which had been broken were stuffed up with wisps of hay.
Tiles had slipped from the roof, and the birds went in and out as they listed. The remnants of the tiles lay cracked upon the ground beneath the eaves just as they had fallen. No hand had touched them; the hand of man indeed had touched nothing. Bevis, whose eyes were everywhere, saw all these things in a minute. "Why," said he, "there's the knocker; it has tumbled down." It had dropped from the door as the screws rusted; the door itself was propped up with a log of wood. But one thing only appeared to have been attended to, and that was the wall about the orchard, which showed traces of recent mortar, and the road leading towards it, which had not long since been mended with flints.
Now Bevis, as I say, noting all these things as they came near with his eyes, which, like gimlets, went through everything, was continually asking his papa questions about them, and why everything was in such a state, till at last his papa, overwhelmed with his inquiries, promised to tell him the whole story when they got home. This he did, but while they are now fastening up the horse (for there was no one to help them or mind it), and while Bevis is picking up the rusty knocker, the story may come in here very well:—
Once upon a time, many, many years ago, when the old gentleman was young, and lived with his mother at the farmhouse, it happened that he fell in love. The lady he loved was very young, very beautiful, very proud, very capricious, and very poor. She lived in a house in the village little better than a cottage, with an old woman who was said to be her aunt. As the young farmer was well off, for the land was his own, and he had no one to keep but his old mother, and as the young lady dearly loved him, there seemed no possible obstacle in their way. But it is well known that a brook can never run straight, and thus, though all looked so smooth, there were, in reality, two difficulties.
The first of these was the farmer's old mother, who having been mistress in the farmhouse for very nearly fifty years, did not like, after half-a-century, to give place to a mere girl. She could not refrain from uttering disparaging remarks about her, to which her son, being fond of his mother, could not reply, though it angered him to the heart, and at such times he used to take down his long single-barrelled gun with brass fittings, and go out shooting. More than once the jealous mother had insulted the young lady openly in the village street, which conduct, of course, as things fly from roof to roof with the sparrows, was known all over the place, and caused the lady to toss her head like a filly in spring to show that she did not care for such an old harridan, though in secret it hurt her pride beyond expression.
So great was the difficulty this caused, that the young lady, notwithstanding she was so fond of the handsome young farmer, who rode so well and shot so straight, and could carry her in his arms as if she were no more than a lamb, would never put her dainty foot, which looked so little and pretty even in the rude shoes made for her by the village cobbler, over the threshold of his house. She would never come in, she said, except as a wife, while he on his part, anxious as he was to marry her, could not, from affection for his mother, summon up courage to bring her in, as it were, rough-shod over his mother's feelings.
Their meetings, therefore, as she would not come indoors, were always held in the farmer's orchard, where was a seat in an arbour, a few yards in front of which stood the ancient apple-tree in which Kapchack, who was also very young in those days, had built his nest. At this arbour they met every day, and often twice a day, and even once again in the evening, and could there chat and make love as sweetly as they pleased, because the orchard was enclosed by a high wall which quite shut out all spying eyes, and had a gate with lock and key. The young lady had a duplicate key, and came straight to the orchard from the cottage where she lived by a footpath which crossed the lane along which Bevis had been driven.
It happened that the footpath just by the lane, on coming near the orchard, passed a moist place, which in rainy weather was liable to be flooded, and as this was inconvenient for her, her lover had a waggon-load of flints brought down from the hills where the hares held their revels, and placed in the hollow so as to fill it up, and over these he placed faggots of nut-tree wood, so that she could step across perfectly clean and dry. In this orchard, then, they had their constant rendezvous; they were there every day when the nightingale first began to sing in the spring, and when the apple-trees were hidden with their pink blossom, when the haymakers were at work in the meadow, when the reapers cut the corn, and when the call of the first fieldfare sounded overhead. The golden and rosy apples dropped at their feet, they laughed and ate them, and taking out the brown pips she pressed them between her thumb and finger to see how far they would shoot.
Though they had begun to talk about their affairs in the spring, and had kept on all the summer and autumn, and though they kept on as often as the weather was dry (when they walked up and down the long orchard for warmth, sheltered by the wall), yet when the spring came again they had not half finished. Thus they were very happy, and the lady used particularly to laugh at the antics of the magpie, who became so accustomed to their presence as to go on with the repairs to his nest without the least shyness. Kapchack, being then very young and full of spirits, and only just married, and in the honeymoon of prosperity, played such freaks and behaved in so amusing a manner that the lady became quite attached to him, and in order to protect her favourite, her lover drove away all the other large birds that came near the orchard, and would not permit any one whatever to get up into Kapchack's apple-tree, nor even to gather the fruit, which hung on the boughs till the wind pushed it off.
