KAPCHACK.
"Q--q--q," Bevis heard a starling say some weeks afterwards on the
chimney-top one morning when he woke up. The chimney was very old and
big, and the sound came down it to his room. "Q--q--q, my dear, I will
tell you a secret"--he was talking to his lady-love.
"Phe-hu," she said, in a flutter. Bevis could hear her wings go plainly.
"Whatever is it? Do tell me."
"Look all round first," he said, "and see that no one is about."
"No one is near, dear; the sparrows are out in the corn, and the
swallows are very high up; the blackbird is busy in the orchard, and the
robin is down at the red currants; there's no one near. Is it a very
great secret?"
"It is a very great secret indeed, and you must be very careful not to
whistle it out by accident; now if I tell you will you keep your beak
quite shut, darling?"
"Quite."
"Then, listen--Kapchack is in love."
"Phe--hu--u; who is it? Is he going to be married? How old is she? Who
told you? When did you hear it? Whatever will people say? Tell me all
about it, dear!"
"The tomtit told me just now in the fir-tree; the woodpecker told him on
his promising that he would not tell anybody else."
"When is the marriage to come off, dear?" she asked, interrupting him.
"Kapchack--Phe--u!"
Somebody came round the house, and away they flew, just as Bevis was
going to ask all about it. He went to the window as soon as he was
dressed, and as he opened it he saw a fly on the pane; he thought he
would ask the fly, but instantly the fly began to fidget, and finding
that the top of the window was open out he went, buzzing that Kapchack
was in love. At breakfast time a wasp came in--for the fruit was
beginning to ripen, and the wasps to get busy--and he went all round the
room saying that Kapchack was in love, but he would not listen to
anything Bevis asked, he was so full of Kapchack. When Bevis ran out of
doors the robin on the palings immediately said: "Kapchack is in love;
do you know Kapchack is in love?" and a second afterwards the wren flew
up to the top of the wood-pile and cried out just the same thing.
Three finches passed him as he went up the garden, telling each other
that Kapchack was in love. The mare in the meadow whinnied to her colt
that Kapchack was in love, and the cows went "boo" when they heard it,
and "booed" it to some more cows ever so far away. The leaves on the
apple-tree whispered it, and the news went all down the orchard in a
moment; and everything repeated it. Bevis got into his swing, and as he
swung to and fro he heard it all round him.
A humble-bee went along the grass telling all the flowers that were
left, and then up into the elm, and the elm told the ash, and the ash
told the oak, and the oak told the hawthorn, and it ran along the hedge
till it reached the willow, and the willow told the brook, and the brook
told the reeds, and the reeds told the kingfisher, and the kingfisher
went a mile down the stream and told the heron, and the heron went up
into the sky and called it out as loud as he could, and a rabbit heard
it and told another rabbit, and he ran across to the copse and told
another, and he told a mouse, and he told a butterfly, and the butterfly
told a moth, and the moth went into the great wood and told another
moth, and a wood-pigeon heard it and told more wood-pigeons, and so
everybody said: "Kapchack is in love!"
"But I thought it was a great secret," said Bevis to a thrush, "and that
nobody knew it, except the tomtit, and the woodpecker, and the starling;
and, besides, who is Kapchack?" The thrush was in the bushes where they
came to the haha, and when he heard Bevis ask who Kapchack was, he
laughed, and said he should tell everybody that Bevis, who shot his
uncle with the cannon-stick, was so very, very stupid he did not know
who Kapchack was. Ha! Ha! Could anybody be so ignorant? he should not
have believed it if he had not heard it.
Bevis, in a rage at this, jumped out of the swing and threw a stone at
the thrush, and so well did he fling it that if the thrush had not
slipped under a briar he would have had a good thump. Bevis went
wandering round the garden, and into his summer-house, when he heard
some sparrows in the ivy on the roof all chattering about Kapchack, and
out he ran to ask them, but they were off in a second to go and tell the
yellow-hammers. Bevis stamped his foot, he was so cross because nobody
would tell him about Kapchack, and he could not think what to do, till
as he was looking round the garden he saw the rhubarb, and remembered
the old toad. Very likely the toad would know; he was so old, and knew
almost everything. Away he ran to the rhubarb and looked under the piece
of wood, and there was the toad asleep, just as he always was.
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 bumped 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.
"Hush!" said the toad, and he repeated out loud, "Kapchack is the great
and noble magpie--Kapchack is the king!" Then he whispered to Bevis to
sit down on the grass 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, nobody 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, nobody 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 chink 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.
"For Kapchack has got all the crows, and hawks, and weasels (especially
that very cunning one, that old wretch that cheated you), and rats, to
do just as he tells them. They are his soldiers, and they carry out his
bidding quicker than you can wink your eye, or than I can shoot out my
tongue, which I can do so quickly that you cannot see it. When the
spring is over and the birds lose their voices (many of them have
already), they each send one or two of their number every day to visit
the orchard where Kapchack lives, and to say (as they can no longer
sing) that they still think just the same, and they are all his very
humble servants. Kapchack takes no notice of them whatever unless they
happen to do what he does not like, and then they find out very soon
that he has got plenty of spies about.
