Part 7 (1/2)
He was so firm asleep, he did not know what Bevis said, till Bevis got a twig and poked him a little. Then he yawned and woke up, and asked Bevis what time it was, and how long it would be before the moon rose.
”I want to know who Kapchack is, this minute,” said Bevis, ”this _very_ minute, mind.”
”Well I never!” said the toad, ”well I never! Don't you know?”
”Tell me directly--this very minute--you horrid old toad!”
”Don't you really know?” said the toad.
”I'll have you shovelled up, and flung over to the pigs, if you don't tell me,” said Bevis. ”No, I'll get my cannon-stick, and shoot you! No, here's a big stone--I'll smash you! I hate you! Who's Kapchack?”
”Kapchack,” said the toad, not in the least frightened, ”Kapchack is the magpie; and he is king over everything and everybody--over the fly and the wasp, and the finches, and the heron, and the horse, and the rabbit, and the flowers, and the trees. Kapchack, the great and mighty magpie, is the king,” and the toad b.u.mped his chin on the ground, as if he stood before the throne, so humble was he at the very name of Kapchack. Then he shut one eye in a very peculiar manner, and put out his tongue.
”Why don't you like Kapchack?” said Bevis, who understood him in a minute.
”Hus.h.!.+” said the toad, and he repeated out loud, ”Kapchack is the great and n.o.ble magpie--Kapchack is the king!” Then he whispered to Bevis to sit down on the gra.s.s very near him, so that he might speak to him better, and not much louder than a whisper. When Bevis had sat down and stooped a little, the toad came close to the mouth of his hole, and said very quietly: ”Bevis dear, Kapchack is a horrid wretch!”
”Why,” said Bevis, ”why do you hate him? and where does he live? and why is he king? I suppose he is very beautiful?”
”Oh, dear, no!” said the toad, hastily, ”he is the ugliest creature that ever hopped. The feathers round one eye have all come out and left a bare place, and he is quite blind on the other. Indeed his left eye is gone altogether. His beak is chipped and worn; his wings are so beaten and decayed that he can hardly fly; and there are several feathers out of his tail. He is the most miserable thing you ever saw.”
”Then why is he king?” asked Bevis.
”Because he is,” said the toad; ”and as he is king, n.o.body else can be.
It is true he is very wise--at least everybody says so--wiser than the crow or the rook, or the weasel (though the weasel is so cunning). And besides, he is so old, so very old, n.o.body knows when he was born, and they say that he will always live, and never die. Why, he put my grandfather in prison.”
”In prison?” said Bevis. ”Where is the prison?”
”In the elm-tree, at the top of the Home Field,” said the toad. ”My grandfather has been shut up there in a little dungeon so tight, he cannot turn round, or sit, or stand, or lie down, for so long a time that, really, Bevis dear, I cannot tell you; but it was before you were born. And all that time he has had nothing to eat or drink, and he has never seen the sun or felt the air, and I do not suppose he has ever heard anything unless when the thunderbolt fell on the oak close by.
Perhaps he heard the thunder then.”
”Well, then, what has he been doing?” asked Bevis, ”and why doesn't he get out?”
”He cannot get out, because the tree has grown all round him quite hard, as Kapchack knew it would when he ordered him to be put there in the hole. He has not been doing anything but thinking.”
”I should get tired of thinking all that time,” said Bevis; ”but why was he put there?”
”For reasons of state,” said the toad. ”He knows too much. Once upon a time he saw Kapchack do something, I do not know what it was, and Kapchack was very angry, and had him put in there in case he should tell other people. I went and asked him what it was before the tree quite shut him in, while there was just a little c.h.i.n.k you could talk through; but he always told me to stop in my hole and mind my own business, else perhaps I should get punished, as he had been. But he did tell me that he could not help it, that he did not mean to see it, only just at the moment it happened he turned round in his bed, and he opened his eyes for a second, and you know the consequences, Bevis dear. So I advise you always to look the other way, unless you're wanted.”
”It was very cruel of Kapchack,” said Bevis.
”Kapchack is very cruel,” said the toad, ”and very greedy, more greedy even than the ants; and he has such a treasure in his palace as never was heard of. No one can tell how rich he is. And as for cruelty, why, he killed his uncle only a week since, just for not answering him the very instant he spoke; he pecked him in the forehead and killed him.
Then he killed the poor little wren, whom he chanced to hear say that the king was not so beautiful as her husband. Next he pecked a thrush to death, because the thrush dared to come into his orchard without special permission.
”But it is no use my trying to tell you all the shameful things he has done in all these years. There is never a year goes by without his doing something dreadful; and he has made everybody miserable at one time or other by killing their friends or relations, from the snail to the partridge. He is quite merciless, and spares no one; why, his own children are afraid of him, and it is believed that he has pecked several of them to death, though it is hushed up; but people talk about it all the same, sometimes. As for the way he has behaved to the ladies, if I were to tell you you would never believe it.”
”I hate him,” said Bevis. ”Why ever do they let him be king? How they must hate him.”
”Oh, no, they don't, dear,” said the toad. ”If you were to hear how they go on, you would think he was the nicest and kindest person that ever existed. They sing his praises all day long; that is, in the spring and summer, while the birds have their voices. You must have heard them, only you did not understand them. The finches and the thrushes, and the yellow-hammers and the wrens, and all the birds, every one of them, except Choo Hoo, the great rebel, sing Kapchack's praises all day long, and tell him that they love him more than they love their eggs, or their wives, or their nests, and that he is the very best and nicest of all, and that he never did anything wrong, but is always right and always just.
”And they say his eye is brighter than the sun, and that he can see more with his one eye than all the other birds put together; and that his feathers are blacker and whiter and more beautiful than anything else in the world, and his voice sweeter than the nightingale's. Now, if you will stoop a little lower I will whisper to you the reason they do this (Bevis stooped down close); the truth is they are afraid lest he should come himself and peck their eggs, or their children, or their wives, or if not himself that he should send the hawk, or the weasel, or the stoat, or the rat, or the crow. Don't you ever listen to the crow, Bevis; he is a black scoundrel.