Thus, having a fortress to retreat to, and being so highly honoured of men, Kapchack gave the reins to his natural audacity, and succeeded in obtaining the sovereignty. When the spring came again they had still a great deal of talking to do; but whether the young lady was weary of waiting for the marriage-ring, or whether she was jealous of the farmer's mother, or whether she thought they might continue like this for the next ten years if she did not make some effort, or whether it was the worldly counsels of her aunt, or what it was—perhaps her own capricious nature, it is certain that they now began to quarrel a little about another gentleman.
This gentleman was very rich, and the owner of a large estate in the neighbourhood; he did not often reside there, for he did not care for sport or country life, but once when he came down he happened to see the young lady, and was much attracted towards her. Doubtless she did not mean any harm, but she could not help liking people to admire her, and, not to go into every little particular, in the course of time (and not very long either) she and the gentleman became acquainted. Now, when her own true lover was aware of this, he was so jealous that he swore if ever he saw them together he would shoot his rival with his long-barrelled gun, though he were hung for it the next day.
The lady was not a little pleased at this frantic passion, and secretly liked him ten times better for it, though she immediately resorted to every artifice to calm his anger, for she knew his violent nature, and that he was quite capable of doing as he had said. But the delight of two strings to her bow was not easily to be foregone, and thus, though she really loved the farmer, she did not discourage the gentleman. He, on his part, finding after a while that although she allowed him to talk to her, and even to visit her at the cottage, and sometimes (when she knew the young farmer was at market) go for a walk with him, and once even came and went over his grand mansion, still finding that it was all talk, and that his suit got no further, he presently bethought him of diamonds.
He gave her a most beautiful diamond locket, which he had had down all fresh and brilliant from London. Now this was the beginning of the mischief. She accepted it in a moment of folly, and wished afterwards ten times that she had refused, but having once put it on, it looked so lovely she could not send it back. She could not openly wear it, lest her lover should see it, but every morning she put it on indoors, and frequently glanced in the glass.
Nor is it any use to find fault with her; for in the first place she has been dead many years, and in the second she was then very young, very beautiful, and living quite alone in the world with an old woman. Now her lover, notwithstanding the sweet assurances she gave him of her faithfulness, and despite the soft kisses he had in abundance every day in the orchard, soft as the bloom of the apple-trees, could not quite recover his peace of mind. He did not laugh as he used to do. He was restless, and the oneness of his mind was gone. Oneness of mind does not often last long into life, but while it lasts everything is bright. He had now always a second thought, a doubt behind, which clouded his face and brought a line into his forehead.
After a time his mother, observing his depression, began to accuse herself of unkindness, and at last resolved to stand no longer in the way of the marriage. She determined to quit the house in which she had lived ever since she came to it a happy bride half-a-century before. Having made up her mind, that very morning she walked along the footpath to the young lady's cottage, intending to atone for her former unkindness, and to bring the girl back to lunch, and thus surprise her son when he came in from the field.
She had even made up her mind to put up with the cold reception she would probably meet with, nor to reply if any hard words were used towards her. Thus thinking, she lifted the latch, as country people do not use much ceremony, and stepped into the cottage, when what was her surprise to find the girl she had come to see with a beautiful diamond locket about her neck, gleaming in the sunshine from the open door! She instantly understood what it meant, and upbraiding the girl with her falseness, quitted the place, and lost no time in telling her son, but first she took the precaution of hiding his gun. As he could not find that weapon, after the first storm of his jealous anger had gone over he shut himself up in his room.
The lady came the same evening to the rendezvous in the orchard, but her lover did not meet her. She came again next day, and in the evening; and again the third day, and so all through the week, and for nearly a month doing all she could without actually entering the house to get access to him. But he sullenly avoided her; once seeing her in the road, he leaped his horse over the hedge rather than pass her. For the diamond locket looked so like a price—as if she valued a glittering bauble far above true love.
At last one day she surprised him at the corner of the village street, and notwithstanding that the people (who knew all the story) were looking on, she would speak to him. She walked by his side, and said: "George, I have put the locket in the arbour, with a letter for you. If you will not speak to me, read the letter, and throw the locket in the brook."
More she could not say, for he walked as fast as he could, and soon left her behind.
He would not go near the orchard all day, but at last in the evening something prompted him to go. He went and looked, but the locket and the letter were not there.