"My opinion is that the snail is no better than a spy and a common
informer. Do you just look round and turn over any leaves that are
near, lest any should be here, and tell tales about me. I can tell you,
it is a very dangerous thing to talk about Kapchack, somebody or other
is sure to hear, and to go and tell him, so as to get into favour. Now,
that is what I hate. All the rabbits and hares (and your friend the hare
that lives at the top of the Home Field), and the squirrel and the
mouse, all of them have to do just the same as the birds, and send
messages to Kapchack, praising him and promising to do exactly as he
tells them, all except Choo Hoo."
"Who is Choo Hoo?" said Bevis.
"Choo Hoo is the great wood-pigeon," said the toad. "He is a rebel; but
I cannot tell you much about him, for it is only of late years that we
have heard anything of him, and I do not know much about the present
state of things. Most of the things I can tell you happened, or began, a
long time ago. If you want to know what is going on now, the best person
you can go to is the squirrel. He is a very good fellow; he can tell
you. I will give you a recommendation to him, or perhaps he will be
afraid to open his mouth too freely; for, as I said before, it is a very
dangerous thing to talk about Kapchack, and everybody is most terribly
afraid of him--he is so full of malice."
"Why ever do they let him be king?" said Bevis; "I would not, if I were
them. Why ever do they put up with him, and his cruelty and greediness?
I will tell the thrush and the starling not to endure him any longer."
"Pooh! pooh!" said the toad. "It is all very well for you to say so, but
you must excuse me for saying, my dear Sir Bevis, that you really know
very little about it. The thrush and the starling would not understand
what you meant. The thrush's father always did as Kapchack told him, and
sang his praises, as I told you, and so did his grandfather, and his
great-grandfather, and all his friends and relations, these years and
years past. So that now the thrushes have no idea of there being no
Kapchack. They could not understand you, if you tried to explain to them
how nice it would be without him. If you sat in your swing and talked to
them all day long, for all the summer through, they would only think you
very stupid even to suppose such a state of things as no Kapchack. Quite
impossible, Bevis dear!--excuse me correcting you. Why, instead of
liking it, they would say it would be very dreadful to have no
Kapchack."
"Well, they are silly!" said Bevis. "But _you_ do not like Kapchack!"
"No, I do not," said the toad; "and if you will stoop down
again----(Bevis stooped still nearer.) No; perhaps you had better lie
down on the grass! There--now I can talk to you quite freely. The fact
is, do you know, there are other people besides me who do not like
Kapchack. The crow--I can't have anything to do with such an old
rogue!--the crow, I am certain, hates Kapchack, but he dares not say so.
Now I am so old, and they think me so stupid and deaf that people say a
good deal before me, never imagining that I take any notice. And when I
have been out of a dewy evening, I have distinctly heard the crow
grumbling about Kapchack. The crow thinks he is quite as clever as
Kapchack, and would make quite as good a king.
"Nor is the rat satisfied, nor the weasel, nor the hawk. I am sure they
are not, but they cannot do anything alone, and they are so suspicious
of each other they cannot agree. So that, though they are dissatisfied,
they can do nothing. I daresay Kapchack knows it very well indeed. He is
so wise--so very, very wise--that he can see right into what they think,
and he knows that they hate him, and he laughs in his sleeve. I will
tell you what he does. He sets the hawk on against the rat, and the rat
on against the crow, and the crow against the weasel. He tells them all
sorts of things; so that the weasel thinks the crow tells tales about
him, and the hawk thinks the rat has turned tail and betrayed his
confidence. The result is, they hate one another as much as they hate
him.
"And he told the rook--it was very clever of him to do so, yes, it was
very clever of him, I must admit that Kapchack is extremely clever--that
if he was not king somebody else would be, perhaps the hawk, or the rat.
Now the rook told his friends at the rookery, and they told everybody
else, and when people came to talk about it, they said it was very true.
If Kapchack was not king, perhaps the hawk would be, and he would be as
bad, or worse; or the rat, and he would be very much worse; or perhaps
the weasel, the very worst of all.
"So they agreed that, rather than have these, they would have Kapchack
as the least evil. When the hawk and the rat heard what the king had
said, they hated each other ten times more than before, lest
Kapchack--if ever he should give up the crown--should choose one or
other of them as his successor, for that was how they understood the
hint. Not that there is the least chance of his giving up the crown; not
he, my dear, and he will never die, as everybody knows (here the toad
winked slightly), and he will never grow any older; all he does is to
grow wiser, and wiser, and wiser, and wiser. All the other birds die,
but Kapchack lives for ever. Long live the mighty Kapchack!" said the
toad very loud, that all might hear how loyal he was, and then went on
speaking lower. "Yet the hawk, and the crow, and the rook, and the jay,
and all of them, though they hate Kapchack in their hearts, all come
round him bowing down, and they peck the ground where he has just
walked, and kiss the earth he has stood on, in token of their humility
and obedience to him. Each tries to outdo the rest in servility. They
bring all the news to the palace, and if they find anything very nice in
the fields, they send a message to say where it is, and leave it for
him, so that he eats the very fat of the land."