Either she had not left them as she had said, or else some one had taken them. No one could enter the orchard without a key, unless they went to the trouble of bringing a ladder from the rickyard, and as it was spring, there were no apples to tempt them to do that. He thought, perhaps, his mother might have taken his key and gone to the arbour, and there was a terrible scene and bitter words between them—the first time he had ever replied to her. The consequence was that she packed a chest that very day, took a bag of money, which in old-fashioned style she kept under her bed, and left her home for ever; but not before she had been to the cottage, and reviled the girl with her duplicity and her falseness, declaring that if she had not got the locket, she had not put it in the orchard, but had sold it, like the hussy she was! Fortunately, however, she added, George could now see through her.
The farmer himself, much agitated at his mother's departure, made another search for the locket, and mowed the grass in the orchard himself, thinking that perhaps the lady had dropped it, or that it had caught in her dress and dragged along, and he also took the rake, and turned over every heap of dead leaves which the wind had blown into the corners. But there was no locket and no letter. At last he thought that perhaps the magpie, Kapchack—as magpies were always famous for their fondness for glittering things, such as silver spoons—might have picked up the locket, attracted by the gleaming diamonds. He got a ladder and searched the nest, even pulling part of it to pieces, despite Kapchack's angry remonstrances, but the locket was not there.
As he came down the ladder there was the young lady, who had stolen into the orchard and watched his operations. They stood and faced each other for a minute: at least, she looked at him,hissullen gaze was bent upon the ground. As for her, the colour came and went in her cheek, and her breast heaved so that, for a while, she could not speak. At last she said very low: "So you do not believe me, but some day you will know that you have judged me wrongly". Then she turned, and without another word went swiftly from the orchard.
He did not follow her, and he never saw her again. The same evening she left the village, she and the old woman, her aunt, quietly and without any stir, and where they went (beyond the market town) no one knew or even heard. And the very same evening, too, the rich gentleman who had given her the locket, and who made an unwonted stay in his country home because of her, also left the place, and went, as was said, to London. Of course people easily put two and two together, and said no doubt the girl had arranged to meet her wealthy admirer, but no one ever saw them together. Not even the coachman, when the gentleman once more returned home years afterwards, though the great authority in those days, could say what had become of her; if she had met his master it was indeed in some secret and mysterious manner. But the folk, when he had done speaking, and had denied these things, after he had quaffed his ale and departed, nudged each other, and said that no doubt his master, foreseeing the inquiries that would be made, had bribed him with a pocketful of guineas to hold his tongue.
So the farmer, in one day, found himself alone; his dear lady, his mother, and his rival were gone. He alone remained, and alone he remained for the rest of his days. His rival, indeed, came back once now and then for short periods to his mansion; but his mother never returned, and died in a few years' time. Then indeed deserted, the farmer had nothing left but to cultivate, and dwell on, the memory of the past. He neglected his business, and his farm; he left his house to take care of itself; the cows wandered away, the horses leaped the hedges, other people's cattle entered his corn, trampled his wheat, and fattened on his clover. He did nothing. The hand of man was removed, and the fields, and the house, and the owner himself, fell to decay.
Years passed, and still it was the same, and thus it was, that when Bevis and his papa drove up, Bevis was so interested and so inquisitive about the knocker, which had fallen from the front door. One thing, and one place only, received the owner's care, and that was the orchard, the arbour, the magpie's nest, and the footpath that led to the orchard gate. Everything else fell to ruin, but these were very nearly in the same state as when the young lady used to come to the orchard daily. For the old gentleman, as he grew old, and continued to dwell yet more and more upon the happy days so long gone by, could not believe that she could be dead, though he himself had outlived the usual span of life.
He was quite certain that she would some day come back, for she had said so herself; she had said that some day he would know that he had judged her wrongly, and unless she came back it was not possible for him to understand. He was, therefore, positively certain that some day she would come along the old footpath to the gate in the orchard wall, open it with her duplicate key, walk to the arbour and sit down, and smile at the magpie's ways. The woodwork of the arbour had of course decayed long since, but it had been carefully replaced, so that it appeared exactly the same as when she last sat within it. The coping fell from the orchard wall, but it was put back; the gate came to pieces, but a new one was hung in its place.
Kapchack, thus protected, still came to his palace, which had reached an enormous size from successive additions and annual repairs. As the time went on people began to talk about Kapchack, and the extraordinary age to which he had now attained, till, by-and-by, he became the wonder of the place, and in order to see how long he would live, the gentlemen who had gamekeepers in the neighbourhood instructed them to be careful not to shoot him. His reputation extended with his years, and those curious in such things came to see him from a distance, but could never obtain entrance to the orchard, nor approach near his tree, for neither money nor persuasion could induce the owner to admit them.
In and about the village itself Kapchack was viewed by the superstitious with something like awe. His great age, his singular fortune, his peculiar appearance—having but one eye—gave him a wonderful prestige, and his chattering was firmly believed to portend a change of the weather or the wind, or even the dissolution of village personages. The knowledge that he was looked upon in this light rendered the other birds and animals still more obedient than they would have been. Kapchack was a marvel, and it gradually became a belief with them that he would never die.
Outside the orchard-gate, the footpath which crossed the lane, and along which the lady used to come, was also carefully kept in its former condition. By degrees the nut-tree faggots rotted away—they were supplanted by others; in the process of time the flints sunk into the earth, and then another waggon-load was sent for. But the waggons had all dropped to pieces except one which chanced to be under cover; this, too, was much decayed, still it held together enough for the purpose. It was while this very waggon was jolting down from the hills with a load of flints to fill this hollow that the one particular flint, out of five thousand, worked its way through a hole in the bottom and fell on the road. And the rich old gentleman, whose horse stepped on it the same evening, who was thrown from the dog-cart, and whose discharged groom shot him in his house in London, was the very same man who, years and years before, had given the diamond locket to the young lady.
In the orchard the old farmer pottered about every day, now picking up the dead wood which fell from the trees, now raking up the leaves, and gathering the fruit (except that on Kapchack's tree), now mowing the grass, according to the season, now weeding the long gravel path at the side under the sheltering wall, up and down which the happy pair had walked in the winters so long ago. The butterflies flew over, the swallows alighted on the topmost twigs of the tall pear-tree and twittered sweetly, the spiders spun their webs, or came floating down on gossamer year after year, but he did not notice that they were not the same butterflies or the same swallows which had been there in his youth. Everything was the same to him within the orchard, however much the world might change without its walls.
Why, the very houses in the village close by had many of them fallen and been rebuilt; there was scarcely a resident left who dwelt there then; even the ancient and unchangeable church was not the same—it had been renovated; why, even the everlasting hills were different, for the slopes were now in many places ploughed, and grew oats where nothing but sheep had fed. But all within the orchard was the same; his lady, too, was the same without doubt, and her light step would sooner or later come down the footpath to her lover. This was the story Bevis's papa told him afterwards.
They had some difficulty in fastening up the horse, until they pulled some hay from a hayrick, and spread it before him, for like Bevis he had to be bribed with cake, as it were, before he would be good. They then knocked at the front door, which was propped up with a beam of timber, but no one answered, nor did even a dog bark at the noise; indeed, the dog's kennel had entirely disappeared, and only a piece of the staple to which his chain had been fastened remained, a mere rusty stump in the wall. It was not possible to look into this room, because the broken windows were blocked with old sacks to keep out the draught and rain; but the window of the parlour was open, the panes all broken, and the casement loose, so that it must have swung and banged with the wind.
Within, the ceiling had fallen upon the table, and the chairs had mouldered away; the looking-glass on the mantelpiece was hidden with cobwebs, the cobwebs themselves disused; for as they collected the dust, the spiders at last left them to spin new ones elsewhere. The carpet, if it remained, was concealed by the dead leaves which had been carried in by the gales. On these lay one or two picture frames, the back part upwards, the cords had rotted from the nails, and as they dropped so they stayed. In a punch-bowl of ancient ware, which stood upon the old piano untouched all these years, a robin had had his nest. After Bevis had been lifted up to the window-ledge to look in at this desolation, they went on down towards the orchard, as if the old gentleman was not within he was certain to be there.
They found the gate of the orchard open—rather an unusual thing, as he generally kept it locked, even when at work inside—and as they stepped in, they saw a modern double-barrel gun leant against a tree. A little farther, and Bevis caught sight of Kapchack's nest, like a wooden castle in the boughs, and clapped his hands with delight. But there was a ladder against Kapchack's tree, a thing which had not been seen there these years and years, and underneath the tree was the old farmer himself, pale as his own white beard, and only kept from falling to the ground by the strong arms of a young gentleman who upheld him. They immediately ran forward to see what was the matter.
Now it had happened in this way. It will be recollected that when the keeper fell from the dead oak-tree, he not only disabled himself, but his gun going off shot the dogs. Thus when the heir to the estate came down the same evening, he found that there was neither dog nor keeper to go round with him the next day. But when the morning came, not to be deprived of his sport, he took his gun and went forth alone into the fields. He did not find much game, but he shot two or three partridges and a rabbit, and he was so tempted by the crowds of wood-pigeons that were about (parties from Choo Hoo's army out foraging), that he fired away the remaining cartridges in his pocket at them.
So he found himself early in the day without a cartridge, and was just thinking of walking back to the house for some more, when the shadow of the eclipse came over. He stayed leaning against a gate to watch the sun, and presently as he was looking up at it a hare ran between his legs—so near, that had he seen her coming he could have caught her with his hands.