"And where is his palace?" asked Bevis. "I should like to go and see
him."
"His palace is up in an immense old apple-tree, dear. It is a long way
from here, and it is in an orchard, where nobody is allowed to go. And
this is the strangest part of it all, and I have often wondered and
thought about it months together; once I thought about it for a whole
year, but I cannot make out why it is that the owner of the orchard, who
lives in the house close by it, is so fond of Kapchack. He will not let
anybody go into the orchard unless with him. He keeps it locked (there
is a high wall around), and carries the key in his pocket.
"As the orchard is very big, and Kapchack's nest is in the middle, no
one can see even it from the outside, nor can any boys fling a stone and
hit it; nor, indeed, could any one shoot at it, because the boughs are
all round it. Thus Kapchack's palace is protected with a high wall, by
the boughs, by its distance from the outside, by lock and key, and by
the owner of the orchard, who thinks more of him than of all the world
besides. He will not let any other big birds go into the orchard at all,
unless Kapchack seems to like it; he will bring out his gun and shoot
them. He watches over Kapchack as carefully as if Kapchack were his son.
As for the cats he has shot for getting into the orchard, there must
have been a hundred of them.
"So that Kapchack every year puts a few more sticks on his nest, and
brings up his family in perfect safety, which is what no other bird can
do, neither the rook, nor the hawk, nor the crow, nor could even the
raven, when he lived in this country. This is a very great advantage to
Kapchack, for he has thus a fortress to retreat to, into which no one
can enter, and he can defy everybody; and this is a great help to him as
king. It is also one reason why he lives so long, though perhaps there
is another reason, which I cannot, really I dare not, even hint at; it
is such a dreadful secret, I should have my head split open with a peck
if I even so much as dared to think it. Besides which, perhaps it is not
true.
"If it were not so far, and if there was not a wall round the orchard, I
would tell you which way to go to find the place. His palace is now so
big he can hardly make it any bigger lest it should fall; yet it is so
full of treasures that it can barely hold them all. There are many who
would like to rob him, I know. The crow is one; but they dare not
attempt it, not only for fear of Kapchack, but because they would
certainly be shot.
"Everybody talks about the enormous treasure he has up there, and
everybody envies him. But there are very dark corners in his palace,
dark and blood-stained, for, as I told you, his family history is full
of direful deeds. Besides killing his uncle, and, as is whispered,
several of his children, because he suspected them of designs upon his
throne, he has made away with a great many of his wives, I should think
at least twenty. So soon as they begin to get old and ugly they
die--people pretend the palace is not healthy to live in, being so
ancient, and that that is the reason. Though doubtless they are very
aggravating, and very jealous. Did you hear who it was Kapchack was in
love with?"
"No," said Bevis. "The starling flew away before I could ask him, and as
for the rest they are so busy telling one another they will not answer
me."
"One thing is very certain," said the toad, "if Kapchack is in love you
may be sure there will be some terrible tragedy in the palace, for his
wife will be jealous, and besides that his eldest son and heir will not
like it. Prince Tchack-tchack is not a very good temper--Tchack-tchack
is his son, I should tell you--and he is already very tired of waiting
for the throne. But it is no use his being tired, for Kapchack does not
mean to die. Now, Bevis dear, I have told you everything I can think of,
and I am tired of sitting at the mouth of this hole, where the sunshine
comes, and must go back to sleep.
"But if you want to know anything about the present state of things (as
I can only tell you what happened a long time since) you had better go
and call on the squirrel, and say I sent you, and he will inform you. He
is about the best fellow I know; it is true he will sometimes bite when
he is very frisky, it is only his play, but you can look sharp and put
your hands in your pockets. He is the best of them all, dear; better
than the fox, or the weasel, or the rat, or the stoat, or the mouse, or
any of them. He knows all that is going on, because the starlings, who
are extremely talkative, come every night to sleep in the copse where he
lives, and have a long gossip before they go to sleep; indeed, all the
birds go to the copse to chat, the rooks, the wood-pigeons, the
pheasant, and the thrush, besides the rabbits and the hares, so that
the squirrel, to whom the copse belongs, hears everything."
"But I do not know my way to the copse," said Bevis; "please tell me the
way."
"You must go up to the great oak-tree, dear," said the toad, "where you
once went to sleep, and then go across to the wheat-field, and a little
farther you will see a footpath, which will take you to another field,
and you will see the copse on your right. Now the way into the copse is
over a narrow bridge, it is only a tree put across the ditch, and you
must be careful how you cross it, and hold tight to the hand-rail, and
look where you put your feet. It is apt to be slippery, and the ditch
beneath is very deep; there is not much water, but a great deal of mud.
I recollect it very well, though I have not been there for some time: I
slipped off the bridge one rainy night in the dark, and had rather a
heavy fall. The bridge is now dry, and therefore you can pass it easily
if you do not leave go of the hand-rail. Good-morning, dear, I feel so
sleepy--come and tell me with whom Kapchack has fallen in love; and
remember me to the squirrel." So saying the toad went back into his hole
and went to sleep.