She only went a short way down the hedge, and he ran there, when she jumped out of the ditch, slipped by him, and went out fifty or sixty yards into the field, and sat up. How he now wished that he had not shot away all his ammunition at the wood-pigeons! While he looked at the hare she went on, crossed the field, and entered the hedge on the other side; he marked the spot, and hastened to get over the gate, with the intention of running home for cartridges. Hardly had he got over, than the hare came back again on that side of the hedge, passed close to him, and again leaped into the ditch. He turned to go after her, when out she came again, and crouched in a furrow only some twenty yards distant.
Puzzled at this singular behaviour (for he had never seen a hare act like it before), he ran after her; and the curious part of it was, that although she did indeed run away, she did not go far—she kept only a few yards in front, just evading him. If she went into a hedge for shelter, she quickly came out again, and thus this singular chase continued for some time. He got quite hot running, for though he had not much hope of catching the creature, still he wanted to understand the cause of this conduct.
By-and-by the zig-zag and uncertain line they took led them close to the wall of the old gentleman's orchard, when suddenly a fox started out from the hedge, and rushed after the hare. The hare, alarmed to the last degree, darted into a large drain which went under the orchard, and the fox went in after her. The young gentleman ran to the spot, but could not of course see far up the drain. Much excited, he ran round the orchard wall till he came to the gate, which chanced to be open, because the farmer that day, having discovered that the great bough of Kapchack's tree had been almost torn from the trunk by the gale, had just carried a fresh piece of timber in for a new prop, and having his hands full, what with the prop and the ladder to fix it, he could not shut the gate behind him. So the sportsman entered the orchard, left his gun leaning against a tree, and running down to see if he could find which way the drain went, came upon the old gentleman, and caught sight of the extraordinary nest of old King Kapchack.
Now the reason Ulu (for it was the very hare Bevis was so fond of) played these fantastic freaks, and ran almost into the very hands of the sportsman, was because the cunning fox had driven her to do so for his own purposes.
After he learnt the mysterious underground saying from the toad imprisoned in the elm, he kept on thinking, and thinking, what it could mean; but he could not make it out. He was the only fox who had a grandfather living, and he applied to his grandfather, who after pondering on the matter all day, advised him to keep his eyes open. The fox turned up his nostrils at this advice, which seemed to him quite superfluous. However, next day, instead of going to sleep as usual, he did keep his eyes open, and by-and-by saw a notch on the edge of the sun, which notch grew bigger, until the shadow of the eclipse came over the ground.
At this he leaped up, recognising in a moment the dead day of the underground saying. He knew where Bevis's hare had her form, and immediately he raced across to her, though not clearly knowing what he was going to do; but as he crossed the fields he saw the sportsman, without any dogs and with an empty gun, leaning over the gate and gazing at the eclipse. With a snarl the fox drove Ulu from her form, and so worried her that she was obliged to run (to escape his teeth) right under the sportsman's legs, and thus to fulfil the saying: "The hare hunted the hunter".
Even yet the fox did not know what was going to happen, or why he was doing this, for such is commonly the case during the progress of great events. The actors do not recognise the importance of the part they are playing. The age does not know what it is doing; posterity alone can appreciate it. But after a while, as the fox drove the hare out of the hedges, and met and faced her, and bewildered the poor creature, he observed that her zig-zag course, entirely unpremeditated, was leading them closer and closer to the orchard where Kapchack (whom he wished to overthrow) had his palace.
Then beginning to see whither fate was carrying them, suddenly he darted out and drove the hare into the drain, and for safety followed her himself. He knew the drain very well, and that there was an outlet on the other side, having frequently visited the spot in secret in order to listen to what Kapchack was talking about. Ulu, quite beside herself with terror, rushed through the drain, leaving pieces of her fur against the projections of the stones, and escaped into the lane on the other side, and so into the fields there. The fox remained in the drain to hear what would happen.
The sportsman ran round, entered the gate, and saw the old farmer trimming the prop, the ladder just placed against the tree, and caught sight of the palace of King Kapchack. As he approached a missel-thrush flew off—it was Eric; the farmer looked up at this, and saw the stranger, and was at first inclined to be very angry, for he had never been intruded upon before, but as the young gentleman at once began to apologise for the liberty, he overlooked it, and listened with interest to the story the sportsman told him of the vagaries of the hare. While they were talking the sportsman looked up several times at the nest above him, and felt an increasing curiosity to examine it. At last he expressed his wish; the farmer demurred, but the young gentleman pressed him so hard, and promised so faithfully not to touch anything, that at last the farmer let him go up the ladder, which he had only just put there, and which he had not himself as yet ascended.
The young gentleman accordingly went up the ladder, being the first who had been in that tree for years, and having examined and admired the nest, he was just going to descend, when he stayed a moment to look at the fractured bough. The great bough had not broken right off, but as the prop gave way beneath it had split at the part where it joined the trunk, leaving an open space, and revealing a hollow in the tree. In this hollow something caught his eye; he put in his hand and drew forth a locket, to which an old and faded letter was attached by a mouldy ribbon twisted round it. He cast this down to the aged farmer, who caught it in his hand, and instantly knew the locket which had disappeared so long ago.
The gold was tarnished, but the diamonds were as bright as ever, and glittered in the light as the sun just then began to emerge from the eclipse. He opened the letter, scarce knowing what he did; the ink was faded and pale, but perfectly legible, for it had been in a dry place. The letter said that having tried in vain to get speech with him, and having faced all the vile slander and bitter remarks of the village for his sake, she had at last resolved to write and tell him that she was really and truly his own. In a moment of folly she had, indeed, accepted the locket, but that was all, and since the discovery she had twice sent it back, and it had twice been put on her dressing-table, so that she found it there in the morning (doubtless by the old woman, her aunt, bribed for the purpose).
Then she thought that perhaps it would be better to give it to him (the farmer), else he might doubt that she had returned it; so she said, as he would not speak to her, she should leave it in the arbour, twisting the ribbon round her letter, and she begged him to throw the locket in the brook, and to believe her once again, or she should be miserable for life. But, if after this he still refused to speak to her, she would still stay a while and endeavour to obtain access to him; and if even then he remained so cruel, there was nothing left for her but to quit the village, and go to some distant relations in France. She would wait, she added, till the new moon shone in the sky, and then she must go, for she could no longer endure the insinuations which were circulated about her. Lest there should be any mistake she enclosed a copy of a note she had sent to the other gentleman, telling him that she should never speak to him again. Finally, she put the address of the village in France to which she was going, and begged and prayed him to write to her.
When the poor old man had read these words, and saw that after all the playful magpie must have taken the glittering locket and placed it, not in his nest, but a chink of the tree; when he learned that all these years and years the girl he had so dearly loved must have been waiting with aching heart for a letter of forgiveness from him, the orchard swam round, as it were, before his eyes, he heard a rushing sound like a waterfall in his ears, the returning light of the sun went out again, and he fainted. Had it not been for the young gentleman, who caught him, he would have fallen to the ground, and it was just at this moment that Bevis and his papa arrived at the spot.
Early the same morning when Kapchack awoke, he was so much refreshed by the sound slumber he had enjoyed, that much of his depression—the sharp edge of his pain as it were—had passed away. The natural vivacity of his disposition asserted itself, and seemed to respond to the glory of the sunshine. Hungry from his long fast, away he flew to well-known places reserved for his own especial feeding-ground, and having satisfied his appetite went up into a hawthorn, trimmed his feathers, and began to think things over.
He at once decided that something of an exceptional character must be attempted in order to regain his authority. Half measures, delays, and intrigues were now in vain; some grand blow must be struck, such as would fill all hearts with admiration or dismay. Another treaty with Choo Hoo was out of the question, for the overbearing rebel would throw in his face the assassination of the envoy, and even could it be thought of, who could he entrust with the mission? His throne was completely surrounded with traitors. He ground his beak as he thought of them, and resolved that terrible indeed should be the vengeance he would take if once he got them again into his power. The hope of revenge was the keenest spur of all to him to adventure something bold and unexpected; the hope of revenge, and the determination that the house of Kapchack should not fall without an effort worthy of a monarch.
He resolved to at once attack the mighty horde Choo Hoo commanded with the only troops he could get quickly together in this emergency. These were the rooks, the praetorian guard of his state, the faithful, courageous, and warlike tenth legion of his empire. No sooner did he thus finally resolve than his whole appearance seemed to change. His outward form in some degree reflected the spirit within. His feathers ruffled up, and their black and white shone with new colour. The glossy green of his tail gleamed in the sunshine. One eye indeed was gone, but the other sparkled with the fire of war; he scented the battle, and sharpened his bill against the bough.
He only regretted that he had not taken this course before, instead of idling in the palace, and leaving his kingdom to the wiles of traitorous courtiers and delegates. If he had only bestirred himself like the ancient Kapchack of former days this extremity would not have arisen. Even yet it was not too late; war was a desperate and uncertain game, and it was not always the greatest army, in point of numbers, that rejoiced in the victory. He would trust in his fortune, and swoop down upon the enemy. Calling to his body-guard, he flew at once straight towards the plain, where, at that time in the morning, he knew the main body of the rooks would be foraging. Full of these resolutions he did not observe the maimed beetle lying helpless in the grass, but looking neither to the right nor the left, taking counsel of no one—for to whom could he apply for honest advice?—he winged his way swiftly onward.
In about half-an-hour he reached the plain, and saw the rooks scattered over the ground; he rested here upon the lower branch of an elm, and sent forward a messenger, one of the eight magpies who attended him, to tell the commander-in-chief to wait upon him. Upon receiving the message, the general, hoping that at last the king had decided upon action, since so abrupt a summons to his side was somewhat unusual, flew hastily to the elm and saluted the monarch. Kapchack, without any preamble, announced his intention of forming the rooks into column, and falling at once upon the horde of barbarians. In the rooks, he said, and their loyal commander, lay the last hope of the state—he placed himself in their midst and relied upon them solely and alone.
Ah Kurroo Khan, the commander-in-chief, could scarcely refrain from shouting with delight. He was not only wild with the joy of coming combat, but this straightforward speech and conduct went to his heart, and never in all his long, long reign had Kapchack so complete and autocratic an empire as at that moment over the rooks.
Ah Kurroo, when he had in some degree expressed his pleasure at these commands, and the readiness with which he placed himself and his army at Kapchack's orders, proceeded first to pass the word to the legions to fall into their ranks, and next to inform the monarch of the position held by the enemy.
They were, he said, dispersed in all directions foraging, and discipline was much relaxed, insomuch that several bands of them had even fallen to blows amongst themselves. To attack these scattered positions, which could individually be easily overwhelmed, would be a mistake, for these reasons. The advantage of destroying one or two such bands of marauders would be practically nothing, and while it was being accomplished the rest would carry the information to Choo Hoo, and he would assemble his enormous horde. Thus the chance of surprising and annihilating his army would be lost.
But it appeared that Choo Hoo's son, Tu Kiu, who was also the second in command of the barbarians, finding that already the country was becoming denuded of supplies close to the camp, had during the previous day, at his father's orders, marched a large division—in itself an immense army—into a plain at a few miles' distance, which was surrounded with the hills, and out of sight from the camp. The best strategy therefore open to Kapchack, was either to assail Choo Hoo's camp, or else to fall upon the divisions of Tu Kiu.
The difficulty in the case of the camp was that amidst the trees the assailants would suffer as much loss from crushing and confusion as would be inflicted upon the enemy. It was impossible, when once involved in a forest conflict, to know which way the issue was tending. The battle became split up into a thousand individual combats, discipline was of no avail, no officer could survey the scene or direct the movements, and a panic at any moment was only too probable. On the other hand, the division of Tu Kiu offered itself for annihilation. It was not only several miles distant from the main body, but a range of hills between prevented all view, and obstructed communication. There was a route by which the plain could be approached, through a narrow valley well sheltered with woods, which would screen the advancing troops from sight, and enable them to debouch at once into the midst of the invaders. Without doubt, thus suddenly attacked, Tu Kiu must give way; should victory declare for them decisively, it was easy to foretell what would happen. Tu Kiu falling back in disorder would confuse the regiments of Choo Hoo coming to his assistance, a panic would arise, and the incredible host of the barbarians would encumber each other's flight.
Kapchack listened to the Khan with the deepest attention, approved of all he had put forward, and gave the order to attack Tu Kiu.
Without a sound—for Ah Kurroo had strictly enjoined silence, lest the unusual noise should betray that something was intended—the legions fell into rank, and at the word of command, suppressing even the shout of joy which they wished so much to utter, moved in a dense column to the southwards. Kapchack, with his guards behind him, and Ah Kurroo Khan at his side, led the van.
The Khan secretly congratulated himself as he flew upon his extraordinary good fortune, that he should thus enter the field of battle unhampered with any restrictions, and without the useless and unpleasant companionship of a political officer, appointed by the council of his nation. Well he knew that had Kapchack given the least notice of his intention, the rook council would have assembled and held interminable discussions upon the best method of carrying out the proposed object, ending, as usual, with a vote in which mere numbers prevailed, without any reference to reason or experience, and with the appointment of a state official to overlook the conduct of the general, and to see that he did not arrogate too much to himself.
Thus in fact the rooks were accustomed to act, lest a commander should become too victorious. They liked indeed to win, and to destroy the enemy, and to occupy his territory, but they did not like all this to be accomplished by one man, but the rather, at the very zenith of his fame, provided him with an opportunity for disgracing himself, so that another might take his place and divide the glory. Ah Kurroo knew all this; imagine, then, his joy that Kapchack without calling parliament together had come direct to the camp, and ordered an immediate advance. Himself choosing the route, trusting to no guides, not even to his own intelligence department, Ah Kurroo pointed the way, and the legions with steady and unvarying flight followed their renowned commander.
The noise of their wings resounded, the air was oppressed with their weight and the mighty mass in motion. Then did Kapchack indeed feel himself every feather a king. He glanced back—he could not see the rear-guard, so far did the host extend. His heart swelled with pride and eagerness for the fight. Now quitting the plain, they wound by a devious route through the hills—the general's object being to so manage the march that none of them should appear above the ridges. The woods upon the slopes concealed their motions, and the advance was executed without the least delay, though so great was their length in this extended order that when the head of the column entered the plain beyond, the rear-guard had not reached the hills behind. This rendered their front extremely narrow, but Ah Kurroo, pausing when he had gone half-a-mile into the plain, and when the enemy were already in sight, and actually beneath them, ordered the leading ranks to beat time with their wings, while their comrades came up.
Thus, in a few minutes, the place where the narrow valley debouched into the hill-surrounded plain, was darkened with the deploying rooks. Kapchack, while waiting, saw beneath him the hurrying squadrons of Tu Kiu. From the cut corn, from the stubble, from the furrows (where already the plough had begun its work), from the green roots and second crops of clover, from the slopes of the hills around, and the distant ridges, the alarmed warriors were crowding to their standards.
While peacefully foraging, happy in the sunshine and the abundance of food, without a thought of war and war's hazards, they suddenly found themselves exposed, all unprepared, to the fell assault of their black and mortal enemies. The sky above them seemed darkened with the legions, the hoarse shouts of command as the officers deployed their ranks, the beating of the air, struck them with terror. Some, indeed, overwhelmed with affright, cowered on the earth; a few of the outlying bands, who had wandered farthest, turned tail and fled over the ridges. But the majority, veterans in fight, though taken aback, and fully recognising the desperate circumstances under which they found themselves, hastened with all speed towards Tu Kiu, whose post was in a hedge, in which stood three low ash-trees by a barn. This was about the centre of the plain, and thither the squadrons and companies hurried, hoarsely shouting for their general.
Tu Kiu, undismayed, and brave as became the son and heir of the mighty Emperor Choo Hoo, made the greatest efforts to get them into some kind of array and order. Most fell into rank of their own accord from long use and habit, but the misfortune was that no sooner had one regiment formed than fresh arrivals coming up threw all into disorder again. The crowd, the countless multitude overwhelmed itself; the air was filled, the earth covered, they struck against each other, and Tu Kiu, hoarse with shouting, was borne down, and the branch of ash upon which he stood broken with the weight of his own men. He struggled, he called, he cried; his voice was lost in the din and clangour.
Ah Kurroo Khan, soaring with Kapchack, while the legions deployed, marked the immense confusion of the enemy's centre. He seized the moment, gave the command, and in one grand charge the whole army bore swiftly down upon Tu Kiu. Kapchack himself could scarce keep pace with the increasing velocity of the charge; he was wrapped, as it were, around with the dense and serried ranks, and found himself hurled in a moment into the heart of the fight. Fight, indeed, it could not be called.
The solid phalanx of the rooks swept through the confused multitude before them, by their mere momentum cutting it completely in two, and crushing innumerable combatants underneath. In a minute, in less than a minute, the mighty host of Tu Kiu, the flower of Choo Hoo's army, was swept from the earth. He himself, wounded and half-stunned by the shock, was assisted from the scene by the unwearied efforts of his personal attendants.
Each tried to save himself regardless of the rest; the oldest veteran, appalled by such utter defeat, could not force himself to turn again and gather about the leaders. One mass of fugitives filled the air; the slopes of the hills were covered with them. Still the solid phalanx of Kapchack pressed their rear, pushing them before it.
Tu Kiu, who, weary and faint, had alighted for a moment upon an ancient grass-grown earthwork—a memorial of former wars—which crowned a hill, found it necessary to again flee with his utmost speed, lest he should be taken captive.
It was now that the genius of Ah Kurroo Khan showed itself in its most brilliant aspect. Kapchack, intoxicated with battle, hurried the legions on to the slaughter—it was only by personal interference that the Khan could restrain the excited king. Ah Kurroo, calm and far-seeing in the very moment of victory, restrained the legions, held them in, and not without immense exertion succeeded in checking the pursuit, and retaining the phalanx in good order. To follow a host so completely routed was merely to slay the slain, and to waste the strength that might profitably be employed elsewhere. He conjectured that so soon as ever the news reached Choo Hoo, the emperor, burning with indignation, would arouse his camp, call his army together, and without waiting to rally Tu Kiu's division, fly immediately to retrieve this unexpected disaster. Thus, the victors must yet face a second enemy, far more numerous than the first, under better generalship, and prepared for the conflict.